Mental Health Month May 2023
Look Around, Look Within
By Barrington H.
Brennen, May 3, 2023
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May
is mental health month worldwide. In the
United States of America, the theme for this
month (2023) is “Look Around, Look Within.” The
goal is to challenge yourself to examine
your world and how it can affect your
overall health. Look around, look within –
from your neighborhood, streets, parks,
homes, and businesses, and notice how the
environment affects your mental health.
This theme is most appropriate for The
Bahamas.
Far too many of our streets and
neighborhoods are filthy. Can your physical
environment impact your mental health?
Yes, it can and does influence crime,
mental and physical, and family
relationships. It is not difficult to
imagine how conditions in a neighborhood
could affect health. For example, research
indicates that poorer neighborhoods
generally have more crime, dirty streets and
home environments, and an abundance of
fast-food outlets. It is my view that if
everyone keeps his or her personal space
clean and attractive, the nation’s mental
health will be better, and crime will be
greatly reduced.
In most countries, areas with the most
street trash and dirty home environments are
the poorer areas. This is not so in The
Bahamas. Even middle-income areas can be
dirty and filthy. Many would have their
yards sparkling clean, but just across the
street would be an abundance of debris and
trash oftentimes placed there by the
neighbors themselves.
In my article “Stop and Pick Up the Trash” I
wrote:
“There are messages I am getting
from people who refuse to pick up
trash in their surroundings. The
messages are: “I am too good to bend
down to pick up trash.” “That is
not my job. That is the job of the
cleaners or lower-class people.”
“I did not put that there so why
should I pick it up?” It is my view
that people dressed in sophisticated
clothing and who live in middle to
upper-class communities but refuse
to pick up trash at entrances of
banks or on floors as they walk
around in their businesses, are
just as bad as the people they look
down upon in poor communities who
leave mounds of trash in front of
their properties. The only
difference is the size of the
mound. They are both nasty. In
other words, we have cultivated
nastiness and uncultivated
nastiness. They are both nasty.”
It is my view that the dirty environment is
impacting the mental health of our nation.
It is impacting depression and facilitating
a laissez-faire attitude academically,
emotionally, and cognitively. In the
article “Neighborhood Characteristics and
Depression” writer Carolyn E. Cutrona
states:
“Neighborhoods
with poor-quality housing, few
resources, and unsafe conditions
impose stress, which can lead to
depression. The stress imposed by
adverse neighborhoods increases
depression above and beyond the
effects of the individual's own
personal stressors, such as poverty
and negative events within the
family or workplace.” My only
challenge with this research is that
in The Bahamas, on the island of New
Providence, areas with quality
housing and well-paved streets, also
have mounds of trash, running rats,
and overgrown yards. How is this
impacting mental health in those
areas?
A good example of this is one of the world’s
most famous streets, Bay Street, from East
Street going East. Next door is the House
of Assembly, beautifully decorated Rawson
Square, and stores with hundreds of millions
of dollars inventory, but just East of that,
on the same street, the buildings are
deplorable and dirty. I often wonder how
parliamentarians could for decades, sit in
their meticulously clean chambers and ignore
the filth just hundreds of feet away. Wake
up parliamentarians! “Look around. Look
Within.” Your indolence is actually
impacting the mental health of our nation.
When a serious crime happens, the police are
called. Flashing lights, loud sirens, and
bullet-proof vest rush to the scene. But
there are no sirens for dirty streets and
dilapidated buildings. Even further, there
are no sirens for depression, violent anger,
emotional stress, and other mental illnesses
perhaps pushed along by our lack of cleanliness.
We need to stop and look around then look
within. We need to sound the sirens of
change.
Each week this month I will be writing on
this theme—“Look Around, Look Within.” I
will be writing about different aspects of
our environment, lifestyle, and behavior,
that can impact mental health. It is clear
to me that far too many people are not aware
of the link between one’s environment and
mental health. The environment can be the
home, school, neighborhood, workplace,
church, family, friends, or country.
I encourage everyone during the month of May
to make sure to look around and look within.
The health of our nation depends on it.
Barrington H. Brennen is a marriage and
family therapist. Send your questions or
comments to
question@soencouragement.org or call
242-327-1980 or visit
www.soencouragement.org
