Throughout her professional life Coretta Moore was accustomed to receiving commendations for her performance, until her later years as a bank employee when she was forced into a position she was ill-equipped for and which ultimately led to her collapse into a severe state of depression.
Now at 39, Moore, a mother of two, is still recovering; there are bad days and she still struggles to sleep and at times depends on Valium to get some needed rest. Her illness meant that she had to leave the high-pressure job, which she said saw her going to work early in the morning and leaving late at night. She is now evaluating how she spends her time and what is most important.
It was on Old Year’s Night of 2019 that Moore said she had a mental breakdown but she had known for months that something was wrong, even though she was fearful of admitting she was having issues.
“It was midnight on Old Years night 2019 when there were all the fire crackers and so on. Like it triggered me and I just started screaming and I told my husband I wanted to kill myself…,” Moore told Stabroek Weekend in an interview.
Since then she has been working on getting better and while she said she is still not “100 per cent” she chose to share her story as she believes many people are having mental problems but are too scared to accept it. She believes as well that many allow their work to consume them, scarcely finding time to take care of their health.
Moore described herself as multitalented, as apart from working in the banking sector and Supreme Court, she is also an artist, a painter, and most recently she has written two books, one of which is in the process of being published. But her mental health journey has been the most difficult and has seen her attempting to take her own life on many occasions. She has also suffered side effects from the medication she was placed on.
“While I was in massive depression I tried to kill myself in every possible way. I don’t know why when you are depressed you try to kill yourself but I don’t believe I really wanted to die, I just wanted the illness to end. And reading up on the side effects of some of the medication I was given I noticed that they were responsible for suicidal thoughts,” she said.
Two promotions
Moore shared that she worked in a supervisory position at one of the major commercial banks in Guyana and within six months she received two promotions.
She said that prior to moving to that bank she worked at the Supreme Court and at another bank, but she had left the latter job when she became pregnant.
After several years, she became employed at the last bank where she said she was “doing extremely well. In my career at the bank everybody loved me and my reputation was that I was always hard working.”
It was after she was moved to another branch in the city, Moore said, that things grew a bit testy for her. She shared that she had observed two tellers not following protocols and as their supervisor she spoke to them, but they continued. She later brought it up with the branch’s manager who promised to, but did not address the issue.
Fearing that she would be held responsible for any wrongdoing in the department, Moore said, she wrote to the bank’s management and this triggered an investigation and audit. She is unclear of what disciplinary actions were taken but noted that her branch manager was unhappy with the direction she took, as he felt she had brought the branch into disrepute by complaining to higher management. This, along with the fact that some of her staff, who she previously had very good relationships with and had assisted with lunch and transportation fare, wrote to management complaining about her, saw her being transferred.
Moore said she was given a position that she knew nothing about and was only given a day of training, which was highly inadequate.
She believes she was given that position to fail, as even though she complained and asked not to be given the position as she knew she could not perform to the best of her ability, no one listened.
“When they put me there from the time I saw my mandate I wrote to them and told them that this would destroy my future. It was a two-page mandate and it was just too much… It was a
department of almost a hundred staff and I panicked because I knew I could not do it. My lunch sometimes was at 7 pm and I would go home until 11 pm,” Moore said.
She approached the human resources department and was told by the assistant human resource manager that “maybe God put me there to test me”.
She was assigned a staff member to assist her for one day but after that no other help was received and she felt as if she was speaking to the deaf as no one in management took her complaints seriously.
“I complained to the manager of my branch and the manager who set my mandate about how heavy my job was because I was not getting to eat and sleep and I was falling sick… I started to fall into depression because I was not sleeping; all the staff would approach me one time asking for assistance. I had to run a programme that saw me opening the system and closing the programme, it was just too much,” the woman shared.
“I didn’t know it then, but all of that made me fall into a massive depression. I wasn’t eating. I was overworked…,” she said sadly.
Moore said in the new position she was consumed by fear of failure as she was accustomed to performing above and beyond, but the work was just too much and “inside of me I had this fear of failure. I used to panic”.
She believes that she was taken advantage of and recalled that everyone called upon her to assist with the new system and this created more confusion. She also alleged that there were serious glitches in the new system which saw money disappearing when placed into accounts.
“The system used to malfunction and nobody was doing anything about it… It was just too much,” she added.
Collapsed
And so it was that on Old Year’s night Moore collapsed.
She recalled screaming as the fireworks went off and telling her husband that she wanted to kill herself.
Moore praised the local mental health system. She recalled that it was around 2 am on the day after New Year ’s Day when her husband called the mental health hotline on the advice of a friend and by 7 am they were ready to receive her.
“They worked with me. They really tried but by then I think I was too far gone because I was not talking and nothing anyone was saying was reaching me. Sometimes I would just sit there and stare and they had to transfer me to the Georgetown Hospital psychiatric department and that is where I met Dr Bhiro Harry,” Moore said.
She also lauded the initial treatment she received by Dr Harry, who, she said, recognised her from the bank.
It was in April of last year, Moore said, that she finally started to get better but then came COVID-19 and this created more problems for her as she could no longer see her doctors in person.
But then she was using medication which she believes she may have not used correctly and went into a manic/bipolar state. She also developed what she described as, “nine month belly”.
She revealed, “One day I just collapsed on the floor and I was angry…because I told the doctor on WhatsApp that I believed the medication was doing me something but he would just encourage me to continue to use it.”
She had to be rushed to a private hospital where she was seen and treated by three doctors. The medication was flushed out of her system.
“Some of the anti-psychotic drugs caused me to want to kill myself,” Moore shared candidly.
“I did not have control over myself and actions. It was as if something was controlling me. I was fed-up of the depression; it was like my brain could not take it anymore.”
Show love
Moore called on Guyanese to show people love and not judge them when they are facing a mental health crisis. She said that were it not for the support of her husband, children and other family members, friends, and church members she would not have been able to overcome that period.
During her depression, Moore said, she was not always down. She made it her duty to get up and find something meaningful to do. She has been working on her walk-in-closet, she has assisted in painting the cupboards in the family’s newly built house and she has written a fitness book and another on herself titled, Just Believe. The latter is in the process of being published.
She and her husband also own Future Star Investment Construction Company, and she hopes to manage it once she gets better.
She resigned officially from the bank last November, even though she had not set foot in it since 2019.
Moore also occupies her time by listening to others who might be going through difficulties and assisting some older persons by taking them to the doctor if they have no one to accompany them.
“I want to share my story to empower people. I actually regret trying to kill myself and I want people to stay strong and not give up. I am not 100 percent back yet but I am not giving up,” she said.
The toll-free mental health hotline is 655-safe (655–7233).
If you or someone you know is having thoughts of committing suicide, you can seek help from the Inter-Agency Suicide Prevention Helpline through the following:
Telephone: 223-0818, 223-0009 and 223-0001
Mobile: 600-7896 or 623-4444
Email: guyagency@yahoo.com
Twitter: @guyanaagency
Whatsapp: 600-7896 or 623-4444
Facebook: Guyana Inter-agency Suicide Prevention Helpline
