National Security agency officers are struggling with mental health issues. They are grappling to deal with anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental disorders. And while some get the help they need, others have fallen through the cracks, hurting themselves or their loved ones.
The situation involving mental health issues has been present in the service for some time but is worsening. Recent incidents have fanned fears of a growing mental health crisis among national security agency officers. There is now an appeal for them to get urgent help.
According to the officers of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service, the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force and the Trinidad and Tobago Prison Service, the issues existed long before the pandemic, however COVID-19 exacerbated them.
They said, in most instances, officers seeking mental health assistance are sent to employee welfare departments that lack the requisite qualifications and training to effectively counsel officers.
“Yes, the majority of employees are overstressed and suffer mental illnesses. But the crazy thing is, depending on your rank, that’s how you will be treated. We have a Welfare Department that is not trained to deal with mental issues. The high-ranking officers, however, get to go outside for treatment and the organisation covers the cost,” said a coast guard officer with more than 13 years of service.
“No, there are not adequate avenues to discuss or seek help to our mental state…The officers want help and are willing to get help but send us by trained professionals, not a department that you call ‘welfare’, where you just put a priest and someone with three O’levels and a certificate in counselling.”
On April 16, 47-year-old coast guard officer Kester Williams shot himself and his wife, Sharia David, dead.
Meanwhile, since March 2020, at least three police officers died by suicide.
Over the last three weeks, Guardian Media discussed mental health issues and available treatment options within the various services with several officers.
Guardian Media was told that while the likes of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service, Defence Force and Prison Service have departments dedicated to offering mental health services, many officers are reluctant to use them because of shortcomings, including lack of confidentiality.
“Just about three months ago, I had a meeting concerning mental health in the police service and how they treat it. No confidentiality. That was one of the major issues. The other major issue is police officers have to come to police stations to meet with clinical psychologists and everybody in your business, you have no privacy,” a police officer with ten years of service said.
“Let’s say you’re going through something as an officer, you don’t have an outlet. Because if they tell you to go and see the social worker, you’re not going to see the social worker for six to eight months. Sometimes they forget. The Victims Support Unit does help sometimes but there is another unit that deals with that. That unit is so burdened because it’s the same social workers that have to deal with civilians.”
The sources, who spoke anonymously out of fear of being harassed or punished, also claimed that the agencies are not doing enough to reach out to officers to do assessments and offer the necessary support.
And as a result of high levels of stress, trauma and mental health disorders among officers, sources said, “large numbers of them turn to alcohol, gambling and womanising to drown their sorrows.”
“I am a bit excited, I must tell you that because I see it as an opportunity to shine a light on an issue that has no policies, nothing, and especially when you’re talking about people who are in service to our nation,” said a prison officer with 24 years of service.
Prisoners of the mind, suffering in silence
“Fitzalbert Victor was washing his car when somebody jumped over his fence and shot him in his head and upper body. Somebody sent the picture of his body on a gurney in the hospital and that image is burnt into my head. I cannot get it out.”
As a prison officer for 24 years, Steve, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, has lost around 24 colleagues to murder during that time.
Steve knows he’s not alone in his struggles, but still often feels alone.
“It doesn’t have anything. Who am I going to talk to? As many years I’ve been in the service, that's how many officers have been murdered. Many of those people were my friends. I cried like a baby when they killed Jackson. I told my wife I’m not going to any funerals again because I can’t mentally take it,” Steve admitted.
“I tell people I am not normal. I will laugh. I will smile, even my son as he got older, he said 'daddy, you watch around all the time.' I don’t even know that’s what I’m doing. I wish I could be carefree. I see people go anywhere, be anywhere. When I go out, I have to look for the exits, so that I can get out of there at any time.”
If proper counselling was available to him, Steve said he would use it.
However, it isn’t, he lamented.
“Most officers don’t even see their 60th birthday. And what do they suffer from? Heart disease. Diabetes. Cancer. Stroke. All of these things, if anyone goes back to the root cause, it will be stress. There is no real structure to guide the officer on how to treat stress and how to manage his mental health until it’s too late, beyond repair,” he said.
“There is little support. There is little access. As simple as a thing like signage. When I was in Canada, every single facility I saw had signage talking about the employee assistance programme. They’re telling you, if you’re depressed or if you have any issues, there’s a number to contact and they’re reminding you that it’s a confidential process. Go to any police station, fire station, any jail in Trinidad, that’s not something you see. Is our mental health a concern of administration?”
A study done in the United States found the levels of PTSD in American correction officers were higher than the levels found in soldiers returning from war.
Locally and regionally, there are few research studies that seek to put into context the levels of stress, anxiety and trauma prison officers face.
Prison officer inspired to make a difference
Prison officer Dexter De Belotte is seeking to change that. De Belotte has been a prison officer for 17 years, but he is also a qualified counselling psychologist who is pursuing a doctorate in psychology.
In 2006, De Belotte joined the prison service at a time of heightened volatility.
Within his first six months of service, his life was under threat.
“I had to move out from where I was living for more than three years or so, basically running to save my life. That would lead me to essentially having a divorce, then having to go through a lot of work-related stress,” he said.
He never thought his crippling stress would lead him to his calling, but it did.
Inspired to make a difference, he pursued psychology, researching stress and mental health, at length, particularly concerning prison officers.
He eventually wrote a book called Work-Related Stress in T&T Prisons.
In recent years, he has also been able to gather research among his colleagues.
“We may be on a crash course to firstly, develop PTSD or signs/symptoms of PTSD. Why? Because prison officers in first-world countries have twice as many levels as soldiers coming back from Afghanistan…They don’t have people defecating in buckets in foreign prisons, the whole infrastructure is different, and the amount of deaths is different–27 deaths (no prison officers murdered in T&T) doesn’t exist in first world countries,” De Belotte warned.
“A lot of men don’t talk about mental health. A lot of officers are highly stressed and suffering and are not even aware of it. We address everything through drinking, for example. So, if a child is born, a batch dies, we drink…When we look at national security servicemen, the go-to is to cope through drinking. Some cope through gambling and some cope by running women and we even see that even the aspect of extramarital affairs may be an attempt to cope.”
De Belotte said prison officers, male and female, have added stressors compared to the average police officer or soldier because they interact daily with prisoners who take out their frustrations on them.
In addition, he said, prison officers often face death threats.
“The issues that officers are largely linked to marriage and family, and trauma and crisis, however, we have an Employee Assistance Programme that may not have the skillsets included in it that we need,” he said.
“The need is there and it’s so big. If you look at the police, in the army, the fire service, prison service, hospital workers–these people are highly traumatised–vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue. All of these things.”
De Belotte said, despite all these issues, prison officers are still trying to cope with issues that existed before the pandemic.
Officers, especially men, are suffering in silence, he said.
Police officers burnt out, some suffering in silence
When most of the country was relatively safe at home during the height of COVID-19 infections, police officers and other frontline workers were out on the job, seeking to ensure the public’s safety.
As a result, according to several police officers, they are burnt out.
They said, instances of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental disorders, are present in the service and have been for some time.
Unfortunately, they said, the cases have mostly gone unnoticed and unaddressed, leaving many officers to suffer in silence.
“That’s why you see police taking a lot of sick leave; men not coming out because people are burnt out and frustrated. That’s why you have so many substance abusers and womanising and these things. People are drowning their sorrows. I tell you that is literally what we are doing out there. Having had my issues and needing intervention at that level,” an officer of nine years said.
“It’s a taboo thing. When you start going by the social worker colleagues will tell others to be careful of you because you are talking to the social worker. They will say, be careful of him because he could trip off at any minute. So, it’s a turnoff. It’s not a nice system. It’s not a confidential system. You could talk to a senior officer, but you don’t want seniors in your business because sometimes they are causing your problems,” another officer said.
He recalled that a colleague recently went through "a breakdown".
He said instead of most of the officers helping their colleague, he was instead subjected to ridicule.
“If the man was conscious of a lot of things going on around him, he might have killed himself,” the officer said.
“Some of them operate like how school children operate. Some of them will gang up on you. They form cliques. From the time they know your business, they will put it out on the street and tell everyone your business.”
Another officer, who works in central Trinidad, said many officers opt to keep their mental health issues quiet because they may have their firearms taken away. They also fear being demoted or placed on desk duty, he said.
“There isn’t a forum where you could say you are going through this now and let’s see what they could do to help you…
“Getting a personal firearm is a big thing. If you are going through something personal and tell them, they will take away your firearm. Police don’t want that,” he told Guardian Media.
“The system is not like I could be going through something and I could go and see someone privately. It’s not like that. When we had a meeting that’s what most officers complained about because you don’t want to be going through a troubling time and have to come into the station and book in, then go and see the social worker. Everybody would be watching and wondering why you are going there,” said another officer.
In contrast, a senior officer claimed there were avenues for help readily available once police officers seek them out.
However, even he acknowledged that more could be done.
“I would recommend increasing the number of persons hired to treat mental health issues in the service to reach more officers,” he said.
60 police officers were trained in mental health and psychosocial support
In April, 60 police officers were trained by the International Organization for Migration Port-of-Spain and the NGO Families in Action. The supervisors from the TTPS’ Community Oriented Policing Unit were taught over six weeks how to offer Mental Health and Psychosocial Support to management and staff.
“Because we are charged with the responsibility to go into the community and build and foster relationships (with the public). Which means we have to treat with all the societal ills and issues affecting our society. So we need to be in the right frame of mind to resolve disputes and to foster symbiotic relations between the police and the public,” Acting Inspector Kurt Callender told IOM in an interview.
Coast guard officers overworked and overstressed
Coast guard officers have many complaints as well.
According to several coast guard officers, they are overworked and overstressed.
Officers said they are dealing with tight deadlines, hazards, physically-demanding tasks, stiff competition for promotion opportunities, victimisation, sexual harassment, as well as continuous disrespect from seniors, all on a 2013 salary.
“I cannot give a number one source of stress in the job. I can mention a few factors though: mismanagement and micromanagement. Money is allocated, but we have no uniforms in stores. We don’t have proper food for the sailors. “Who is accountable?” one officer asked.
Officers claimed that while there is a welfare department, the department lacks reliability.
“It is the only option we have. They specialise in dealing with members who aren’t paying child support, angry wives/husbands or baby fathers/mothers who were cheated on or abused physically. It should be renamed the coast guard complaints division. They cannot deal with serious issues like PTSD or anger management,” an officer claimed.
“I would like to see them hire professionals. It is the least we deserve. Daily we are seeing service personnel getting the wrong end of the stick for things that could’ve been prevented if dealt with early. Stop preaching that we are members of the military, so we have to suck it up. We are humans too,” another said.
Dr Varma Deyalsingh.
SHIRLEY BAHADUR
Psychiatrist: You can't play too macho, ask for help
Psychiatrist Dr Varma Deyalsingh, commenting on the issue, said,
“What we found, even, in the police service and first responders, even before COVID, they are dealing with the deaths and all these things and the trauma. So, dealing with these issues they would have gotten more instances of people dealing with acute stress disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. So, they do have that.
“And with prison officers, with the death threats, they are on edge…those officers were exhibiting levels of anxiety and stress, especially seeing their colleagues being taken down.”
According to Deyalsingh, “Some of these guys can’t be playing too macho.”
They might have to come out and say, “listen, I need help too, and then we would have to accommodate them, or we reach out first and ask, do you need counselling? Sometimes, I like to reach out to relatives because there might be a man saying–you know the macho concept–I don’t need help.
“So, sometimes, I like to reach out to relatives, wives or parents and ask, have you noticed a change in this individual? Is he getting more aggressive? More withdrawn? Is he being too hypervigilant? Not sleeping well? We would then be able to get a full profile of that individual. Those are things were are supposed to do, but sometimes they don’t happen.”
No responses from the authorities
Guardian Media Limited sent several questions to the communications departments of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service and the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force about their mental health treatment policies.
We also asked them if they were aware of the concerns raised by officers in this article, but we are yet to receive a response from them.
We also reached out to National Security Minister Fitzgerald but we were unable to get a response.