Black Mental Health. Issue II
Why don't we discuss mental health in the Black community and where are our resources?
Gif by Rebecca Hendin.
In all honesty, this week has been a shit show. My depression came creeping back on me earlier this week, so I took refuge in my bed, turned my phone on “do not disturb",” found peace in marijuana, and kept a playlist of solemn songs on repeat. Out of all the years I have been working with my depression and anxiety, this may have been one of the worst weeks and I felt lost, stuck, and very alone. My mom sent me texts every day and checked on me each time she got home for work and, of course, I would shut her out and tell her, “I’m fine—Just tired.”
And now, after sending her a long text explaining why I wasn’t myself this week, and feeling, relatively, much better than last Monday, I’m incredibly grateful I have a mother (who, too, has mental health struggles) who can acknowledge and understand the way I feel and allow me to visit my therapist. For the many years, I have been coping with my anxiety and depression, my mother has always been caring, understanding, and offered me therapy; She exposed me at a young age to the world and importance of mental health and that, unfortunately, is not a common habit in the Black community. For example, my seventy-something-year-old great grandmother gives me the stink eye and turns her nose, saying “hm, there must be something wrong with you then. Have you prayed lately?” whenever I say I’m upset or not feeling my best. Or, my own cousins saying, “there you go on that white people shit” when I express my anxiety over something.
While the majority of my family still seems to have a skewed vision of mental health and it’s correlation to religion and/or whiteness, I’m thankful I have a mother who understands. Sadly, other young Black women are holding in decades worth of trauma, anxiety, and depression with no one in their family to talk to and no exposure to mental health and treatment.
We’ve had this conversation for years, the same way white people need to get real about racism, Black people need to get real about mental health because it is seriously affecting our community.
In 2016 and 2018, national data reported that Black children between the ages of five and eleven had the highest rate of death by suicide. From 2018 to 2012, 59% of Black youth died by suicide, a 5% increase since between the years 2003 and 2007 and in 2017, suicide was the second leading cause of death among Black teens and young adults between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four. Reports also stated that Black adults are 20% more likely to develop a mental health condition in their lifetime than their white counterparts. With rising rates among Black youth and adults, mental health and suicide in the Black community has become a growing health crisis.
Gif by Thomas Kastrati.
Not only are we dealing with the generational trauma and PTSD of slavery, racism, mass incarceration, police brutality, white people, and economic disadvantages, but also homophobia, transphobia, forced religion, hyper-masculinity, sexual assault (that we collectively won’t discuss,) and more. Honestly, the list goes on and we can’t even discuss a single negative factor contributing to our mental health before we hear the same glaze-over excuse, we’re not “praying hard enough,” we have the “devil in us,” or we’ve been “around white people too long.” Even when Kevin Early and Ronald Akers interviewed Black pastors, the pastors said that suicide is a “white thing” and Black people are “accustomed to struggling through life challenges without succumbing to suicide.”
And while this may be the philosophy of most of the Black community (especially, older, more devout Christians), it is not the philosophy of all. Black twitter has collectively used its platform to at least rile up small talk around mental health and suicide in the Black community. If you type in “black” and “mental health,” pages and pages of tweets come up with Black people expressing their concern with the lack of discussion around mental health and sharing positive effects of what happened when they took their mental health seriously and found effective coping mechanisms. Discussing mental health and finding coping skills make a difference and help not only, oneself, but their community. For example, in Philadelphia, Tasnim Sulaiman and Zakia Williams, two Black women, started Black Men Heal, a nonprofit free therapy service for men across the city. Sulaiman and Williams's goal was to create a service that overcame three major obstacles preventing Black mental health services and solutions: cost, stigma, and cultural competency. Their sessions showed these men how they were socially conditioned to wear a “masculinity mask” that added to the trauma, depression, and anxiety they were dealing with. And, in NBC series, This is Us, after a home break-in while his wife and daughters were asleep, Randall Pearson struggled to cope with his anxiety, suffering from sleepless nights and fear until he “broke.” Not only did the series cover Black mental health, but it helped normalize discussing mental health in the Black community and among Black men in a scene where Darnell asked Randall if he goes to therapy. “Randall was immediately opposed to the idea, but Darnell insisted, saying, ‘Look, bro, I get it. Us men of a certain shade, we're not used to talking. But that's therapy, right? Talking. It doesn't always have to be that deep. You can just talk about everyday stuff’.” Tweets flew in from Black twitter under the #ThisIsUs and #MentalHealth hashtag rejoicing in a show discussing mental health, especially Black male mental health and therapy.
Gif by Rebecca Hendin.
Black mental health is valid, important, and must be discussed.
Self help solutions for handling mental health:
Radical Acceptance
“Completely and totally accept [what is here] from the depths of your soul, with your heart and your mind.” Accept yourself and the things that come, then take the necessary steps to take care of yourself.
Deep Breathing
Use the five, three, seven technique for breathing when you feel your anxiety intense. This breathing technique sends a message to the brain that everything is, or will be, okay and you’ll begin to relax.
Breathe in for 5 seconds
Hold the breath for 3 seconds
Breathe out for 7 seconds
Opposite-to-Emotion Thinking
Act in the opposite way your emotions tell you to act. If you are upset and want to isolate yourself, surround yourself with people that lift your mood. If you are anxious, do something that calms your nerves and stabilizes your mood. (Please take into consideration when you think this tool will be useful and when it won’t.)
The Five Senses
When you feel your anxiety start to intensify, take a moment to breathe and observe the world around you using your five senses—sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. By doing this, it will calm your nerves and allow you to focus on the present and the real.
Mental Reframing
Reframing your emotion and/or stressor can change your perspective of your situation, helping you find a solution to your problem and coming to terms that this isn’t happening to you because you’re “you.”
Example: Instead of “Wow, my life is horrible. I’m going to be late because of this traffic. Why does this always happen to me?” say “This traffic is bad, but I’ll still get to where I’m going. There’s nothing I can do about it, so I’ll just listen to music or an audiobook to pass the time.”
Emotion Awareness
Validate and allow yourself to feel and live in the emotions you have. You can’t control everything. By allowing yourself to feel the way you’re feeling, it will open you up to finding solutions and your first decision won’t be to beat yourself up.
Resources:
Both organizations share information about what mental health and problems are, how they affect you, statistics relating to Black mental health, and ways and resources to find the provider/therapist for you.
“The Safe Place” is an app (available on iPhone and Android) heated toward Black mental health which shares statistics, inspirational quotes and self care tips, articles, videos, and podcasts as well as an open discussion board for members.
The organization shares a long and extensive list of resources to find Black focused mental health organizations, resources for Black women, Black college students, activist groups, and more.
Ebony magazine also shared a list of resources for Black people based on what state they live in.
Mental health hotline: 1-800-273-8255
Sending immense love, positivity, and peace to everyone.
What I’m reading: White Fragility | Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo discusses exactly what the title says: white fragility and the factors contributing to why white people won’t talk about their whiteness and who they’d be without it. “[Whiteness] is a category of identity that is most useful when its very existence is denied” (Forward, page ix).
On repeat: Good Life by Kanye ft T-Pain After not feeling the greatest this week, this song got me out of my slump as I danced in my mirror on Friday night trying to manifest prosperity and peace into my life.
Who’s caught my eye: Logan Sylve (IG: @lilblackgoat) is a Black artist who’s work features the feminine form and depictions of sexual acts between man and woman. The color palette and drawing style intriguing and brings me peace, I could scroll through their feed for hours on end.