Mental Health Week seeks to dispel myths

With only three hundred and sixty-five days in the year the calendar is increasingly crowded for organisations wanting the public’s attention focussed on their cause. We don’t know how they manage, but with Thursday designated as World Blind Day and Friday being observed as World Food Day, Mental Health Week, which opened last Thursday, is at risk of getting lost in the public relations shuffle. Today News Five’s Marion Ali travelled to Rockview for an update.

Marion Ali, Reporting
Today the mood at the Rockview Mental Hospital was light and celebratory. While the fifty-nine patients who live there may have mental issues, Open Day was set aside to showcase their ability to still function in society, if properly treated.

Eleanor Bennett, Coordinator, Central Mental Health Services
“There are a lot of myths, misconceptions where mental illness is concerned. I think we need to do more things like this so people can understand that these patients are people, they have a disease, they have problems just like everybody else.”

Marion Ali
“What are some of those misconceptions?”

Eleanor Bennett
“One very common one is that mental illness is caused by obeah, which is not true; or that people with mental illness have a weak mind, which again is not true. Mental illness is a disease just like any other disease. It’s a disease like diabetes, there’s a cause and there’s treatment, so it’s a very real situation for a lot of people.”

We spoke with two women who attested to this fact, both former patients who have moved on to become successful in their lives.

Former Mental Patient
“I was very depressed, ih usually happen to mi whenever I have kids. I get very depressed and I end up here at the Rockview Hospital about ten years ago.”

Marion Ali
“You were diagnosed with what?”

Former Mental Patient
“Manic depression.”

Marion Ali
“Which mean?”

Former Mental Patient
“Just get really depressed and it usually happens whenever I have kids.”

Marion Ali
“Like an acute form of depression.”

Former Mental Patient
“Yeah. I think it runs in the family too.”

Marion Ali
“So how did you get out? I understand you have your own business now?”

Former Mental Patient
“Yes, right I’m babysitting and I do my own business, bake in the evenings.”

Marion Ali
“How did you rebound?”

Former Mental Patient
“With the help of my family and nurses and with the medication. I really had a good support from my family.”

Former Mental Patient #2
“My husband died and we had only just come to live in Belize, so I didn’t know anybody and he died and I was very much alone and I got very depressed and tried to kill myself.”

“I just felt I was in a long dark tunnel, it was crushing me and I just tried to end it all. Now I’m out of the tunnel.”

Marion Ali
“What message would you have for people looking at this newscast who might say well the Rockview Hospital is for crazy people. You who were here who have rebounded, what’s your message to them?”

Marion Ali
“How do people out there get out of this tunnel?”

Former Mental Patient
“Pray. I put my faith in God. I felt God abandoned me, I was in that tunnel, couldn’t get out and then I started, you know somebody’s gonna help me. Plus, they people at the hospital as well, they perceive things differently. And I got thinking I’m going to get out of this tunnel, I’m not gonna let there. A bit of it was determination, saying “No, I’m not gonna let it get me down, I’m gonna start a new life.”

Psychiatrist with the Ministry of Health, Doctor Claudina Cayetano says many “normal” people do suffer some form of curable mental problems, such as depression or stress, at some point of their lives. She adds that there is a distinct difference between the more severe cases and the milder ones.

Claudina Cayetano, Psychiatrist, Ministry of Health
“Schizophrenia for example, when people start to hear voices and have illusions and have hallucinations, but before they get to that stage they start having problems to sleep and their function at home also start to deteriorate and even at work or if they’re going to school. So they start to become more paranoid and they start to become more suspicious and also not take good care of themselves, so their hygiene deteriorates, their appetite, their concentration, they start to lose weight, and they start to have problems to sleep. So you can see that there’s a problem with that individual at that point. This is something that people can see. Now we do have illnesses that we cannot see, that people feel inside their bodies, but they are not necessarily having body symptoms that they can show. For example, generalised anxiety disorders, so this type of disorder you will not have them in Rockview because these people can be walking on the street and they suffer from panic disorders, panic attacks, but you don’t see that because it’s all inside. It’s a physiological disorder, so they have racing thoughts, palpitation, sweating, and things like that.”

Doctor Cayetano says efforts are now underway to enhance the quality of life for mental patients.

Dr. Claudina Cayetano
“What we’re trying to do is introduce new medications so that patients can want to take them and if they don’t have all the symptoms what we do is we have less patients in Rockview. So we have more people functioning well at home.”

“We need to now monitor the side effects, so for example … we have something we call haloperidol, which has side effects, but the side effects would be drooling and stiffness, but we have something like volansopin cyprexa which is newer and the side effects is weight gain and some people can develop diabetes. So it’s a matter of putting it in a balance.”

Coupled with the new medications is the opening on Thursday at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital of a day facility where people can receive for continuous mental treatment. However, for those who will need twenty-four hour patient care, there is a fully functional mental hospital at the Western Regional Hospital. Marion Ali reporting for News Five.