Mental health in the Black community is such an unheard of thing. Black people pride themselves in keeping family business between the family and they usually, feel no need to inquire about help in terms of seeking therapy or just getting someone to listen.
For years, we’ve been outcasted and betrayed by people who don’t look like us, that I think it may be hard for us to trust anyone else who doesn’t look like us with our information.
We live in fear of being considered crazy, being considered weird, or just going against the norms. People believe that seeking therapy means you don’t believe in God, but even God wants you to gain clarity on your issue and allow it not to define you.
I have two family members who’ve dealt with depression, I myself dealt with depression. My first thought was to pray about it, but my second was to heal from it, to not let it overtake my body to be set free from my own mind.
Sometimes, we try and reason with ourselves as to why we can’t be considered crazy and why the way we think may just be temporary. However, childhood trauma is a real thing, witnessing abuse, bad treatment, and barely feeling loved is a trickle-down effect.
I know people still suffering from the way their parents loved them as a child, therefore in relationships they don’t know how to distinguish love from abuse.
Just because you are no longer a child, doesn’t mean that you still can’t hurt like one. For years, people will make Black people feel bad about suffering from mental illness and acting as if it doesn’t exist.
Kalief Browder tried to commit suicide 4 times while in Riker’s and no one gave him help, so when he came out of prison he was already out of his mind, and it only took two years for him to actually be successful at his last attempt.
We kill ourselves by being too prideful, by thinking that we’re exempt when it comes to pain and suffering, but we bleed just like the rest.
Black people fear being weak, because we’ve worked so hard to get to where we are. But how can we be strong, if we don’t talk about the issues making us weak. How can we build daughters and sons on the foundation of love and respect, if we have yet to channel our demons? We’re our worst critics, we’re our biggest downfall, it’s okay to seek help, it’s okay to get checked out for mental illness, I know this world has forced us to feel inferior, but who’s going to save us, if we don’t?