Mentally-unbalanced – The Good, the Bad and the Indifferent

Jun 25, 2017 Countryman, Features / Columnists

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By Dennis Nichols
There’s news, and there’s news, and then there’s reality. They’re not necessarily the same. Media

news can be easily spun, distorted, underreported or sensationalized due to the biases and moods of those reporting it, or more subtly by the directives and ‘concerns’ of media house owners. In some instances the reality of little daily horrors is just too depressing, too status-quo to bear repeating or sharing as news. We’re not inclined to dig too deeply for the story behind such stories, so we dismiss them; we shrug our shoulders. Life goes on, and on and on …
Two years ago, a mentally-unsound person burned down the house he was living in. He had beaten his father earlier, worsening an already brain-damaged condition, leaving him unable to continue working. He was held in custody then released, received lodging at a Night Shelter, from which he escaped, and held briefly at the Georgetown Hospital Observation Unit. He has been beaten by irate citizens on several occasions. He now roams the streets, unkempt, searching trash bins for food, and for some timewas ‘living’ under a large tree. I know him. He’s my cousin.
That story didn’t make the headlines, apart from a one-time, one-minute TV news flash. But there’s a whole life history behind that occurrence, stretching back at least a generation – a tale of hereditary psychosis, romance, craftsmanship, procrastination, fatherly love, family unity, and tragically family disintegration.

But all some people see is a ‘junkie’ and a broken man. Maybe if he was the son of a prominent citizen or politician, the story would have had heavier news merit. After all, a junkie engaged in antisocial or criminal behaviour is ‘no big ting’ in Guyana – except maybe for family members.
So then, one of the daily horrors I just mentioned is the mindlessness of mental illness in our society, and the incidents spawned by what seems to be a misconception and mishandling of a very complex personal and social malady. Underreporting on one hand, and sensationalism on the other hand tend to cloud an issue which, in my opinion, should be dealt with more directly, more proactively and more compassionately, even by the disinterested reporter.
One of the more direct ways in which it can be addressed, is by acknowledging that the majority of us at times display symptoms of mental imbalance, differing only in degree, and the frequency of the ‘craziness’ we exhibit. At the very least that will help us to be more understanding and empathetic toward our fellow sufferers.

Simply realizing that when you beat your child more out of anger than from any attempt to correct a wrong, (breaking a cherished ornamental vase for example) you are in a state of mental /emotional imbalance, will help bridge the perceived gap between ‘them’ and us.
It can happen so easily.A ‘good’ child, slowly and inexplicably, turns ‘bad.’

A loved one acts ‘crazy’ and we laugh. We notice subtle changes in behaviour; antisocial actions, hair-trigger anger, or withdrawal, and put them down to ‘bad mood’ or being ‘in he/she own world’. Some parents threaten to ‘beat de stupidness outa you’ or to suppose that ‘he know good wha’ he doin’ – anything to ignore or stifle the dreadful fear of a loved one becoming a ‘mental case’. At school, teachers and friends do the same, everyone knowing or hoping that the child will ‘grow up’, start acting responsibly, and start acting like a ‘real’ man or woman. But it doesn’t happen.
Then even if we do realize that something may be wrong ‘upstairs’, getting to the right kind and level of treatment can be a nightmare of waiting, observation, speculation, misdiagnosis, ineffective medication/treatment, and worsening symptoms.

There is often an unfair expectation of quick success from a small (very small in Guyana) handful of trained psychiatrists who have to deal with overwhelming numbers of incoherent patients accompanied by distraught relatives. So some people would rather take matters into their own hands or put them in the hands of faith healers, demon dispellers and occultists.

Yet others turn to domestic incarceration.
It would be interesting, and also make for great human-interest articles, if reporters could get more background stories to such cases. At what point for example does a loved one become such a burden and a liability than an overwhelmed parent or sibling even considers caging him or her like a wild animal? Inhuman, right?

Yes, but spare a thought for the care givers who in many cases, and despite their best intentions, may be poor, semi-literate, and weighed down by their own domestic and social lack; maybe not too far from a breakdown similar to that of those they are struggling to care for.

Feels like the start of a particularly vicious cycle to me.
So there are the good and the bad, but what about the indifferent? We see them everywhere. Often they are us – thousands of us who daily see ‘them’ on the streets and in the byways, and do nothing, because it is such a common-place thing, such an accepted norm,so much a part of the social landscape – junkies, beggars, vagrants, the homeless, the destitute, and the mentally-ill, scattered and sprawled about like so much garbage – living, breathing trash. But they are ours.

And who am I to judge the rest of us when I too have been guilty of the same indifference? I remember once seeing a man sprawled on the parapet at Light Street and South Road, sleeping, drunk or dead, I couldn’t tell. I felt I should do something but I had already become one of the apathetic crowd. I walked on, but my conscience pricked me hard all day, and it wasn’t until the following morning that it eased after not hearing or seeing anything in the news about a man found dead on the street. I rationalized my behaviour by thinking that the guy had to have been drunk, but it wasn’t a convincing justification.

Finally, it’s my opinion (again) that we can do much more, as a nation, as communities, and as families, to help those afflicted by mental illness or by social stigmatization. We can start with self-searching honesty, followed by compassion and proaction. Yet, as I observed before, I understand to some degree why we find it so hard to tackle our mental health problem with courage, energy, and innovation; we too have our own demons to exorcise.

Yes, we need more trained mental health-care professionals, but also more not only human, but humane beings like you and me. And I know what I’m talking about, because right now I am fighting a battle to reclaim the mind and heart of someone as close to another as you can get – my own son; and in a way, yours too. Because in a society like ours, we cannot help but touch each other’s’ lives – whether good or bad, but hopefully, not indifferent.

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