A young Cuban identified as Lia Benítez posted a heartbreaking video on Instagram in which she cries and denounces that her neighborhood has been without electricity for more than 35 hours, with only two or three hours of power every two days, describing it as an "inhumane situation and an abuse."
In the reel, recorded through tears and with visible exhaustion, the young woman describes being "in a state of extreme anxiety crisis" and feeling that her body and mind can no longer endure. "What is happening in this country is, I believe, the greatest psychological torture in history," she asserts with a trembling voice.
Benítez, who describes himself as the head of the family, with two university degrees and no family abroad, denounces that power outages prevent him from working and earning a living. "What's the point of having two university degrees if I can't work? I can't earn my salary, my money, I can't do anything at all," he says.
One of the most revealing moments of the testimony is when the young woman claims that Miguel Díaz-Canel visited San José de las Lajas and that, during his presence, circuits 6 and 8 in that area had electricity for over eight consecutive hours, while the rest of the territory remained without service.
When asking a government employee over the phone how it is possible for a circuit to stay on for so long despite general outages, the response is evasive: "inconveniences with circuits, rotations, and so on." The complaint directly points to a practice of masking the electricity supply for official visits from the regime.
The young woman also describes the extreme conditions of her daily life: she eats only one meal a day, has no regular sleep schedule, and has to climb up to the roof to get some internet connection. "Look at my dark circles; you can see where they are already. I'm a young person, and I feel like I'm aging more and more each day from the stress that's consuming me," she points out.
"The world must know that the young Cuban indeed has reasons to suffer from anxiety, both about his future and his mental health, in a country where even getting eight hours of sleep is a luxury," he wrote in the video description.
Her message to those watching from the outside was straightforward: "Thank God you do not live in communist misery, because being prepared does not help if you live in this country, where you have no way out, no escape, and no means to survive."
"They are stealing our dreams, they are stealing our jobs, I no longer know what they want from us. If they want us to go into the mountains and start a fire and learn to make fire, because that's the only thing we can do," concluded Benítez.
Benítez's testimony aligns with the fact that nearly 60% of the country's generating units are out of service, with a deficit that has exceeded 2,000 MW during peak hours against a demand of around 3,150 MW.
The impact on the mental health of Cubans is scientifically documented. A study published in May on the psychological impact of blackouts involving 415 Cuban adults found that 55.4% suffer from extremely severe depression, 66% from severe anxiety, and 65.8% from extreme stress, with young people being the most vulnerable group.
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