The air in Trinidad and To­ba­go feels heavy right now. With the re­cent surge in vi­o­lence and the stag­ger­ing loss of life record­ed so far this year, many peo­ple are strug­gling with a grief that car­ries its own phys­i­cal weight. I re­cent­ly sat with a young client whose part­ner was mur­dered in Jan­u­ary, and she was now ready to talk about her grief. Do not ever rush the process. Her words to me —“this pain is un­bear­able; I don’t want to be here while he is dead” - echo the silent cry of so many sur­vivors. Dur­ing our ses­sion, what was meant to be one hour stretched in­to three hours and I did not in­ter­rupt the flow of her words, al­low­ing her the nec­es­sary grace to sim­ply let the pain out. In this month of May, which is Men­tal Health Aware­ness Month, the fo­cus is on the theme of “More Good Days, To­geth­er.” How­ev­er, we must ac­knowl­edge that for many, a “good day” is on­ly pos­si­ble when they are fi­nal­ly giv­en the space to un­bur­den their hearts and thoughts.

In many so­ci­eties, when vi­o­lence strikes, it is a com­mon hu­man in­stinct to look for rea­sons or jus­ti­fi­ca­tions. We sub­con­scious­ly ask what the vic­tim was do­ing or why they were in a cer­tain place. In psy­chol­o­gy, this is known as the Just-World Hy­poth­e­sis, where we des­per­ate­ly want to be­lieve that if we fol­low the rules, we will be safe. While this line of think­ing is a de­fence mech­a­nism against our own fear, it cre­ates a sec­ondary trau­ma for those left be­hind, be­cause it shifts the fo­cus from sup­port of the sur­vivor to one of sus­pi­cion sur­round­ing the death. When peo­ple look for rea­sons to jus­ti­fy a death, the sur­vivor feels they must “de­fend” the char­ac­ter of the per­son they lost. In­stead of be­ing al­lowed to mourn, they are forced in­to the role of a lawyer, try­ing to prove their loved one was a “good per­son” who didn’t de­serve to die. Adding more pain.

To turn this month of May in­to one of true aware­ness, we must chal­lenge the need to val­i­date death and in­stead recog­nise that a mur­der or loss is nev­er just a sta­tis­tic—it is a stolen life. These in­di­vid­u­als were sons, sis­ters, friends and neigh­bours who be­longed to a fam­i­ly that now car­ries an emp­ty seat at the ta­ble, an emp­ty space where they once were loved and cared for.

Break­ing the stig­ma sur­round­ing vi­o­lent loss re­quires us to con­front our “hush cul­ture.” Un­like a cul­ture of si­lence, this hush-hush is of­ten born out of fear—fear of re­tal­i­a­tion, fear of judge­ment by oth­ers, or the cul­tur­al pres­sure to keep our “pri­vate busi­ness” be­hind closed doors. This ac­tive sup­pres­sion of pain is very tox­ic as it iso­lates the be­reaved in a vac­u­um of ter­ror and shame. To counter this, we must move be­yond mere talk and ac­tive­ly cre­ate safe spaces. My three-hour ses­sion with the young woman was such a space - a sanc­tu­ary where the “hush” was dis­man­tled, and she could speak the “un­bear­able” truth of her grief with­out be­ing told to “be strong” or to “move on.” Grief has no time lim­it. Let the per­son grieve and mourn. You can mon­i­tor them, mak­ing sure that they are safe and are eat­ing and sleep­ing.

In these spaces, we must al­so re­de­fine what a “good day” looks like. It is not the sud­den re­turn of joy, but the qui­et suc­cess of a small vic­to­ry: the morn­ing you find the strength to make a cup of tea, take a show­er, or sit by a win­dow for ten min­utes. Or lis­ten to a favourite song with­out feel­ing guilty for “still be­ing here.” A good day can be the first time you speak your loved one’s name and are met with a shared sto­ry—“I re­mem­ber how he used to make every­one laugh.”—which can be a bridge in­stead of a sus­pi­cious si­lence.

In the ab­sence of mean­ing­ful gov­ern­ment out­reach for sur­vivors, our lo­cal in­sti­tu­tions—our schools and our church­es—must step in­to the gap. Schools are in a strate­gic po­si­tion to iden­ti­fy the trau­ma in chil­dren’s lives, pro­vid­ing a sta­ble place where teach­ers can of­fer the love and se­cu­ri­ty a griev­ing child who has lost a par­ent or a sib­ling craves. Like­wise, our church­es can rise to the call of com­pli­cat­ed grief by cre­at­ing safe spaces that of­fer more than prayers, pro­vid­ing prac­ti­cal so­lu­tions and a phys­i­cal sanc­tu­ary. By treat­ing vic­tims and sur­vivors as rel­a­tives and friends rather than as news head­lines, we can help to mend bro­ken hearts and re­con­struct lives. Con­nec­tion is pro­tec­tion, and to­geth­er, we can en­sure that no one in our com­mu­ni­ty has to car­ry the weight of un­bear­able grief, alone. Take care.

Be sure to read Part 2: Con­nec­tion is Pro­tec­tion: Schools and Church­es

Dr Mar­garet Nakhid-Cha­toor

Psy­chol­o­gist/Ed­u­ca­tor/ Be­reave­ment Coun­sel­lor