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26 Jan 2022

Category: familyCategory Archives:

Human Rights Violations in Brazil: The Case of Vavá

Vavá is one of the many victims of gross human rights violations in Brazil.

The young José Vandeilson Silvina de Sousa, known as Vavá, disappeared on November 9, 2020. Vavá was 17 years old and lived in Morro dos Anjicos, a village located 4km from Alto Alegre, Brazil.

Vavá is a young man with the mental disorder Schizophrenia. After running out of his prescription drugs he disappeared after a behavior mental health crisis.

Governmental negligence.

Sadly, this case highlights the lack of responsibility shown by the federal government in Brazil, which in October, 2020 cut funds that maintained regular delivery of controlled medicines throughout the country.

There remains a strong prejudice against people with mental disorders in Brazil. The disease is still widely associated with something demonic or drug use.

Luckily, Vavá’s family had private help from a psychiatric doctor named Dr. Alfonso Rodriguez de Paiva Filho. Dr. Afonso would bring medicines directly from São Luís to all his patients. Shortly before Vavá’s disappearance Dr. Afonso passed away, and without either public or private resources Vavá ended up on his own at the time of his behavior mental health crisis.

Vavá lived with his grandfather, Mr. Deusdete Matias, who continued asking for help and support for his grandson. He asked the Brazilian Child Protective Service for assistance, but they informed him that Vavá would have to wait up to two years to be placed in a treatment facility.

Several weeks later, however, Child Protective Service did pay three unannounced visits to Vavá and his grandfather. On all three visits Vavá was calm, even asleep during one.

Strangely, on the third visit, the Child Protective Service members advised Mr. Matias, who is illiterate, to leave the house and stay with someone else. Vavá was now completely alone.

The mystery of Vavá’s disappearance.

Vavá mysteriously disappeared on the same day that an unknown person had reportedly been in the village seeking Vava’s grandfather with some papers for him to sign.

Child Protective Service had supposedly found a facility to place the boy, but Vava’s grandfather never met the mysterious person, nor did he sign any documents.

There remain numerous questions and no answers in this case. How could Vavá vanish without a trace while leaving a plate of food he had just prepared for himself on a chair?

Several of the villages’ 26 residents have reported that “they stopped a car at the door, put Vavá inside and left towards Alto Alegre.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feed Your Head (says Grace Slick)

It was not until tonight that I realized “no one here gets out alive.”

Fleeing, escaping and running away are not good answers.  There is good and bad wherever you go.

The trick is managing your own head.

I played my playlist over and over during the past few weeks.  I had to endure a weekend in the country with husband and brother-in-law. It all seemed very middle class, and, if somewhat boring, at least within the confines of normal living.

In dealing with my head I believe change of environment is very important to perspective. For the mental Health consumer, switching off environments can be helpful in avoiding panic attacks, angst, and other symptoms.

There needs to be a balance of familiarity and novelty in environments.  Some people think this isn’t always possible. I found, for myself, when in desperate straits for a change in surroundings and perspective, that looking out different windows in the apartment,  or changing up the room plan, or just moving from room to room periodically can help boredom in a pinch.

Going away for the weekend, or hopping a plane to Somewheresville, USA is even better.

As you get older symptoms get harder to handle, especially if you’ve achieved the prize of living independently in the community with little professional intervention.

So, the weekend in the country? It was tough as a mother because of interactions.  Just as a balance between the familiar and the strange is important in gaining perspective, there has got to be a balance of solitude and interaction for the mental health consumer.

The playlist is important in feeding the head, as are visuals like TV and movies. Reading books, blogs and articles are good for the gray matter as well.  If there are tasks and work to do, so much the better.

If you write blogs, feeding the head is paramount.  If you are a consumer struggling with symptoms like catatonia and depression, a good diet for the head gets the mental wheels turning and keeps them well oiled.

I love my flights into fantasy, my magic carpet rides. I struggle with demons anyway.  Change of environment, a balance of interaction, music, visuals and the written word are all part of what the Red Queen said-

“Feed your head, feed your head...”

Relics, Memories & Fleeting Moments: How I’m Coping with my Dad’s Dementia.

“This is garbage,” my brother muttered as he threw the hedge clippers into the garbage.

My heart dropped.

“What is wrong with you?!” I demanded an answer. “Those were Dad’s!” I shouted.

I simply couldn’t understand my brother’s behavior, and I was seething mad.

“It’s rusted! Look at these hedge clippers! These clippers are a tetanus shot waiting to happen!” my brother explained to me in his overly straightforward way of speaking. He then threw the clippers in the garbage.

I just stared at my brother; he looked back at me and said nothing. I was still waiting for my brother to follow-up, some sort of justification for throwing out my dad’s clippers—nothing.

I am a person who has had more hospitalizations than he can remember during these difficult times of extreme stress on the family unit.

My dad not only kept his own calm, but was a model for rational thinking. Despite my dad’s own anxiety and stressors, my father put his “stuff” aside when it meant the family and his son would benefit from staying in control of himself.

My dad has been by my bedside during visits to the ER, psychiatric, and medical visit every time I landed in the hospital. From childhood illnesses like chickenpox, the flu, or the common cold, my dad was no stranger to playing the role of a nurse alongside my mother, teaming up with her to restore my health from whatever was plaguing me at the time.

My dad was a one-man rehabilitation team when I broke my pelvis and needed round the clock care three hours from home at graduate school. For the first time in my dad’s life since his military service in his young adulthood 40 years prior, my dad lived away from his spouse and home.

Home is where my dad was the happiest—roaming his front and back lawn with the hedge clippers, taming the great wild that was our quarter of an acre of property. We didn’t have a massive lot of land, but when my dad ventured out to do yard work, he was happy, content, and often got lost for hours at a time, just to turn up at our screen door with grass stains and dirt on his overalls.

Because of my affection and closeness with my dad, I was the first to diagnose his dementia five years ago. Analyzing my dad was pretty straightforward. My dad’s general presentation was shifting. He was having memory problems.

Don’t get me wrong, my dad’s memory was never particularly spectacular. And yet, I couldn’t help but notice five years ago, the visible deterioration in his memory and the staggering rate of decline. It was as if his memory issues were speeding up and intensifying.

Five years have since passed since my dad’s initial diagnosis. Until a week ago, my dad, while ever slightly more forgetful, was still driving a car, taking care of himself, and getting out and about the community.

A month ago, my parents were visiting my home and bringing over breakfast. I received a phone call from my mom. She was in the car with my dad traveling with him down to visit:

“Max, you have to come downstairs…”

I had first thought my parents were too busy to stop by and wanted to move on with their daily activities driving around town as two retirees.

That morning, I took the building elevator down to the lobby. The slow-moving old elevator shaft couldn’t move fast enough. When I didn’t see my dad and mom at the front door, as usual, I got nervous. Walking outside, I found my dad clutched to a metal pole by the foot of my building.

“What’s wrong, Dad?” I asked him, tearing up. “I just can’t walk anymore…” my dad mumbled. He was shaking, and his voice sounded strange.

These days, my dad is now almost totally incoherent and is more confused than ever. He can barely stand up. He needs feeding and 24-hour supervision.

My mom knows full well that if she wishes to continue living with my dad, they will need to move out of our family home into an apartment where my dad can live more independently.

Yesterday, he gave me his hedge clippers to give to my brother for his new home in his confusion. That is why I was so mad when my brother tossed them in the garbage.

The clippers may not have meant much to my brother, and he likely didn’t understand what they meant to me—still, for me, they represent a deep connection to treasured memories of my dad’s happy times before dementia took its course, and life took a turn.

The clippers were a distant and not forgotten relic of his joy when and where he was the happiest—home with his family.

Despite sickness or discord throughout the years, I was always sure of one thing—my dad’s love for gardening and trimming the foliage in the yard. The clippers, and these memories, are as vivid as they are grounding. They reassured me of my dad’s strength and compass when the family needed just that—stable, unfettered guidance.

Relics like the clippers and other things, which are now memories, will always remind me of my dad’s permanence—despite my sadness in his mortality.

My Parents’ Support Shaped My Recovery

My parents have been there during the darkest moments of my recovery and during the most triumphant.

From the very beginning, my parents have been present with me in my health and healing, and if my prayers are answered, they will be with me until the very end. My parents have been doing this for a long time—caregiving. My mother was the caregiver for her mother for almost 20 years during the tenure of my grandmother’s dementia and aging. Around the time when my great aunt passed, and my grandmother first began to forget things, I was admitted to the hospital as an adolescent.

My mother and father were there on the unit every day. As soon as visiting time came around, my parents would buzz the unit door and there, in hand, would be a snack or my dinner, or just something I could use to pass the time. Indeed, family support is integral to the recovery process. Our family’s proximity to our issues, our sensitive and raw exposed areas—there is no question that family is the perfect match for people needing comfort and attention during our most vulnerable times.

My parents were the first to identify my illness. Something didn’t seem right and before long, things were spinning out. When I was 17, I attempted suicide, and was again taken to the hospital for what the nursing staff called “a tune-up.” My treatment team asked my family to sit around the table and read to me their thoughts on my decision to end my life prematurely. That was the first time I witnessed the impact of my illness on the emotional state of my family.

While both inpatient experiences impacted my parents, throughout, during, and while I was on the unit—however difficult the emotions were to process—my parents persevered on their own merits and guided me along to discharge in the process. Not only were my parents emotionally supportive and very present at all times, they were an integral part of my treatment team. There wasn’t a family meeting without my parents’ voice of support. During these early moments in my illness, I still remember the encouragement and hope my parents passed on to me to keep moving and move forward regardless of the challenges poised ahead that I would have to confront on my own one day.

In college, when things again began to spin out, my parents were retired and there were no outpatient therapists that would take our insurance. I again had just attempted suicide, and upon returning to the dorm, I would need a therapist if I was going to continue living at school. My parents knew the importance of help when healing is what’s needed, and without delay I was connected to a therapist in the community.

To pay for treatment, my dad worked as a part-time security guard into his 70’s. For my parents, working to support my mental health treatment wasn’t a question—it was a priority. This speed, savvy, and importance placed on unconditional support regardless of my circumstances was the rallying cry of my parents throughout my recovery, even when I fought them on it. Later on, when my psychosis was activated, and I became extremely paranoid and delusional, my parents were wrapped up into my distorted thoughts and suspicions. As my condition worsened, I even threatened to call a lawyer and sue them when they wouldn’t follow one of my irrational demands at the time.

But my parents always knew better than whatever the illness spoke or had me believe. And when I was three hours away from home in a state hospital, not around the block anymore, my parents were weekly visitors. Every weekend, in their golden years, my parents would drive three hours each way just to make sure my treatment and health were being attended to on the unit. Even when I wouldn’t participate in family meetings or wouldn’t agree to move back home upon discharge (I was preoccupied with moving into an adult home), ultimately, when I walked out of the unit and my time in the hospital was over, I went home with my parents, who were waiting for me outside of the unit with a bag of Burger King and my favorite iced coffee.

As one therapist said to me: “Your parents really stepped up, Max.” Well, they stepped up again and again. When I came home from the hospital in upstate New York, my family administered medication, cooked meals, helped me do laundry and everything else I wasn’t able to complete on my own just yet. From transportation to the clinic where I would get weekly injections, to therapy appointments when I was too sedated to drive, my parents were no strangers to starting over, moving forward, and being okay with both setbacks and difficult times in my recovery.

And when the most difficult times were over, and I wanted to pursue life again and go back to school, my parents were supportive of me chasing my dreams and facing my demons head on. My parents are the reason I was able to find meaning in life again and they are the reason I support my clients. We all need people to cheer us on, no matter what the circumstances are. Support from one or two people goes a long way when there is no one in our corner.

https://www.nami.org/Personal-Stories/My-Parents-Support-Shaped-My-Recovery

Mental Health Affairs 2022

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