It is 547am and I have decided to write. I have been living with a mental health diagnosis for more than 23 years. I am differently abled. Mental illness sometimes presents itself as a non-visible disability. A person with mental illness may look and function normally. Added to that we do not get to see the struggles happening internally. After 23 years I could say that I have much experience with my condition and may be able to offer words that may help others. There is plenty of stigma associated with mental illness. People think that the mentally ill are bad people, weak, or somehow less deserving of dignity and the treatment of the illness sometimes feels like punishment and is dehumanizing at times. There is plenty of good intentions and well meaning as well (do not get me wrong) but things could be better. And it happens at the highest level. A leader once said, "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad." As the saying goes, who knows it feels it. I started a project some time ago called VOZ - Voice of Schizophrenia. Based on my experience and the experience of others we can come up with a list of things that would make the management of this mental illness and others better in Trinidad and Tobago.
It gets better. It really does. Even just telling yourself it gets betters brings the right mindset to work to make things better. There is no one size fits all. There is much about mental illness that is known and much that is still not known. I like to bring God into a lot of what I write and one of the things that I read is that the mentally ill will be be judged by God according to their handicap. The other thing to be noted is that mental illness is often a difficult and less talked about topic in religious and cultural circles. We should be careful not to treat mental illness as some type of spiritual attack or the likes. Turning to God helps. Taking care of the mind, body and spirit helps. Taking your problems to God helps. But basically the treatment of mental illness requires a holistic approach and medication and professional help is definitely part of that. Faith should not replace professional help but complement it.
Another aspect of disabilities is that oftentimes the disabled do not speak up for their rights or stand up for themselves. Everyone protests for something in this country. How often does the differently abled protest for something? Who is going to listen? How many people join in these protests? I myself included. Representation and advocacy is needed. My friend Chatty agrees. Sometimes, people with disabilities do not speak up for their rights. Sometimes they cannot. Sometimes they have been made to feel that their opinions do not matter. Sometimes they are simply too exhausted from dealing with the challenges of their disability to fight another battle. And sometimes, particularly with non-visible disabilities, society does not even recognize that there is a battle taking place. I hope my blog post encourages us to learn more about mental illness and find ways we can make things better.
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