Too often in Caribbean mental health care, the default is over-medication and confinement—locking people away instead of unlocking their potential. But real healing requires more.
As a young Black teacher, I see myself as CIA analyst Carmen Medina fought to disrupt slow, outdated communication systems of the CIA – from once a day paper reporting to, using the internet to share information instantaneously to share lives her career teaches us we must challenge the default responses in system and become curious about better ways.
But all systems change to power and status, and the more I show up, the more I realized I had not much of either. But I believe it is possible to Make Change Happen. MCH
In Caribbean mental health care, medication and confinement are often the first and only answers I see the power of shifting from quick fixes to purposeful presence.
However, neither of those was going to be the only solution for my mother. I mean she is a mother, not a perfect mother, in most instances not a good mother, but a mother and in almost all instances the status of ‘mother’ is holy.
So my mother, Angela, isn’t just surviving on pills—she’s reclaiming herself through mangoes, sensory fruit bowls, and daily soft hikes in the forest.
She may not read well, but her body is fluent: climbing rocks, mastering movement, solving the landscape like a mathematician works an equation.
Her kinesthetic wisdom is her freedom.
Each walk, each slice of fruit, each laugh is therapy in motion—rebuilding skills, restoring dignity, and reconnecting to joy. Food becomes medicine. The forest becomes a classroom. We don’t have luxury interventions, but we have love, patience, and the courage to engage, not just sedate or confine.
Let’s disrupt the system. Let’s build care that listens, supports, and empowers. Because every story—every small, fruit-shaped miracle and every step on the trail—matters. 
#MentalHealthRevolution #CaribbeanCare #BreakTheDefault #HolisticHealing #FoodAsMedicine #MovementIsMedicine #AngelaStory #NeurodivergentJoy #SensoryHealing #MCH #Micheleina
