Originally published October 2021 in Flyy Girl Zone Magazine updated June 2024
The conversation involving mental health has increased over the years, but the stigmas surrounding mental illness have yet to decrease. More so, the stigmas among Black people in the community have had a debilitating effect on personal and collective progress. I suspect the causes go deeper than what anyone is ready to talk about, but a lack of knowledge about mental illness is the main culprit. As a woman who has been diagnosed with a mental illness, I earned a Master of Science in Psychology to understand what was going on with me. I want to help you understand mental illness, as well. Let’s start by defining mental illness.
Unlike popular belief, mental illness doesn’t qualify someone as being crazy—BaeBee, you got to be doing a whole lot of somethin’ somethin’ to be certified crazy. Mental illness is a “condition” that affects the “emotions,” “thinking,” and “behavior” of an individual, and it is more common than you think. According to the American Psychiatric Association, “one and five (19%) of adults experience mental illness.” That means, you or someone in your family, your neighbor, co-worker, professor, or doctor has been diagnosed or is experiencing some form of mental illness right now. Unfortunately, because of stigmas, many people are too ashamed to seek help, which only makes things worse.
The causal factors of and responses to mental illness are unique to Black people universally, but upon entering my doctoral program, I focused my research on Blacks living in America. I suspect we—humans—have always had issues with mental health. However, issues in mental health for Black Americans worsened with the dehumanization process of slavery. Blacks are and have always been spiritual people, but our enslaved ancestors were stripped of their spiritual identity and practices. Our freedom didn’t come with emancipation, and the mental effects of slavery still exist in Black people today.
Mental illness in Black America is “characterized” by “trauma,” “violence,” and “oppression.” Black men are targeted by police and diagnosed with learning disabilities starting at an early age. Black women face intersectional oppression—race, gender, and class—and hyper-sexualization that deemed enslaved Black women as sexual objects. (And we ain’t finna get into the intra-intersectionality that we adopt and display on ourselves, at least not here anyway.) Racism is a silent contributor to mental illness because it is something our ancestors struggled to survive with. By understanding the survival methods of our ancestors, we can learn how they contributed to how we handle mental illness.
For starters, our ancestors weren’t free to think about their mental health. They couldn’t afford to take a break to rejuvenate or practice self-care. Today, mental illness is translated as weakness, and we are expected to push on, pray, and keep silent about the things we go through. The difference between our ancestors and us is they didn’t have a choice, and we choose to ignore the symptoms and block each other from healing. Not to mention, our history with the healthcare system hasn’t been a walk in the park (see note 1 below). Simply put, we do not trust healthcare professionals with our bodies, and surely not with our minds.
Our first step towards mental health is acknowledging there is a problem going on with us or our loved ones. If you or your loved one feels sad, hopeless, suicidal, depressed, moody, etc., it is the body's response to stress, and a signal to begin the healing process. Second, we must learn our history and not the history they dish out to us in the educational system. We must learn who our ancestors were and how they practiced spirituality, which was their self-care. Third, we must do a deeper investigation of what happened to our ancestors during slavery. By doing so, we learn some of the emotional, spiritual, and mental responses to stress that we inherited from them. But, most importantly, we must give ourselves space to do so without the input of anyone else.
While I must leave it at that for now, I hope you return in November when I go a bit deeper into mental illness and how it affects the Black Community.
Note 1: Make sure you read Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington and Acres of Skin by Allen M. Hornblum. These books will give you a better perspective on how the medical industry used Blacks and the underprivileged as guinea pigs for medical research, and why many people do not trust healthcare workers. (If you decide to purchase, I would greatly appreciate you using my affiliate links so I can get credit for it. Thanks in advance and let me know how you liked the books.)
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