‘I want to live up to what Dad could have ...’
Johnny Bentley-Cribb’s father died in Wellington Hospital’s mental health unit when Johnny was just 11. Now 18, he’s joined a youth collective fighting for mental health reform.
The memories are few and fading. Trips to the dairy. Eating junk food together. But Johnny Bentley-Cribb figures there’s one sure way to keep the memory of his dad alive. By trying to live the life he couldn’t.
After 14 years bouncing around the mental health system, 34-year-old Mario Cribb died in unexplained circumstances in 2017, while in the legal care of Wellington Hospital’s mental health unit.
“He had all this potential, he could have had an amazing, stellar life. He was one of the best rugby players in college. And then it was all taken away from him, essentially. Because the system is so s..., and because it’s so broken.
“I’m just trying to use what I have, to do what I can, because he didn’t get to.”
On Tuesday, at 12.30pm, Bentley-Cribb (Ngāti Kauwhata, Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga) will stand in front of parliament to call for mental health reform, as part of a rally by youth advocacy group Mental Health Matters Initiative.
From tragedy he wants to build transformation, from the mental health system he believes failed his dad, to the Coroners Court that took five years to investigate his death, and then gave the family no answers.
“That’s what grounds everything I do. I wouldn’t be here today if Dad didn’t die and if the whole injustice of that - of the inquest - hadn’t happened. Because that’s what really made me go ‘Wow, I need to do something about it’.”
Diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder at the age of 20, Cribb was admitted to mental health inpatient units 17 times in 13 years. Eventually, in 2016, he robbed a petrol station and landed in prison.
Having had art therapy, drug treatment programmes and psychologist visits in jail, he emerged a new man. But with minimal support transitioning back into the community, Cribb ended up high on cannabis and playing chicken with cars, one of which ran over his ankle.
He was admitted to Wellington Hospital’s mental health unit under the Mental Health Act. As well as treating his mental health, doctors gave him opiate pain medication codeine for the injury. A week later he was found dead, with fatal levels of pain drugs.
His family were left to believe his death was a suspected suicide, although that’s not how the coroner was treating it.
Then a pupil at Upper Hutt’s Fergusson Intermediate, Bentley-Cribb was too young to understand what had happened. He got grief counselling from his school counsellor, which morphed into coping strategies for anxiety.
And then he mostly forgot about the mental health system, until 2022, when the coroner finally investigated his father’s death.
“The inquest sparked everything up again. That was when I kind of realised that government institutions and government bodies try and do their best but ultimately, they fail a lot of people, and the mental health system is the example of that.”
While he wanted to speak up for reform he figured, “I’m one person, I can’t change the world”. But then he found out about Mental Health Matters Initiative, a youth collective founded by former Kāpiti College head of school Amy Skipper, in October 2022.
“We’re a bunch of 15-18-year-olds, trying to take on a massive, massive challenge... We’re essentially saying ‘Enough is enough. The youth are here and we care about mental health, and it’s been too long’.”
So what needs to change? Hanging around Bentley-Cribb’s neck is a pounamu pendant his whānau gave him for his 18th birthday. It includes elements representing different members of his family.
“That’s the number one place where we learn, and young people grow through. I don’t think in that space you’re taught how to love yourself, or how to be comfortable with yourself. You’re taught reading, writing, maths... But you also need that kind of holistic understanding of mental health, which isn’t provided, unless you’re fortunate like me.”
“I love it. I wear it all the time. It’s based off of Dad’s one - it was made of bone.”
To him, it’s a recognition that family empowers everything he does. It’s that kind of holistic approach that BentleyCribb believes is missing from the mental health system.
“The way that we treat and recognise mental health has failed. When I look at te ao Māori, for example, it’s almost in no way recognised in the mental health system. The idea of spirituality and mana isn’t seen when you go to a mental health practitioner, at least not in my experience.
“It’s often very pharmaceuticalised. It’s a whole lot easier to medicate people, as opposed to trying to reconnect them with te ao Māori, or their whānau, or whatever that may look like. And holistic solutions as opposed to medication - or institutionalisation even - in the case of Dad.”
Change starts with culture, BentleyCribb believes. Whether that’s politicians being allowed to show emotion in parliament, or an end to divisive talk about the rainbow community, who have high rates of suicide.
The pay, conditions and culture in the mental health system also need to improve, to make it an appealing place for young people to work, he says.
While there has been policy progress, not much seems to have changed on the ground, Bentley-Cribb says. In 2018, five people died by suicide while inpatients in mental health units, and another 10 died within a week of being discharged.
“I think that is a prime example of the mental health system failing... If I could wave the magic wand, I would make sure that people that are in mental health institutions, like Dad was, actually aren’t committing suicide. And aren’t able to.”
With an epidemic of mental health issues in young people, he’d like to see more work done in schools.
“That’s the number one place where we learn, and young people grow through. I don’t think in that space you’re taught how to love yourself, or how to be comfortable with yourself.
“You’re taught reading, writing, maths, and that’s all well and good, and you need that. But you also need that kind of holistic understanding of mental health, which isn’t provided, unless you’re fortunate like me.”
Bentley-Cribb found his sessions with school counsellor Ronda Bungay helped by giving him coping strategies for dealing with anxiety symptoms, without slapping a label on them. That’s something that could be implemented across schools, he believes.
He also wants reform of the Coroners Court. Every aspect of the process is confronting, from the courtroom setting, to the involvement of lawyers in what is supposed to be a fact-finding court. If government agencies really want to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi, they could hold inquests on marae, following tikanga, he says.
“I don’t think a courtroom can ever live up to that idea... I think the entire coroners system is broken.”
Because his whānau waited five years for an inquest, the memories of those involved in Cribb’s care were eroded. And then the coroner failed to even explain how he died. “I don’t think those questions will ever leave me, because of those findings. There was no answer, so I will live the rest of my life wondering what happened.”
Bentley-Cribb turned down a scholarship to go to university overseas and is instead studying law, politics and Māori studies at Auckland University. He reckons his Dad would be proud.
“He would probably say I’m going to be the prime minister one day... I want to live up to what Dad could have, if he wasn’t chucked in that system.
“Which I think will be hard, because I think he could have done a whole lot with his life.”