We are challenged today by issues we can no longer sweep under the rug because the predominance of bestial crimes, suicide and mental illness cannot be further dismissed as incidents of inevitable punishment from God. I witnessed a great aunt sink into a mental breakdown because she had lost control of one of her children. I lost friends to “mind altering substances.” These experiences led me to explore as much as time would allow the realms of mental defects. I was stunned even further when many years ago, while exercising one morning on the seawall I felt a presence, and there some paces away stood a so-called “mad man” that I recognized.
He used to occupy a space on the bridge vehicles used as an exit from Irvin Street towards Campbelville.
He had a distinctively huge head. He looked at me and asked, “Wuh yuh’s exercise every morning for?” I replied intending to humour him, “Ah preparing for the Revolution.” He shot back “yuh think yuh got the stomach to kill all the people who deserve to die?”
I was speechless, and grinned like an idiot, and was relieved when he turned and walked away. I never knew what his story was, but to me this was sanity, that possibly placed the rest of us as insane.
A few years ago I read an article about the EU funded “Human Brain project.” They were spending billions to create a simulated brain. Off course I felt the usual shrills of conspiracy theory, but what was even more worrisome was what Dr Henry Markram the neuroscientist founder and coordinator said, “There’s not a single neurological disease today in which anybody knows what is malfunctioning in this circuit-which pathway, which synapse, which neuron, which receptor. This is shocking.” The article also quoted Markram as saying “…the global burden of brain disease will exceed 20 percent of world GDP very soon.”
Brain malfunctions constitute a vast labyrinth of expressions, and possibly a parallel realm of cures outside of depressants, and with depressants. Recruitment in organizations like the joint services has to be screened thoroughly. A good example is that of a Policeman facing the courts today on murder, one of many he is alleged to have committed, and had found his way in the presence of a young witness brandishing a weapon and boasting of using it in his related activities.
It was highlighted to me that he has relatives who had/were known to be affected with mental illness; several other precedents could be cited to demonstrate a need for change in those organizations. The roadways, creeks and alleyways that lead to the mundane “mind at large” are numerous; possibly genetics.
Narcotics Anonymous refers to several cases where drug addiction leads to thoughts of suicide and to suicide. Both [street] cocaine and marijuana are composed of psychotic elements and can lead to the expressions of the violent gods of hallucinogens. Lack of self expression can lead to low self esteem and harbour thoughts of inadequacy, another pathway to suicide. A Stabroek article September 30, 2014 “Feelings of inadequacy fuel suicides among young” carried a synopsis of engagements by an NGO on the subject of suicide among the young, and is a must read for researchers interested in what is happening locally.
From the emergence of the nouveau/riche from the mid-nineties on, and the depletion of the teaching corps migrating to the lure of greener pastures, many struggling parents sought to invest their children in then private schools,not to compete academically, but to confront challenges of idolatry, spoilt-connected above reproach cliques whose obsession was what you wore, the ability of their parents to drive and purchase brand name clothing…and show off with dad’s weapon, which even if the police were called, nothing happened.
This was a doubled coin. One face devastated the self esteem of the local vulnerable, many ended up trying to prove themselves in the new machismo of fitting in at clubs etc: UG student arrested as drug courier; another paid as contract killer; another killed in robbery. This also extended to all levels among the under privileged.
The other face of the coin extended to the new–rich and rich, in an atmosphere that demanded, surrendering of self to sexual habits and criminal connections that were cool to fit in, but then evolved into emotional upheavals where suicide seemed a plausible option, and the cultural shock upon migrating only to realize that the once nouveau/riche status was meaningless in the real world they thought that they were representing from a virtual –reality perspective at home.
Was suicide that common when schools offered the alternatives of an extended curriculum? End of school terms involved students participating in plays, skits, and woodworking and home economic displays. Shool sports encouraged competition and all mentioned included the audience of parents. What does this have to do with suicide and mental health?
The percentage of feelings of inadequacy is cut down by the options of involvement. They need to pray at school to bond and enter a philosophical landscape. Parents need to participate, not to teach that their children are superior by religion, culture or physiognomic variation, imposing creeds they will reject mentally and mentally rebel against, urging them to find the paths to suicide, drug usage and the insanity that envelopes both.
This new frontier we are forced to deal with is spiritual, scientific and cultural. My mother used to refer to the “sober insane” people who are mad but demonstrate nothing our old school markers indicate.
I close with this test to you the reader. There are markers for perhaps the most dangerous of mental defects, that of the psychopath: Glibness and superficial charm; grandiose sense of self-worth; pathologically lying; conning and manipulation; lack of remorse or guilt; failure to accept responsibility for own actions; callousness and lack of empathy; shallow effect. Does this remind you of a particular politician? It does to me.