#BTColumn – Individual and collective wellness

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados TODAY Inc.

by Ralph Jemmott

So much is being said about COVID-19 and mental illness. Mental health as some have observed is not something that Barbadians generally speaking, like to talk about, except in private and in very hushed tones.

In Barbados there is a  stigma to having had a nervous breakdown often confused with ‘madness’ and once mad then always mad. As we like to say, “if yuh head bad, den yuh whole body bad.”

Like many Barbadians one finds it difficult to say exactly what constitutes mental ill-health.

Mental well-being or lack thereof is a notion that is subject to pluriform and nuanced interpretations. We know when we feel happy or sad but sadness itself does not connote ill-heath and nobody is ever happy all the time.

Mental ill-health seems to run the gamut from mild depression, to clinical depression to deep psychosis. The evidence seems to suggest that the pandemic has led to an appreciable decline in our individual and collective well-being.

Much of the current discourse on mental health comes out of the Unites States of America where Dr. Jeffrey Gardere, Associate Professor at Touro University in a discussion with CNN’s Joshua Johnson stated that America was experiencing “a mental health Tsunami.”

He drew the distinction between simple anxiety, stress, depression or what Barbadians call “feeling a bit down” and clinical depression marked by a prolonged resistance to getting out of bed, to take physical care of one’s self and an inability or  persistent reluctance to relate to other persons.

On the Fareed Zakaria GPS of Sunday March 13, it was noted that the number of deaths from Opioid addiction in the U.S had risen quite dramatically during the pandemic. This was a result of increased isolation, having no one to call on, even to call 911 for a timely intervention in cases of overdose.

Coming out of the COVID-19 experience, individual and by extension, collective mental illness can be caused by uncertainty, vulnerability and a sense of isolation created by social distancing in both the physical and metaphorical sense.

Uncertainty and a feeling of vulnerability caused by the pandemic relates relate firstly to the need to preserve one’s physical health, the fear of catching and succumbing to the virus. Secondly it relates to fear of a loss of livelihood, of a decline in as one’s material wellbeing, through an incapacity to earn a living for one’s self and dependents.

Having access to food and a roof over one’s head is the greatest source of stability in life. Hence the consummate pain of the consequent inability to pay the rent or the mortgage.

The pandemic in general and the extended lockdowns in particular may have tended to weaken the bonds of connectivity between people.

A writer in the Sunday Telegraph of February 7, draws a distinction between “weak-tie” friendships and closer relationships. Oddly she concludes that what she missed most during COVID are the “spontaneous interactions” of her “weak-tie friendships,”the “serendipity to laugh with people you hadn’t met two hours before,” the brief conversation with the taxi driver the short acquaintance met in a pub or coffee-shop.

This, one supposes is more common among young people and is what has led some to break or ignore the curfews. Then there are the breaks in closer more intimate ties or what the Telegraph correspondent calls ‘the closet bonds,’ for example, the grandmother who has not seen and hugged her grand-children for months.

Then there are the dearly departed whose funeral we never thought we would miss, but who passed with only the closest of relations in attendance. Although one has long ceased to be gregarious, one missed the company of the few one wished would ‘drop by’ or the lunch or dinner in a cosy restaurant with in-laws and children, the last great pleasure on which one might want to spend a buck.

Then there is the dread of plague mentality, the perennial fear of catching something.

The pandemic has revealed a lot of the unpleasant truths about Barbadian society including the existence of a socio-economic under-class, the marginality of the so-called middle class and the insecurity of a not insignificant number of children and young people in this country.

The Monday 15, edition of Brass Tacks was very revealing of some of the issues facing teenagers and young adults. A young lady who later gave her name as Amanda called host David Ellis to talk about some of the mental health challenges facing young people.

Almost in tears she stated: “this is not a normal environment for anybody to be living in.”

Although she herself was fortunate to have an understanding parent, she complained about adult parents’ failure to understand teenagers and young people. She talked about a number of her peers she was trying to mentor.

This must be a very trying time for the youth facing the prospect of not being able to get ahead in the world because of job loss, broken relations, crowded homes and the loss of family members who have passed from the pandemic.

One looks at current situation and wonders where the young people are heading. Was it Charles Dickens who said: “These are the times that try men’s souls.”        

Ralph Jemmott is a respected retired educator.