Talking about grief is not only thinking about the moment of pain when someone close dies, but also the fact of losing something every day. Such a situation is what Venezuelans and, in particular, the people in Táchra State experience today when they see that every day they lose their basic services such as water, electricity, telephone and internet connection, despite the fact that their prices constantly increase disproportionately.
By Anggy Polanco / Correspondent lapatilla.com
Some merchants are losing merchandise or sales for the day, industries are stopped, and that generates anxiety and frustration when they see that they invest capital to survive, but that they cannot recover it, a fact that generates an emotional impact.
This is explained by Tachira psychologist, Oriana Miranda, who explained that cases of stress, depression, anxiety and grief have skyrocketed in the region.
“Venezuelans lose something every day and at all times with these events like lack of water and/or electricity for almost 72 hours or several full days (…). That is where the grief comes,” she emphasized.
A palpable example is what the inhabitants of the Torbes Municipality experience. Just a few minutes away from the capital of Tachira, where they suffer up to 12 continuous hours without electricity daily and there are also failures in the drinking water system.
Aurelina Luna Pulido, who lives in Vega de Aza – Torondoy, said that it is difficult for her children to do school activities, because much of the research must be done online.
“It’s chaos, because you see that they turn off the light (electrical power) for four hours, turn it on for a while, and come back and turn it off. Without power we cannot charge the phones or turn on the computers,” the mother complained.
Psychological impact
In addition to the irregularity of the electrical energy supply, there are still people with emotional problems as a result of the pandemic, and who for two years have been experiencing anxiety and grief due to the loss of family members or the migration of their loved ones.
This generates frustration and chronic stress in the people of Tachira, in western Venezuela, which is why the rate of people who are going to therapy has increased 400%, which means that about half of the Venezuelan population is needing to go to psychological consultations, said the consulted specialist.
“In Venezuela, mental health is not taken as an important concern,” highlighted the psychologist, which is why many people stagnate and fail to move forward.
Many Tachirans are suffering from insomnia, because they live in constant anxiety, said the therapist, while others lock themselves up in a cycle of denial.
“We must realize that in these types of situations, we should not adapt, although we must understand the events and change to a different routine so that this does not affect us,” she commented.
Miranda even pointed out that the deterioration of mental health experienced by the people of Tachira due to the failure in public services could trigger cases of schizophrenia, due to environmental and social stressors such as: “today my power went out, my power went out, I have no water to bathe, no food, no sanitation. This, of course, can generate a mental disorder.”
Affected children
Specialist Oriana Miranda pointed out that 1 in 10 Venezuelans are going to psychological sessions, but the greatest focus is on children and adolescents, since in this digital age, during the long hours without an internet connection, they become severely stressed.
The Tachira psychologist Félix Patiño highlighted that the exhaustion suffered by the inhabitants of this region is caused by the fact that mental health is being disrupted with episodes of anxiety and depression, which prevents progress towards other steps of Maslow’s pyramid of needs. The first step represents the essential needs of human beings, and includes water, electricity and the internet. Therefore, if a person does not advance in their basic needs, they remain stuck on the first step.
For Patiño, the issue of mental health of the inhabitants of Táchira is worrying, since the psychological apparatus may be adversely affected and decline due to constantly being faced with the lack of public services.
“Depression and anxiety are mostly prevalent, and we can say that for any age in the Tachira population,” he highlighted.