Mental Health Across the Seas
Here it is, the elusive blog post about my trip to Sri Lanka. It's been a long time coming and I'm excited to finally share the experiences I had. My original plan was to summarise the most memorable moments of my trip. That proved impossible because it would include the entirety of the time there, it was all just too good. With my last post about mental health being such a success, I decided this post would be better served sharing the real reasons I was there - on a volunteer placement to promote positive mental health. What better to write a post about, than everything I learnt about it while over there :) I do, however, want to share the highlights with you all in sooome way, so I decided that the best option was to create a video. If you make it all the way through this long post, the video will be at the end!
The educational aspect of the trip was really interesting to me. I have been teaching about depression, stress, and suicide in schools across Oregon for the past year - something I've really enjoyed - so I found it fascinating being on the other end of that and hearing these crazy facts about how mental health is treated in Sri Lanka. The day after I arrived at my homestay we had volunteer orientation. In my journal that night, I wrote this about what I learnt:
"I guess I didn't really know how bad the mental health system here really is. They said that 1/4 people here have a mental illness and that suicide rates are really high but only about 1% of the health budget goes towards mental health. Also there are only like 79 psychiatrists on the whole island - which is crazy to me. I also didn't realise the full extent that cultural beliefs played a part in getting treatment and the stigma of mental health. They were saying that often times people will have something like schizophrenia and will be hallucinating and people will believe they have special powers so they don't seek out treatment. It's just such a different culture and belief system."
This was my first exposure to the mental health structure there. I was expecting it to be a bit lacking (otherwise why else would we be there) but the extent of it really shocked me. At another seminar on the second week of my trip, I learnt that there are only about 112 working psychiatrists on the island to serve approximately 22 million people. That number is insane to me. While the systems in western countries are not perfect, I saw how easy it was to take that for granted. Through all my struggles, there was never a time when I couldn't get help for lack of resources. Yes, there are still not enough psychiatrists and psychologists to meet the demand, but it is far more accessible than those in Sri Lanka. This was one of the biggest eye openers for me.
Another thing I found interesting was the perspective on body image. Throughout my life, eating disorders and supermodels have always been something I've been aware of. It's just been a fact of life that our society generally views skinny people as more attractive. With that unattainable skinniness, however, came many tales of anorexia, bulimia, and other disorders. Since the day of orientation, I was told that it is very common in Sri Lanka to compliment somebody on how fat they are. In contrast to more western ideals, being fat in Sri Lanka means that your family has taken care of you and that you are loved. More recent years have seen this ideology begin to change, however. The introduction of westernisation has caused the definition of what is physically attractive to shift. Younger generations that have been exposed through social media and advertisements, now present with increasing numbers of eating disorders in wanting to pursue skinniness. I thought this was really interesting because it's one thing to discuss how the western world impacts other cultures, and another to observe that change firsthand.
The last aspect that I found intriguing was the treatment for mental illnesses. The mental health professional that was presenting explained that due to the high stigma in Sri Lanka, it takes a long time for anybody to actually seek out treatment. Due to overstretched resources, however, that itself is limited. Any form of psychotherapy is very rare for somebody to be prescribed, and would be very brief if that avenue was pursued. The most effective and accepted method of mental health treatment in Sri Lanka is Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT). This, combined with medications obtained predominantly from private sectors, is the recommended course of action for somebody suffering from an illness.
Living in the US, where a combination of therapy and medication are considered the most effective treatments, it was a real eye-opener seeing just how different things can be all across the world. Mental health everywhere is only just beginning to receive the traction and attention it so desperately deserves, but seeing how badly supported it can be was a shock. This is a real problem, not just for the junkie across the street, or the lady talking to herself - but for all of us. We all have mental health, be it healthy or not, and it is just as important as our physical wellbeing. It needs more attention, respect, and resources everywhere. It makes me so glad that I had the opportunity to go overseas and help promote the positive mental health that everybody has the right to.
I'm not sure that video works so here is the link to YouTube if it doesn't:
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