By Jewell Leacock
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I had a challenging time growing up as a young adult in Barbados, a mentally challenging time to be more precise and was quite disgusted with the blatant display of hypocrisy and lip service; it never matched up to the golden rule rhetoric that was broadcasted to the masses. With more observation and understanding of life I became better able see the sham behind the scam and how mental health coupled with self-awareness plays the most important role in this whole execution of mass manipulation.
It all started when I left secondary school in the mid-nineties. I had dreams, dreams ‘they’ told me to dream, I had ambitions, ambitions that were encouraged and fostered and I had passion, passion that was ignited by my dreams and the determination to be ‘successful’. I was ‘trained to be an excellent human being but somewhere along the line I started questioning things, I started questioning myself because something wasn’t adding up. Something had to be wrong and I thought it was me.
Obviously.
I started wondering how I would achieve my dreams if Society wasn’t allowing me to. It felt like every door opening closed and no one cared about what I had to say, or what I thought or felt. No one wanted what I was offering as long as I continued to push my agenda. I just wasn’t getting it and my rebel blood wouldn’t settle.
I grew increasingly disgruntled with authority and the societal pretense and eventually sought some counselling in efforts to find my happy rainbows. I was left with more disdain because the question which I had at the time, still could not be answered by the therapist and the question was; ‘How does Society expect you to thrive and have a happy life if the parameters set by said Society dictates that you are not good enough’? How could depression and despondent thoughts not permanently encircle you when all your efforts are purposefully being overlooked?
How do you attain your best self without succumbing to the violently negative underlying messages that are really being transmitted to you by way of people’s actions and not their words? Here was ‘everybody’ else complying with the rules and seemingly reaping the material rewards that came along with the trade-off and then there was me; stuck with all dem dreams and no idea on how to achieve them. Up until that time I thought my dreams were incumbent upon me and my personality to manifest them and while that’s still the base line principle; there is something that every mentally struggling individual needs to know.
About 5 years ago I made a correlation between declining mental health also known as stress & anxiety and the impossible expectations and red tape from agencies, inhumane and unlawful work laws, exorbitant costs of living, ever rising taxes, continued inflation and everything else concocted to make us feel like failures and unable to live this life above survival mode. I shared this point of view publicly and many didn’t catch it but I was fortunate to walk freely into this information versus stumbling into it and I think it will truly illuminate my hypothesis.
I present to you; Drapetomania: This was a condition created by known hater of Black people, Samuel Cartwright in 1851. It is a ‘physchological disorder’ that caused a phenomenon of enslaved Blacks to run away from bondage. In essence this ‘so called’ doctor made up a mental illness, legalized it to facilitate and lawfully uphold the punishment for having that same ‘mental condition’. You weren’t punished for escaping your oppressors; you were punished for thinking s treatment was wrong and wanting to escape, so you could’ve been beaten to a pulp or murdered just because you wanted to escape to a better life that you thought you deserved.
Now as ridiculous as this mental illness may seem to you, it’s important to note that it seemed just as ludicrous to the powers that were at the time but they still passed the ruling in favor to grant Cartwright’s findings as the law for about 5 years before it was debunked and rejected by the medical community. They passed it even though they didn’t agree with it. For five years our ancestors were double whipped back in line as if that wasn’t already happening in the first place but the law made it perfectly fine to subject them further into ineffable abysmal states.
It was stricken from the law books around 1855, things went back to ‘normal’ for about another 10 years where it was just ‘regular slavery’ until it was abolished circa 1865.
Tell me the big difference between Drapetomania and modern mental illness disorders which are mainly characterized by stress and anxiety? Yes there is a list of maladies that humankind is actually subject to but can you really say that the law makers today have our best interests at heart? Yet all this talk of mental health diagnosis, and control your stress levels, it’s all bullocks. Governments know that the people are unstable and wired out but put some money and or opportunities in their hands and watch happiness appear. People want money to pay their bills, live their life and suitable conditions for growth. Being able to pay your bills eradicates stress and anxiety so they know exactly what they’re doing because it’s been done before. It’s not you, it’s them.
