Dr. Harding laments poor mental health support system

Dec 30, 2014 News

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– concerned about ‘suicide epidemic’

Psychotherapist and veteran Mental Health Practitioner, Dr. Faith Harding, is urging the government and social organizations to take a more serious approach to the ever-growing suicide epidemic in Guyana.
She criticised the decrepit state of the nation’s only mental hospital, the National Psychiatric Hospital, located at Fort Canje, Berbice, as one which is failing our nation.
Dr. Harding has urged family members to take seriously, threats of suicide from other members. “Nobody reaches out to a lot of the people who send these signals and write notes,” she added.
Dr. Harding mentioned one particular case. She said that she received an email from a close friend one night and managed to pick up suicidal thoughts from her friend in that very email.
“As soon as I read that note…I recognized and shouted, ‘Good Lord! She’s suicidal!’ and by the time I called the next day, she was dead! I said, ‘My God!’”
Part of the training of persons who deal with suicidal persons is to show those persons the power of within, “to become and to understand yourself and purpose in life.”
When persons who contemplate suicide recognize the power within themselves, they would become more powerful. These persons must see the power over their environment and they must be taught how they can attract more power to themselves so that their mind- set can be brought back to a state of normalcy.
Some persons attempt suicide as many as six times, she added, and they survive. Then they try again and they succeed.
Dr. Harding noted that persons need to work one-on-one with families.  Suicide, she opined, comes from sadness and loneliness. It is generally more prevalent among Indo Guyanese. When asked why this trend seems to be developing, the mental health practitioner said that the woman in the East Indian family is not allowed to be very expressive. That causes the problem of loneliness, misunderstanding and sadness, which leads to depression.
“If a boyfriend comes along at 13 or 14 and gives her love and understanding, but the family rejects that boyfriend and he persuades her to be with him and to save herself from the aloneness…all she can see is that she has no other way out– the loneliness is overwhelming.”
Suicide does not care if one is poor or rich; whether one is a professional or not, she added. She said that there are many five-year-olds who are depressed and think about suicide as young as they are.
Nobody takes that into consideration and as such, these children grow up like that and run away from home. “In our Indian communities, I have found there is so much violence against women; the woman is perceived as lower than the man,” she posited.
Unless these problems are approached and people’s thinking is changed, suicide would not go away.
While the jury is still out with this notion, Dr. Harding said that some persons believe suicide has a religious basis, and that it’s thought that you sacrifice your life for betterment. In some religious communities, she added, suicide is seen as a higher way of life and people believe if they do it, then they have an opportunity to come back differently when they are born again.
Notwithstanding those factors, Dr. Harding still believes most suicides occur as a result of someone feeling alone and lonely.
“The loneliness is just too strong; your loneliness just captures the whole spirit and body and no matter what you say to that person…they’re gone!”
Professional help can be an intervention to the person contemplating suicide, she added, but it has to be known and the professional would have to be engaged.
“People feel if you go for mental health check, you’re a mad person and it’s a shame on the family,” she added.
The former Government Minister blasted the physical aesthetic environment and conditions that persist at the nation’s only mental hospital, the National Psychiatric Hospital.
“It’s nothing to admire or to feel about to go there and say, ‘Oh this is special; look at the gardens and the lawns; they have beautiful animals and flowers; nice building with great windows…’ No! It’s decrepit; some parts are dismantled and thrown about the place; it’s an eye-sore; it is painful to watch! So who would think mental health is so important.”
Dr. Harding said that she has helped many patients turn back from suicidal thoughts. She said that she has not had any patient or client who has been suicidal or has committed the act. “The training that I have had has helped me to help those people; from the professional man to the ordinary man or woman or child in the street.”
She urged anyone wanting to end their lives to seek help immediately; to understand where the suicidal thoughts are coming from. She said, too, that people are here to live and not to die, “and I am sure you are a wonderful person who came here (to Earth) to teach some lessons; to learn some and to give to society– please don’t die before you have done all of that.”
“You’ve got a wonderful life ahead of you; let’s live it and seek the help you need to help you to grow as a great human being. We all come here with a purpose, and live it until you die a natural death and not one that is coming from an area of sadness and depression…but one that comes from a peaceful spirit, that comes when the time is right…without an injection; without a rope; without a jumping in the river and without a gun to your head or to your heart.”

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