It Got Me Thinking

The horror of the Newtown tragedy got me thinking. Not about guns or gun control so much, but about mental illness. The citizens of the USA are guaranteed the right to bear arms by nothing less than the Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution way back in 1791. The debate always flares up after some unspeakable horror such as the killing of twenty (20) six and seven year olds, and six (6) adults. To be clear, as a Jamaican I have no such constitutionally guaranteed right so the debate often leaves me mostly, ambivalent. I do however care deeply about the issue of mental health and I am very clear in my mind that guns and mental illness are a dangerous and often lethal pairing.

A few years ago, my bi-polar cousin came to visit me at my office. He had been on the streets again so was filthy and stink. The guards refused to let him into the building. He got agitated and threatened to return to kill me, so for weeks I was surrounded by security at home in addition to the usual arrangements at work. I didn't know at the time that it was my beloved cousin, until he came back to visit. This time he was cogent, so the guards told me I had a visitor and I went outside to see him. He appeared to have been back on his medication because he was reasonably clean and back to his usual jovial self. His mission was the same as usual, asking for money to do something, but he was also working and seemed to be coping.



Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The Face of Mental Illness
Jesse Jackson Jr (bipolar disorder)



He also struggled with drug addiction so whenever he asked for money, I always insisted on paying the bill directly; school fees, light bill and once I even gave him my bicycle when he asked for money to buy one.
I loved him a lot, he was smart and funny. He was also graduate of Kingston College and perhaps his life would have been different had he decided to go to college or get a trade. He joined a well known group but soon grew disillusioned with broom sales and the group’s philosophy. Who knows? For sure he was destined to struggle with his mental illness for the rest of his life. He was killed by a stray police bullet on his way home one evening in his neighborhood in Vineyard Town. He died tragically but lived a sad and tortured life too.



The Face of Mental Illness
Jared Lee Lougher
who shot Gabby Giffords
(Schzophrenia)



His mom died recently, she was my youngest aunt but we grew up as though she was my oldest sister. She too lived a very difficult life due to struggles with paranoid schizophrenia. She was a prolific letter writer, but after some time, I had stopped opening her letters, let alone reading them. They were rife with suspicions, conspiracies and things seen that only someone of unsound mind could articulate. She eventually succumbed to cancer but after being in and out of mental health facilities, on and off medications, in and out of love with the family everyone quietly agrees that she's now at peace.

I still recall as a child seeing my uncle, hanging from the breadfruit tree in the front yard early one morning. He too was mentally ill it turned out, but had gone undiagnosed and the impact was devastating. We all agree that our grandmother never really got over and died of a broken heart.



The Face of Mental Illness
Patrick Joseph Kennedy II
son of Edward Kennedy
(bipolar disorder)

If it appears that there's much mental illness in my family, it's relative. My mother's side is large so three (3) is statistically insignificant but socially and emotionally highly impactful. For certain my awareness of mental illness and attitude towards it is much different to that of someone who has never seen it up close and personal. Don't be so sure that you haven't seen it though, you may be staring at in the mirror and not know.

How many of us include our mental health in our annual (if we do one) medical check up? How many of us, with health insurance, refuse to use the insurance to pay for mental health services? How many mental health professionals refuse to accept health insurance so add one more layer to the stigma associated with even the most benign forms of mental health concerns? How many of us harbour deep suspicions that if our employer finds out that we've sought help, we may lose our job? How many of us suffer in silence, burdened by the fear of being labeled mad, and our every word and deed questioned or doubted? How many of us self-diagnose or play doctor and write off antisocial behavior as teenaged angst, or worse “ah so him stay”?

I can’t imagine the feeling of loss and despair being experienced by those who are suffering through the tragedy that is the shooting that took place at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. My heart aches for them, because one never knows, one just never knows. I can say that, for myself, my life was changed when I sought and accepted mental health help as the victim of a horrible crime many years ago. I hope that those who are left behind seek and accept help, now, not tomorrow or next week or next year. Now! The journey will get easier with time, but it will take time.