Last week we observed World Mental Health Day. Many examples that people used to describe mental health appeared to be related to mental stress at work. If someone is given a task they do not think they can do and finish by the deadline, mental stress is the normal result. If they complain and the task is given to someone else, then the stress goes, but so does the opportunity to demonstrate innovative methods.
Mental stress may be a useful part of solving challenging problems. Its causes are known and its duration is temporary. It ends when the problem is solved – or taken away. It is not an illness.
Mental illness
We are told that the causes of some mental illnesses are unknown, like memory loss. I am convinced that some causes are unknown because we do not want to look for causes. We seem to prefer to let people get sick and then make careers out of: (i) fundraising, (ii) researching elusive cures, and (iii) managing institutions that keep mentally ill persons from associating with other people. I have good reasons for reaching these conclusions. One follows.
Losing my mind
I first noticed my mental decline at the start of 2022. It started with me forgetting things I needed to recall every month, then every week, then every day. It got to the point where I stuck notes on my mirror reminding me to do simple tasks at different times of the day.
I dreaded dementia. While I could still think for myself, I researched what I may have done to get it, and what I could do to get it to leave me. Was it the effort of doing a Doctorate in Engineering that permanently exhausted my brain? Was it how I slept that put too much pressure on my brain? Researching the subject did not yield any helpful information, so I accepted my fate and prepared to retire after my contracts were completed. The decline was becoming so rapid that I contemplated negotiating a room in Jenkins should I reach that state.
Heavy metals
On December 15, 2022, I read a US consumer reports article on the high levels of cadmium and lead in dark chocolate on the day it was published. For several years, I had been habitually eating dark chocolate every night before I went to bed. The reported cadmium level in the brand I normally ate was safe, but the lead level was about 1.7 times the maximum allowed in California.
High levels of these heavy metals were associated with memory loss and a host of other ailments. I stopped eating dark chocolate immediately. I also purchased the two brands of dark chocolate that I normally ate and took them to the Government Analytical Lab to have them tested for cadmium and lead. I received the results on January 13, 2023.
Eating poison
The Cadmium results were safe for one brand and slightly above the maximum allowed in California for the other. However, the lead levels were shocking. In one brand, the lead levels were five times the maximum safe level allowed in California; in the other brand, it was TEN TIMES THE MAXIMUM SAFE LEVEL. Why were these poisons being sold in Barbados as food?
I decided to monitor the effects of my abstention. After eating no dark chocolate for five months, my memory returned to about 90 per cent of what it was before I noticed the decline. I stopped putting notes on my mirror. I was also relieved that Jenkins would not soon be my home. One year later, my mind and memories were almost completely restored.
Based on my experience, I can confidently assert that it was the ridiculously unsafe concentrations of lead in the dark chocolate that were causing me to lose my mind. Tragically, the same brands continue to be sold in stores in Barbados to this day.
Grenville Phillips II is a Doctor of Engineering and a Chartered Structural Engineer. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com.
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