Stig­ma and su­per­sti­tion are sig­nif­i­cant bar­ri­ers that pre­vent many peo­ple in this coun­try who are strug­gling with men­tal ill­ness from seek­ing help.

When strange be­hav­iour is blamed on a spir­i­tu­al at­tack — which is quite com­mon­place in T&T’s so­ci­ety — there is lit­tle chance of get­ting pro­fes­sion­al help, or ben­e­fit­ing from the right types of med­ical in­ter­ven­tions.

There is al­so a ten­den­cy to stig­ma­tise or triv­i­alise men­tal health con­di­tions through pi­cong or off-colour jokes, so peo­ple suf­fer in si­lence and iso­la­tion, of­ten un­til it is too late.

It is still too ear­ly to draw any def­i­nite con­clu­sions in the trag­ic case of Sarah Smith and her chil­dren Gen­uine, three, and one-year-old Phoenix, who were found dead at the bot­tom of a de­com­mis­sioned Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) tank in Par­latu­vi­er, To­ba­go, a few days ago. How­ev­er, in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed so far sug­gests that a men­tal break­down may have been a ma­jor fac­tor in those un­time­ly deaths.

Sad­ly, no one paid at­ten­tion when Ms Smith had a men­tal break­down and start­ed wan­der­ing the streets. On Sep­tem­ber 2, the last day she was seen alive, she had been be­hav­ing er­rat­i­cal­ly, hav­ing ap­par­ent­ly showed signs of dis­tress be­fore, as she walked through her neigh­bour­hood.

It was a cry for help that was not heard by the young moth­er’s friends and loved ones who must now be strug­gling with the heart­break­ing cir­cum­stances in which the young moth­er and her chil­dren met their end.

This is not the time to cast blame or crit­i­cise.

In­stead, this must be seen as an­oth­er re­minder of the need to change how men­tal health is viewed and talked about in this coun­try.

Lack of un­der­stand­ing, fear and in­ac­cu­rate, mis­lead­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tions of men­tal ill­ness pre­vent many peo­ple from seek­ing and us­ing the health ser­vices that are wide­ly avail­able in com­mu­ni­ties across T&T, in­clud­ing free com­mu­ni­ty “walk-in” ser­vices.

In many in­stances, ac­cess­ing these fa­cil­i­ties are the type of life-sav­ing in­ter­ven­tions that can lead to sig­nif­i­cant turn­arounds, avoid­ing neg­a­tive out­comes.

There has been a sig­nif­i­cant rise in men­tal health is­sues, es­pe­cial­ly since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, ex­ac­er­bat­ed by so­cial me­dia and oth­er stres­sors. Even be­fore that, med­ical pro­fes­sion­als had been warn­ing about an in­crease in men­tal ill­ness in this coun­try.

Putting more fo­cus on the im­por­tance of men­tal health and its im­pact on well-be­ing, and pro­mot­ing knowl­edge of the signs and symp­toms of men­tal health prob­lems and dis­or­ders, can help re­duce stig­ma and pro­mote ac­cep­tance and un­der­stand­ing.

There is a lot of work to be done to in­crease pub­lic un­der­stand­ing and pro­mote ac­cess to health­care ser­vices for in­di­vid­u­als strug­gling with men­tal health is­sues.

Such con­di­tions are treat­able and peo­ple liv­ing with men­tal ill­ness can lead hap­py and pro­duc­tive lives.

How­ev­er, there isn’t enough em­pha­sis on the val­ue of ear­ly and con­sis­tent treat­ment or the im­por­tance of seek­ing im­me­di­ate help for sud­den changes in thoughts and be­hav­iours.

In­stead, these is­sues are shroud­ed in se­cre­cy and shame un­til sit­u­a­tions es­ca­late, some­times with trag­ic out­comes.

It is time for a dif­fer­ent ap­proach. One where peo­ple liv­ing with men­tal ill­ness can get the help they need with­out be­ing stig­ma­tised and iso­lat­ed and are sur­round­ed by a sup­port­ive com­mu­ni­ty of peo­ple with open minds who are will­ing to pro­vide sup­port.

Had there been that lev­el of aware­ness and un­der­stand­ing, Ms Smith’s cry for help would have been heard.