The State of Health for Indigenous Australians

Recently I came across a survey that said that the rate of hospitalization of indigenous people in Australia is quite higher than the non-indigenous counterparts. Once again there are more number of indigenous people who can suffer from cancer than the non-indigeneous (Kilian & Williamson, 2018). All these made me ponder me about the poor state of health concerning the indigenous people. I would not say that I had many indigenous friends. However, there was this one girl with whom I felt that I have a connection. She was Sivanna Amandyo, my wonderful indigenous friend who taught me about the values of friendship, unity and respect for diversity. She was studying in St. Marina’s high school in grade XII, and was highly fond of physics and biology. However, I had no idea that what was awaiting at Grandma Martha’s house is graver than I ever imagined!

This time when I visited grandma Martha’s house in Queensland for Christmas I was customarily staring out of the window hoping to catch a glimpse of Sivanna, the lively and feisty indigenous girl. She and her family has been a neighbour of Grandma Martha’s for the past three years and over the period, we bonded well due to our shared interests in animal photography. I still remember how much fascinated she would become seeing a platypus emerge out of water and budging towards the worms to satiate its lunch! As I was reminiscing about our bonding, Grandma Martha came from behind and told me “Sivanna is no more!” I was startled by this revelation and before I could volley further questions, she told me that Sivanna has committed suicide in the beginning of March 2018. She was undergoing severe depression and her mother, Mrs Amandyo, did not know about her declining mental health. 

Born in 25^th December 1988 in Perth, Sivanna Amandyo was an average student in school as she found it difficult to cope with the demanding schedule especially in a language and ambience that was foreign to her. She could not understand the accent being spoken by the teachers at school. In classroom, she hardly found friends with whom she could feel at home. There was always emptiness, a void that was haunting her, leaving her gloomy and pushing her to extreme isolation. During lunch break, she would sit quietly in one corner and sob helplessly. Most of her classmates did not bother to enquire her about her well-being. Some of the girls in her class would offer her to play with them but Sivanna always rejected.

The Suicide of Sivanna Amandyo

Sivanna was close to grandma Martha and on one such occasion, on persistent coaxing she blurted her heart out. She felt lonely, out of place and could not adjust to the school environment. To deal with depression she took refuge to alcohol. Even drugs were found underneath the bed. In the light of the suicide tragedy, it also came into the picture that Sivanna’s mother also had symptoms of depression. Her mother, Mrs. Smith was a single parent and she had to rear Sivanna all by her own. Sivanna’s father was a victim of substance abuse and under the intoxicated state, he would often perpetrate violence on her mother. Witnessing such gross violence unfolding in front of her eyes made Sivanna all the more pessimistic.

Alienation at school, pangs of dealing with an abusive father, witnessing a troubled marriage, separation from the homeland, lack of a genuine friend to bare her heart and the everyday negotiations of an aboriginal woman had shrouded her life with the pall of depression. Mrs Smith in her own struggle to earn the bread of the family, found it difficult to find time to spend time with her daughter. She later came to know that her father’s alcoholic nature is a way of respite from the everyday racism that he had to encounter upon in his workplace. According to the Australian Bureau of statistics (2012) anxiety and depression among the indigenous is directly proportional to racial discrimination. 

Sivanna was also subjected to body-shaming. This was another incident about which she did not articulate much clearly except for penning down in her diary. Once she told grandma that her only true best friend was her pink diary. It was known, that she had feelings for Charles, the prototypical white Australian boy. Charles was good at sports and was courteous with everyone around him. Many other women at her class liked him and so as Sivanna. One day when Sivanna decided to pull up courage and hinted to him about her feelings, she felt that she should not have ever been that vocal. Charles along with few of his friends left no stones unturned to bully her. She was body-shamed, called an “Ape” for her distinct features. She was questioned on her audacity to love an Australian boy! This made her introspect  about her identity. She continuously asked herself what it meant to be an Australian. Is she not an Australian? What is her identity?

Factors Contributing to Indigenous Mental Health

Mrs Amandyo has always told her that Australia is her home and should take pride in her national identity. However, Mrs Amandyo always told her to retain her individuality. There was no shame in embracing who she was and holding on to her roots. However, her school experience especially the Charles incident left her feeling repulsed not about others but herself. She felt a sense of disgust towards herself and her being. She felt that had she been like any other white girl Charles would have accepted her. 

Mrs Amandyo is yet to cope with Sivanna’s suicide! She held herself culpable for not being able to provide enough time for her daughter. She feels that it is her negligence that pushed Sivanna to choose suicide over survival. For Sivanna, this was an escape from the grimness of being an indigenous girl in a dominant non-indigenous white colonial society. It also made her contemplative about the series of mental health tragedy that she had to witness in her community due to their dispossession from land, loss of identity, the persistent feeling of an outsider and lack of means to deal with this mental health wreckage. Her eyes became moist with tears as she pondered on her savings from the meagre income she made through department store job, to finance Sivanna’s higher education. All these now have no value to amother who has lost her eighteen-year old daughter to the whirlpool of structural murder, which is not new to her community. The members of her community have come to accept that as indigenous people, depression and mental health issues are part of being born an indigenous.

The mental health of the indigenous can be attributed to a melange of factors. It has been found that loss of culture causes grief. This is because of the history of invasion that has made them extremely traumatized. Indigenous people have a history of violent persecution by the white colonial settlers. The white government was known for separating indigenous children from their parents with the motive of resocializing them to accommodate in the dominant white culture (Gair et al., 2015). This resocialization was followed by incorporating this children as modern day slaves and domestic servants in white households. They were referred to as the stolen generation and the Australian government in 2008 also launched a National Sorry Day to apologize for the grave sins committed by their predecessors.

This deep mental health condition has implications on the overall health of the person ( Brown et al., 2016) Trauma has a severe effect on an individual and is reported to be passed onto the next generation (Williamson et al., 2014). Indigenous people also suffer more than their non-indigenous counterparts and therefore, they are continuously suffering from some form of illness or the other. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2015) and The Australian Bureau Statistics (2012) have twice the chance of undergoing psychological distress. Indigenous people were more likely to be reported to binge drinking which is 42 per cent and substance abuse, which is 28 per cent (Kilian & Williamson, 2018). 

The Link Between Racism and Depression

Indigenous community in Australia experience a sense of disempowerment. In addition, not belonging anywhere leaves a profound effect on the metal health of the indigenous people. It is argued, that there is a correlation between racism and the feeling of depression (Hinton et al., 2015). Racism and depression go parallel as envisaged by Ferdinand, Kelaher and Paradies (2014). Individuals who have experienced racism have been shown to have depressive symptoms. The trauma that soars up within generations can have profound can be potentially damaging for the emotional, mental and spiritual illness of a person (Brown, 2016). The 2014-15 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social Survey found that 33 per cent aboriginal people in the age group of 15 years suffer from high level of psychological problems. It is said that this was twice the level reported compared to other Australians. It was also found that 60 per cent of the aboriginals are prey to mental health conditions (Mannan, 2015). It was reported that 30 per cent felt a sense of homelessness and third were victims of racial jokes, name-calling and ignorance during accessing service. Statistics demonstrate aboriginal people are 26 times more likely to develop dementia between the age of 45 and 59 years.

Abuse is an issue that demands immediate attention instead of pushing it in the far corner. In terms of abuse, Australia has a long way to go in order to combat race-based discrimination (Indigenous reconciliation in Australia: still a bridge too far?, 2018).

Conclusion

The biography of Sivanna Amandyo encapsulates the nexus between colonization, racism, white supremacy, patriarchy and dysfunctional family impinging on the mental health of a person. In a society, where the dominant mainstream culture is the epicentre, it is the minority who are made to feel like an outsider. This feeling of being not belonging anywhere leads to a person feeling anxious, incomplete and depressed. The project of assimilation does not occur in a smooth flow but it comes with a heavy cost. It is found that the onus always lies with the minority to modify, adjust and adapt to the majoritarian culture without realizing this leads to severe mental damage for the individual. Discriminatory behaviour meted out to the aboriginals also contributes to their bad mental health. Indigenous women are said to be mote stressed compared to aboriginal men. During the course of clinical treatment, addressing the psychological illness is not enough. Instead, there is a need to take into account the prolonged period white colonization that has invaded Australia. 

References 

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Kelaher, M. A. (2014). Experiencing racism in health care: the mental health impacts for Victorian Aboriginal communities. Education, 55(56), 8-3. doi: 10.5694/mja13.10503.

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