D-WORDSLAYER

A culture of misinformation I did not know what mental illness really was until I was close to twenty. Before, I thought mental illness was something which resulted from a deficiency at birth and was genetic. This thought scared me as I grew up knowing my mother, grand mother and great grandmother were ‘mad’, as we were told from a tender age. My mother was the first of five children and my grandmother was one of more than five, and my great grandmother was also from a large family. No one told us about mental illness or what caused it or why it happened. I simply thought it was an unfortunate curse on at least one member of the family, and prayed to never 'get it'!  Some of the 'folklore facts' I grew up with were;   If you kept your problems to yourself you would ‘overload’ and go crazy. If you fell too much in love you would go crazy. If you had too many bills you would go crazy. If you had no friends you would go crazy. If you were too ‘bright’ in s...

Donna Luisa ‏  @DLE41 More The ABC today.Recalling time when cussing not a language and unacceptable on radio..now the top ten songs identify with language of expression and free speech. With deeper meaning and raw truths.. #lifeChanges #theAisaword #Bisaword #Cisaword and #Fisaword The days of change are remembered. There was a time when buying an apple in Trinidad was 1TT$ and that was expensive, so we opted to eat mangoes which were free. No neighbour would consider selling a mango and we gladly ‘stoned’ the tree for the fruits to fall, the more agile opting to climb and sit on a branch eating while the others looked on in envy sometimes.   Enjoying the fruits meant sharing and giving any owner the right to say, ‘yes go ahead and pick what you want but leave a couple on the steps for me please.’ ‘Thank you’ was that natural response, manners were cultural and a part of our free expression. Today, an apple is 10TT$ and some mangoes are the same pr...

Culture & Religion Trinidad & Tobago is considered  a multi-cultural and multi-religious state.  I grew up with the understanding that we are not all the same but we are the same, and need to respect each other. As a child, I went to school with children of different races, religions and social status. We were all different shades of color, and different textures of hair. We all wore the same uniform, and combed our hair with two white ribbons ( a girl school). As children we played together and most importantly celebrated and learnt about each other’s religions. There was a religious instruction  class which shared on Christianity (Roman Catholicism), Islam, Hinduism, the three major religions in our society. There were other religions, like the Pentecostal / Evangelical, Orisha Baptists, Baha’i, which we were informed about based on the children in the class. The best thing about religious practices, as a child were the holidays. We were given a day off f...

A Child's Hair... The ideas for a writer can come from anything. Social issues are always inspirational for me. While some topics can be sensational and controversial, the need to express an opinion can unearth suppressed emotional baggage. Growing up I had a thick mane of long hair. It grew and grew and never seemed to stop. Living in the Caribbean meant it was quite hot and uncomfortable many times when my hair was open. The texture of my hair was soft , wavy and wild. The other children would laugh at me when they tried to plait it because there were no 'ends', and thus would not stay fixed without a rubber-band. It unraveled on its own, thus I was in the minority of girls at school with challenges in braided styles. The News... As I read an article about a school in the Bahamas suspending a girl from school because her hair was not chemically 'relaxed' to appear straight and tame, the child in me appeared. This can be socially controversial, as confor...

Reflecting female thoughts I'm quite fond of our male species - I have to be, having borne two wonderful sons and my daughter. Life happens and if you are privileged to be around children growing up, you learn a lot about yourself. I grew up in a home filled with females  and had ideas from relatives, family, and friends about the male humans.However, until my sons were birthed, its safe to say, I knew nothing about males. In getting to know and understand my sons , I learnt about me, and my value to them in their male haven. They think differently, and they should because they are wired differently. They are smart, protective, honorable and exasperating ( introducing me to Steve Harvey's Act Like a Lady think like a man!). They always had both parents- just separately for quite some time. We are parents first, single/ married second, and that's my philosophy, once children are involved! Like most women, I experience challenges  with how I see myself,my family -t...