I am concluding the thoughts on tolerance but, until improved, it will remain an outstanding issue so I will be getting back to it. State and national intolerance weigh heavily on my heart because this forum allows me interaction with people's situation that you may never encounter, indeed you probably would find incredulous.
My credit line encourages people to write to me and many people take opportunity to request straightforward information, to engage me in research, to commend my openness, to thank me for being part of their struggle, or to share their struggles without expectation. I encourage and I am encouraged by those expressions.
There are others, though, who desperately require an intervention and they write with the hope that I can lead them to someone somewhere, or something that would provide a response, if not a solution, to their situations. Generally, they intervene for someone they know or love.
In almost five years, I am uncertain that I have found anything in the "system" that provided an answer/ solution to anyone. So, quite apart from managing my own emotions, I have had to harbour the despair of others and endure the indignity of non-existent mental health caregiving in T&T. The last such email broke my heart and all I can do is apologise to the individual.
In the earlier years of this feature, I would delightedly promise to contact this officer here or this service there, or try to put people in touch with someone. Apart from a few who found interventions at the North Central Regional Heath Authority psychiatric clinic at Mt Hope, and some others who accessed the psychiatrists in private practice whom I recommended, I have found nothing to give to people–nothing of substance when and where it really matters.
In the last year, a mother in the eastern region reached out to me about her son. He was refusing to take his medication and the consequent issues distressed me where I sat, far more her. I reached out to someone in the health system who should have been able to give support.
The mother called me back and said no one had communicated with her. I called the person again and got the promise again to help the family. Two more weeks passed and hearing nothing from either of them, I thought–we're doing better.
When I messaged the mother, she told me she had had no help and in fact, she was at that very time hospitalised, having suffered a heart attack. She survived, came out of the hospital and to date there has only been one phone call from the mental health professional to say she would get back to the mother.
Recently, I began saying up front that, so far, I've not been able to find anything or anyone in the "system" who has helped anyone whose case I have presented. Now I'm thinking I would just tell people there is nothing I can do to get any help in T&T. That way there would be no issue of deferred hope for a family already burdened.
I know that it is not entirely on the individuals in the health ministry to whom I have reached out. It is greater than that, though; their nebulousness compounds the issue. It is that the Health Minister and health ministers before him and the health ministry have never taken the issue of mental health and mental illnesses as seriously as it needs to be. And I am sounding like a stuck record, so I'm saying no more about that today.
My own interventions over the years cannot be attributed to state mediation or resources. When I was a teenager, I was warded at the San Fernando General Hospital, receiving medication, counselling and occupational therapy as an in-patient. But for the rest of my life, I have had to pay for the services I need in order to be as well as I should be, despite my diagnosis.
It is a deep, despairing feeling to realise so many people are ill and families, neighbours and friends suffer as T&T provides next to nothing to which many people do not have access.
So, to the beautiful soul that reached out to me about the neighbour's daughter whose mother died, whose father would not allow her in her home, and who was allowed to sleep in your brother's car in your yard (only because of your children's safety and the destruction of your property); for rescuing her from the neighbour's yard and putting her up in a hotel for a few nights with your money, many thanks for your compassion and generosity.
I have nothing...the system has given me no answers.
In the fires of hope and prayer, where we should find an equal place, I continue to seek tolerance–resources, investiture, lenience, acceptance, forbearance, patience, broadmindedness–on both our behalf.
And may God bless our nation with compassion, too.
–Caroline C Ravello is a strategic communications and media practitioner with over 30 years of proficiency. She holds an MA in Mass Communications and is pursuing the MSc in Public Health (MPH) from The UWI.
Write to: mindful.tt@gmail.com