A Story About Mental Illness

 I would have recognised the barbed wire wrapped around the high walls anywhere. Going to the Transform Life Ministry in Arouca was a monthly trek I hated making, not just because Miguel my videographer, a young man I had known since he was 14 –he was now 30- was behind its walls,  but also because it reminded me “how better than St Anns,” was not even remotely good enough.

I had never seen the cages, the bare floors or the steel beds but I did see the ice-cream containers in which lunch was served.

Miguel was always brought out to the front, the reception area. He was, more often than not, heavily medicated. At times he recognized me and we could have a brief conversation. Many times I was only able to be present and squeeze his hand.

When we sat in the reception area which had heavy locks and bolts, there was always a burly man close by. Security, I thought.

The reception area where we sat was located next to a kitchen, and I was always wondering about how jail- like the place felt, how dark it was.

Shouldn’t it be better lit I asked Alicia, his mother, one day when we visited together? I figured and naively so, that an antidote to depression has to be a good source of natural light, not a replication of the darkness that existed in Miguel’s mind.

Alicia shrugged. Her goal wasn’t about getting more lights in but rather getting Miguel out.

For some months Alicia had seen it as a better alternative to St Anns where he had been committed before this third major relapse. And then her observations revealed new horrors. But Miguel was not the only person I knew in there. One of my friend’s son was also an “inmate”. Unlike Miguel he was in one of those horrifying cages we’ve seen in those circulating videos.

I know because his mother described them to me. At the time the cages represented freedom. Freedom from thinking that her son would kill himself if he remained in St Anns. He had been suicidal, at times violent. His mental illness exacerbated by substance abuse.

My friend always described her contempt for the pastor. He fed off her worry and desperation over her son’s health and demanded more money. But her contempt grew into fury one day when heading out to a business trip she was called and told that her some tried to commit suicide 24 hours previously.

“Why didn’t you tell me,” she angrily asked on the phone to which the response was, “I knew you were travelling.”

My friend was enraged.

I share these stories because while the COP is about talking about the heartbreaking criminal scene and the human trafficking (I am not sure if I would use that word) there is another story about how broken our mental health system, about the choices we are faced with between a public mental health system that is far from adequate and private homes that are not regulated and run by mercenaries.

I also wonder about how many reports were made against this Centre and how long were rumors circulating about this so-called Rehab Centre before the police moved in. The mental health system is not broken because it was never whole. It is deeply flawed. However, when this news cycle goes past the next 24 hours of incredulity and maxi taxi talk, I hope to God we can begin to talk about mental health and how we provide for the most vulnerable in a very serious way.