Mental health matters

If there’s one positive that’s emerged from the global pandemic, it’s that mental wellbeing is finally starting to enter the public consciousness as a necessity. Promoting and destigmatizing mental wellness has been a priority of AFTERNOON (one of our co-editors is, after all, a certified lunatic) since our very first issue. Below, we’ve compiled a selection of stories that focus on mental health and treatment. In, “Cut Budget, Cut Life,” Vengsang Thong and Paw Htoh Keet Wah illuminate the lack of mental health supports available to refugees living on the border of Thailand and Myanmar through a photo essay. Co-editor Miranda Newman shares an allegory about her experience with psychiatric institutionalization, and Vol. 3 contributor Gabrielle P. Leith gives readers a delicate and heartfelt look at what it’s like to live with a loved one who suffers from mental illness.

cut budget, cut life by vengsang thong & paw htoh Keet Wah

Most people care about visible physical illnesses, but a different silent killer is threatening this refugee camp on the Thai-Myanmar border. A few weeks ago, Naw May Kher’s husband committed suicide in their house, hanging himself on the bamboo she is pointing at (pictured above). She says, “My husband was an alcoholic and never helped me to earn money.”

She feels like her husband was useless for her, and her situation is the same regardless of his fate. From 2017 to early 2018, 19 people in this refugee camp attempted suicide and seven succeeded. Most of them used rope, consumed poison, or used a weapon to commit suicide. In 2017, the International Organization of Migration released a report showing that the suicide rate in another camp on the Thai-Myanmar border, Mae La camp, was more than three times the global suicide rate. The effect of an uncertain future, lack of freedom, and decreasing support from the international community is causing this crisis. Since the support was cut, psychosocial workers in this refugee camp have not been able to increase suicide prevention awareness effectively.

In this refugee camp on the Thai-Myanmar border, the amount of suicide cases is increasing because of a lack of prevention activities; the leprous patients are housebound without hope of a cure; and leukemia patients are not getting effective treatment. These are the consequences of the UNHCR reducing its budget for social services. The refugees who deal with these diseases have been suffering and searching for the way out of their illness. However, some are still struggling and some made their own solutions, such as committing suicide. The UNHCR should give full financial support for social services. Camp residents can use the money for a hospital, medicine for patients, and to employ skillful doctors so all patients will get better treatment. Moreover, if the leprous patients are in a safe house with caring social workers, they will not feel lonely. The social service workers could also carry out more activities for treating mental illness. Should these cases be addressed urgently or will the UNHCR just watch and record people getting stuck in these situations?

orangutans doing yoga by miranda Newman

Illustration by Lucy Nordlinger

Two orangutans sit on the cement floor of their habitat; just beyond the motionless tire swing. The concrete is flecked with twigs and crumpled leaves. Shit’s smeared on plaster walls designed to look like large grey stones. Their legs are wide open, shot out like darts. The Female orangutan breathes deeply, bends her wrinkled nose over her right knee, and wraps her hairy fingers around the sole of her foot. The Male orangutan watches her head lower and copies.

“Focus on your breathing,” her knee muffles her voice. “In and out. Deep and slow.”

The Female’s eyes are closed. The Male watches a tiny tumbleweed of dust and straw bounce by his leg, and forgets to breathe in his pose.

With your next exhale, walk your hands back to the centre,” she says. “And slowly roll up with your inhale, bringing your head up last.”

The orangutans have matching plastic yellow tags pierced through their ears. Hers is tucked between reddish orange furs, while his shines like a speck of sunshine against his dark ear. When she unfolds, he follows a second later. “How’s your back feeling?”

“A little better. The stretching helps the knots.”

“Are they giving you any painkillers or physio for it?”

“Are you kidding?” He says. “They can barely keep our meds straight.”

“I know you’re frustrated, but be thankful you’re here.” she says. “I’ve stayed in a lot worse places.”

“I shouldn’t be here,” he stands, grabs his big toe, and lifts it to a low flung tree branch. “I was minding my own business—getting ready to call it a night. It was one of those nights so dark it seemed like the hills were cradling me, folding me into the jungle, the mango trees, the plodding beetles. Then...”

He trails off, sighs, and picks at a bug on his leg.

“I know,” she stays seated, brings her feet together, and lowers her head to them so her voice is once again muffled like the blurry faces banging on the glass where the floor comes to a rude stop. “You can’t fight it. The sooner you accept your surroundings, the easier it will be. Play by their rules. Eventually, you’ll get used to it.”

“I don’t want to get used to it,” He drops his foot and swings to the next highest branch. “If I play by their rules, will they let me go home?”

She keeps her head lowered as the branch moans under his weight. When she finally looks up, she’s smiling, but won’t meet his gaze.

The Two-Headed Monster by gabrielle p. leith

Here is where they bring you when you are sadder than sad, I think to myself as we pull up and try to find parking. My mom has been driving erratically the entire way, which is saying a lot because my mom can’t drive even on a good day. My brother and I brace ourselves in the backseat as she goes through two red lights. When we tell her about them later, when things feel slightly calmer, she looks genuinely confused. “Really?” She says, with a sort of exhausted laugh. The whole drive up she’s not making much sense. She keeps talking about soul mates; how my brother and I have found ours, but her soul mate slips further and further from grasp with each hospitalization. I have never in my life heard my mom use a word like soul mate. She’s not exactly a sentimental woman in that way so, for a minute, that unsettles me more than our destination. As we pull up, my mom makes sure to get one of the best parking spots, close to the entrance. Even in times of crisis, she’s competitive about parking. “This is a very, very good spot,” she tells us several times as we make our way to the hospital elevators. Before getting in, she notices a painting up for auction. “This is a very nice piece of Indigenous art and we could get it for a good price.” It’s an eerie painting at first glance—lots of blood reds and dark figures ghosting around the canvas as though they’re dripping off the page. I see her quickly scribble down $300 on the next open line. Who the hell wants a memento from today, I think to myself, but never mind. We get in the elevator and click number seven for the psychiatric ward.

Once we get upstairs, we find my dad in his room. Sometimes his illness brings him to such anxiety-filled places that he cannot move or speak. On this particular day, he can’t do either. He looks like a little kid in these moments; sitting in his pajamas, hands balled up on his lap, wholly helpless from himself. We sit there in silence for a long time together as tears stream down his face, his body completely still.

The next day, when we come back, I notice the other patients in the ward. Many of them seem to be somewhere else when you look into their eyes, like the body they’re inhabiting is just a decoy and they have left long ago for somewhere else. Some look like psychiatric patients cast for the movies, while others walk the halls as if they are in a supermarket and nothing out of the ordinary is going on.

When we get to my dad’s room, he is more verbal and mobile. He’s still in his pajamas, his hands folded on his lap. One thing you need to understand about my dad’s hands is that they are incredibly soft. They are very gentle and smooth—just like my grandmother’s were. They also look like they’ve never seen a day of hard labour. This is sort of true—my dad’s work is stationary and he’s never exactly been a handyman. As a kid, I always thought about how my dad’s hands encompassed the gentleness of his spirit. It is not surprising then, that one of the first things I notice when I arrive that day, are the silver and gold sparkles crusted under his fingernails. He catches me looking at them, and I see the hint of a smile flash across his face. He then produces a page of a colouring book where a turtle with big eyes looks helplessly at the viewer. He’s coloured it in with various greens and browns, and even finessed certain spots with splotches of gold and silver sparkly paint. “I think mine was one of the best,” he says.

With that, his new roommate enters. He’s immediately apologetic, but we tell him to not be silly and to come in. This man is a spitting image of Owen Wilson—he’s got sandy blonde hair and the same California surfer way of speaking. He confirms he and my dad had, by far, the best two drawings at art class that morning. They share a laugh that is ripe with so many underlying feelings I don’t know how to access it. Owen Wilson lives up north by himself and describes his admissions as “tune-ups” every so often to get back on track. We learn he’s from a very wealthy Toronto family, but has distanced himself from them. He has no visitors during his stay, so I assume his family doesn’t know he is here. He and my dad share a self-deprecating humour about their situation that seems to make them feel human again. I feel eternally grateful that this is who chance has bunked him with, and I can see their friendship slowly giving my dad life. My dad asks Owen if, once they are out, he’d like to come to a performance of a play he has written. Owen doesn’t end up coming to the performance that takes place a few weeks later, but I like the idea of these two men meeting again on the other side. The other side, this time, being a 50-plus community theatre production.

Months later, I am at my parents’ house for dinner. I’m in the living room and notice a newly hung painting that looks instantly familiar. It’s the painting from the auction. I’m acquainted again with the red and black figures that haunt the space between the frame. When I get close enough, I can see the piece is titled, “The Two-Headed Monster.” Just like the duality of my father’s bipolar illness and its looming presence over him, as though his illness is the ghostly figures in the painting. I think about the helpless bystanders it has made each of us.

“We won,” my mom says as she sees me looking at the painting. She boasts about the price she got it for, and how she really does have a good eye for art. I tell her, in this light, it is more beautiful than I remember it being and, for a moment, this feels true.