Mental illness, despite the marginal progress we have made, continues to be a persistently troublesome issue within Guyana. It has been one of the largest contributors toward Guyana’s high suicide rate. As the COVID-19 virus continues to spread and mutate, the strain brought on by the pandemic has exacerbated the mental health issues among our population. While civil society and government have implemented various initiatives focusing on mental health, these efforts largely remain inaccessible and often insufficient for many.
Lack of relevant resources, particularly in outlying communities, still remains one of the largest barriers in addressing mental illness and suicide. Often, persons living with mental illnesses are encouraged to seek support, but the systems we have in place tends to fall extremely short of what is needed by those who require aid. The Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation has for a while been providing mental health support through the unit dedicated to that. The effort is undoubtedly good and has the potential to help a lot of persons, particularly those who do not have access to private services, but as is the case with most public institutions, it is heavily underfunded and not in line with the standards of treatment that are required to promote healthy mental care.
While there have been some changes in the political contributions towards the sector over the years, these still remain very few and far in between. Our cultural belief towards mental illness directly shapes the political contributions towards mental health care. Unfortunately, many still operate with a lack of knowledge about mental illness, suicide and the factors that contribute towards them. This has led to a lack of a focused approach, leaving a deficit within the psychiatric field and relevant awareness and support mechanisms.
There are very few psychiatrists who can successfully aid in bringing about positive mental health in patients. The service sector needs to be built upon but this is just one of the many things that are needed to really prioritize mental health care in Guyana. For instance, while there have been a growing number of psychologists within Guyana, many of these persons enter the field without critically analyzing and addressing the harmful beliefs that they might possess regarding gender, race, sexuality and poverty and how these can all intersect with mental illness. So, often when persons seek private psychological help and they do not fit into the psychologists’ ideal, they can go away from sessions feeling even more mentally fatigued and hopeless.
Despite many of the best intentions, the majority of people still operate based on the cultural environment that shaped their responses to mental illness and suicide. This, of course, impacts the amount of support that those suffering are able to get. A standard way that mental illness has been addressed over the years is through active suppression of it and harmful coping strategies such as alcoholism. Instead of admitting that they themselves or their loved ones are suffering from mental illness, many rather go the route of ignoring them completely or labeling them as merely more trials that everyone goes through. Given the reliance by many on religion and spirituality, there is also the belief that those who suffer from mental illnesses are evil, have been tainted by witchcraft or that the illness can be prayed out of them. These beliefs are particularly harmful because they aid in the continued stigmatization of mental illness, while depriving persons of the mental health support that they need.
There has also been the perception by some that mental illness and suicide in Guyana are mainly things that occur amongst Indo-Guyanese, given the prevalence of it within the community. The cultural upbringing and family dynamics often found in Indian communities, particularly rural ones, are markedly different from that of Afro-Guyanese communities. It appears that while rural Indo-Guyanese are often coddled by their families, Afro-Guyanese are often raised to be resilient in the face of constant trauma. This leads to a very different way of addressing mental health issues that can often manifest in internal and external violence against both themselves and others. There are also the dynamics of gender to consider as it relates to the amount of attempted and completed suicides. While more women attempt suicide than men, men are far more likely to be successful in going through with suicide than women are. This partly has to do with gender stereotypes and expectations of men being aggressive, even against themselves, resulting in them being more effective at suicide attempts. Men also often lack a sense of community that enables the sharing of the issues that they face and lack relevant support services to guide them towards a healthier state of mind.
It is important to note that as much as mental illness is a contributor to suicide, this is too often pegged as being the only factor to consider. This approach often leaves out of the conversation, the social and economic factors that often bring about and perpetuate mental illness. It is often the inability to cope with things such as abuse, poverty and homophobia that result in many having suicidal ideas and ultimately following through with them. Our approaches to mental health care needs to explore not only mental illnesses, but also the multiple factors that contribute towards it and make it difficult to cope.
