Mental Health
After my mom died, I pursued further studies and was robbed by two men at gun and knife point 10 mins off campus. I didn’t sleep for a week. I kept many weapons about me for protection, but I never felt safe. After a week, I moved. The day after I moved ( I left before I was supposed to) the apartment I stayed in was robbed. I saw a clinical psychologist and she warned me against PTSD, which I had been showing the symptoms of. She asked me to take a break from school but I felt a break would harm me more, as I would eventually get poor grades. Graduate school doesn’t have the space for mental health issues; unless they’re increasing your stress, anxiety or depression. You have too many papers to write. I threw myself into my assignments, trying to cope in the ways we discussed but some days I would feel overwhelming dread and not feel comfortable going out.
I experience high functioning depression and anxiety which manifests in several ways including feeling uncomfortable being touched without my permission or being in large crowds. I also have other triggers from other trauma inducing events like hurricanes and car accidents. Mental health issues have changed the way I see the world and how I interact with others based on the anxieties, depression, and other trauma I have acquired over time.
In Antiguan society, where mental health is not accepted or understood (until it requires hospitalization), methods for coping or approaches to relationships that appear too high maintenance are often rejected as arrogance, conceitedness or narcissism. Personal boundaries are not as easily accepted on face value. In fact, even acknowledging your mental health trials are considered marks against your professional capacity.
Many persons are afraid to seek help or to admit something traumatic has transformed the way they relate to others and themselves, whether this be a parental, sexual, relational or other event. Significant trauma is repressed when small children experience trauma events and the adults in their lives fail to address it. Everything cannot be obeah. Also if you can believe in magic, should science be that far fetched? Perhaps not.
It is also a struggle when you have already and continue to engage mental health professionals and employ the coping strategies assigned and are still invalidated as being crazy. In my limited and non professional opinion, I believe that mental help can really impact generational trauma in a positive way. The less we hide, the more we can resolve. Mental health is like physical health, even when you’re fit, you can still go to the gym. Nothing is or should be perceived to be wrong with the reality that we are all flawed humans who struggle to cope with the many challenges of life. My advice to the publics is to talk to someone, seek out professional advice on YouTube, schedule an appointment if there are free national services and begin to adopt strategies towards addressing and improving your mental health. To governments, I suggest that they create anti stigma campaigns and look toward providing outpatient mental health care services. Health is wealth and mental health is physical health.