By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

POLICE are investigating an alleged suicide in which a male juvenile was the reported victim.

Preliminary reports indicated that shortly before 4pm on Thursday police were notified of the incident, which occurred at a residence in Ardastra Estates, New Providence.

“The victim was reportedly found unresponsive by a family member with a sheet tied around his neck,” police said in a statement. “At present, police are uncertain of the circumstances surrounding this incident.”

Consultant psychiatrist Dr John Dillett on Friday explained that with children and adolescents socialisation is extremely important.

He said for many of them with school being virtual, many social events being either postponed or cancelled or with there being limited access that age group has been much affected.

“Also too when persons are isolated, irritability and agitation tends to increase, mainly because sometimes the home is one of the greatest sources of stress, you know with interpersonal relationships with parents, with siblings, neighbours, etc,” Dr Dillett said. “Having social activities is usually a very good outlet for persons to decompress, and to relieve stress.

“So, when you take away those modalities in terms of being able to decrease stress, the stress can build up and when you don't have access to friends and confidants (or) people that you kind of see eye to eye with, you have a lot in common with them, that just creates less opportunities to be able to talk things out and to have fun, and, therefore, relieve stress.

“So, we found that across the world, in many cases, children and adolescents have been significantly affected because of being in the pandemic and the isolation that it had brought.”

He highlighted the stigma concerning mental health, the improvements made on the problem and what steps should be taken.

“I think, unfortunately, in the Caribbean, there's still a great stigma associated with mental health conditions. I can say, though, that is changing. I think attitudes are changing slowly, but we need education. We need for persons who are brave enough who have gone through their own mental health issues to kind of also stand up and let people know, ‘Hey, it's okay. If you're having problems, it's not your fault? There are many people who can identify with what you're going through’”, the consultant psychiatrist said.

“We do need to continue to improve our media campaigns and we need to have persons stand up in the communities and talk about mental health on a greater basis so that it doesn't seem as much of a stigma as it once was. So there have been improvements, but, yes, there still is quite a bit of stigma associated with mental health.”

This incident follows other alleged suicides in the country recently.

Among them was the suicide of Anthony Tilme who was found with cable wires wrapped around his neck early last month at Kelly Lane.

The month before, police were investigating an incident in August in the Carmichael Road area. Initial information suggested that shortly after 11am a man in his early 20s was found unresponsive, hanging with a sheet around his neck.

Emergency Medical Services responded and confirmed no signs of life.

This came after another alleged suicide occurred in late July when around 7pm police responded to a report of a man hanging from a property in the area of Marathon Road, north of Robinson Road.

Emergency Medical Services responded and confirmed that the man showed no signs of life.