My lady, whose family are jamaican, passed this on and i wondered what Uncle bob woulda made of it if he were still around...
... but the truth is, they prolly woulda shot him again and killed him ages ago even if he hadn't of died of *cough*...cancer???
JAMAICA - A HURTING NATION
Published: Sunday | February 8, 2009
Dr Karen Richards
Besieged by crime and desensitised to death and violence, Jamaica is suffering from borderline personality disorder (BPD). This is the diagnosis of consultant clinical psychologist Dr Karen Richards who draws parallels between the average individual who walks into her practice and a hurting nation.
· Jamaica's symptoms
Self-harm is probably the single most defining feature of the borderline personality. Jamaica is drowning in a sea of its own violence.
In 2005, Jamaica had 1,674 murders (64.10 per 100,000 people), giving the country the unenviable reputation of having the highest murder rate in the world that year. Hope was raised by a small reduction in 2007.
We thought the patient (Jamaica) was on the road to recovery, but relapse was soon evident. The murder rate again rose by three per cent in 2008: Last year 1,611 Jamaicans were slain by fellow citizens.
In spite of the efforts of the new government, more than 70 people were murdered within the first 20 days of the 2009. Nearly as many people have been killed in Jamaica in the last two years as in the 40 years of conflict in northern Ireland.
We are not at war with another country or threatened by some external force We are annihilating ourselves. The fact is the biggest threat to a Jamaican is another Jamaican.
· Jamaica, the patient
The patient with BPD can sometimes be recognised by distinctive self-inflicted scars, multiple etchings carved into the skin, albeit hidden under long sleeves. These are merely outward manifestations of the chaos and self-devaluation being experienced on the inside.
Neither citizen nor habitat is spared in the course of this self-destructive illness. Undoubtedly, Jamaica is by God's own hand among the most beautiful islands in the world. Yet, we deface our environment like the BPD patient defaces his or her body.
Even in the most remote places, what do we see? The scourge of graffiti, the ever-rising tide of garbage and stinking gullies clogged with all manner of waste.
The natural beauty of the land is punctuated by zinc fences, the mentally ill who sleep in rags by the side of the road, the shacks where vendors gut, scale and sell their wares. This is not always about poverty; sometimes it is about pride.
The tourist zones are a façade, they are not representative of the real Jamaica; they are like the long sleeves worn by the patient who seeks to deceive the onlooker. But to a discerning eye, the emblems of self-defacement are evident.
Boundaries and rules
The BPD patient has difficulty maintaining order. In terms of nationhood, order is established and maintained by consensus on the boundaries and rules. But, Jamaica has a problem with lawlessness on various levels. In some instances, lawlessness is not considered to be lawlessness at all. It is repackaged as a question of freedom and the individual's right to choose.
Like the borderline personality, we function in a system of extremes in which we either idealise or devalue. We have recreated the tribes along party political lines and in our blind faithfulness to the ideal, some are prepared to take up arms against fellow Jamaicans, thereby devaluing ourselves.
A paradox
Jamaica is a paradox, a social web of contradictions: a church on every other street corner and a murder on the next; the 'batty rider' and the Bible; a culture of slowness from which the two-fastest people on the planet have emerged.
Our religious culture, for example, rails against the perceived abomination of homosexuality, but gives a tacit nod and wink to the fact that most of us are and continue to be born outside the institution of marriage. Thus, many children are denied the right to a functioning father and are sentenced to economic, emotional and social deprivation.
On one hand, we are a proud and patriotic people who are survivors of a macabre past, but on the other hand , our self-esteem seems poor.
In some quarters, we are weighed down by the sufferer mentality which engenders a sense of entitlement. Despite our popularisation of 'Africanism', our bleaching symbolises our discontent with blackness and our adoration of things from 'foreign'. Our identity is not yet fully formed.
We have not escaped our past unscathed.
· Causes of BPD
There is now an overwhelming body of research which indicates that this constellation of symptoms is the result of extremely traumatic experiences in early childhood and early caregiver attachments which were abusive and damaging to the individual.
To this extent, trauma may lay at the heart of our understanding of BPD.
Individuals with borderline personalities tend to have severe experiences of physical, sexual and emotional abuse, which include neglect and deprivation, often at the hands of those to whom they looked for care and nurturing. What is BPD - legacy of abuse?
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is perhaps one of the most controversial, yet now widely accepted psychiatric diagnoses to have emerged in the 20th century. It could be defined as a pervasive distortion in an individual's personality, which negatively impacts upon his or her global functioning.
In order to meet the diagnosis, the individual must exhibit at least five of the following core signs:
· Frantic efforts to avoid real or perceived abandonment.
· A pattern of unstable and intense relationships, often characterised by extremes of idealisation or devaluation.
· A highly disturbed sense of identity and self-image.
· Impulsive and often self-damaging behaviour, i.e. substance abuse.
· Binge-eating or sexual promiscuity, recurrent self-mutilation or suicidal behaviour.
· Marked emotional instability.
· Chronic feelings of emptiness.
· Inappropriately intense anger or rage.
· Transient and usually stress-related paranoid ideation.
Onset usually occurs in adolescence or early adulthood and can be triggered by a severing of a key attachment. To onlookers, persons with BPD often appear to be volatile, chaotic and self-destructive.
Current research suggests that somewhere between 43 and 75 per cent of people with BPD engage in self-damaging acts and approximately eight per cent will commit suicide.
...sad eh ???
but get ya dub skank on and shake ya natty dreads anyway cos really what the fuck can you do about it...
...i mean chances are you got BPD as well, yet it still doesnt stop me from wanting to go there:)
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