#YNF EP14 - Mental Health & The Black Community

Brittany addresses the need for more conversation & less stigma surrounding mental health in the Black community. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:12

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the year, not finished podcast. My name is Brittany Franklin and I am the hostess podcast. And I am excited to announced this week that this actually marks the 10 year anniversary of year not finished. Now you might be wondering how, since this podcast didn't start until last year, but the website along with the blogs and testimonies have actually been around since 2012, I've been on an office journey with year, not finished due to my own own mental health struggles, but I'm excited to move forward this year with more content, more resources and more information. While I'm excited to start season two of YN F we unfortunately have to start off the year by talking about a very serious issue, which in my opinion is still not properly dressed in the black community. And that is mental health and suicide prevention. Before I get started, I just wanna add a trigger warning here. I will be mentioning depression, anxiety, and suicide. So if those topics cause you any mental or emotional distress, please refrain from listening or listen with caution, even though over time, it seems that people have been more open about the topic of mental health in general, especially on social media. And in my opinion, Twitter seems to be the space that's most open. There's still evidence that shows that there is negative stigma surrounding the issue in churches and especially in communities of color. I've already shared my opinion about mental health and the church. So if you wanna check that out, make sure you listen to season one, episode four, but I wanna talk about how mental health is addressed in the black community, especially with this month being black history month. I, and with the realization that mental and emotional wellness is a huge part of our history. There are so many events in our history. We would not have been able to overcome or move forward from if we did not have the resilience to do so, but at the same time, we need to realize that that resilience in some ways has to negative stigma and hindered our emotional growth and wellbeing. This is because resilience in our community means pressing on when it might be wiser or more healthy to take a break from a situation or walk away from it. And that's, if we even have the ability to, depending on our socioeconomic status or living situation, resilience means in many cases, sacrificing our wellbeing to survive or perpetually live in survival mode. Why would we be in survival mode instead of living freely? Well, as I alluded to earlier, the thing that makes things more difficult to say the least is that people in the black community are arguably the black community at large has socioeconomic barriers that contribute to the mental health issues in our community, including unequal access to healthcare and higher rates of poverty. And according to mental health, America, black people experience direct traumatic stressors, including being heavily policed or being the victims of physical and verbal attacks. Indirect stressors that serve as a reminder of the oppression and injustice that we face and transmitted stressors, which include traumatic stress pass down from one generation to the next. Then you have the stigma and negative attitudes within the black community, especially, and historically within the church, again, check out season one, episode four for more on that. But some of the common attitudes in our community are that therapy is not for black people or that if you're depressed, it's because you aren't connected to God or praying enough, or if you're depressed or anxious, it's because you're not busy enough. You idle hands and you need some work to do to take your mind off of things. Or that therapy might be emasculating for men. For example, that goes without saying that those mindsets and those attitudes are completely wrong and completely serve as a hindrance to our community. And the only way that we can change of the general mindsets about therapy is to continue to have, and encourage open conversations with one another about why being mentally and emotionally healthy is just as important as being physically healthy, as well as having equal and open access to resources for better health conversations about mental health in a black community might happen every now and again. But I feel like it only tends to come up after celebrity deaths by suicide or high profile deaths by suicide are made public as evidenced in the recent tragic deaths of Regina King's son in Alexander, Jr, Maryland and mayor Kevin Ward and former miss USA and TV correspondent, Cheley Christ. That is when we take some time to treat it with a bit of urgency, but I just really hope and pray that we get to the point where we don't wait until someone dies in order to take our mental health seriously. And before I go any further, I just want to say my thoughts, prayers and condolences are with the family, friends and loved ones of all of those who tragically died by suicide. Recently, continuing with what I was talking about though, I really do feel like we spend too much time talking about the wrong things, for example, and to be honest, these, what do you bring to the table? Conversations seem to be meaningless or there's just too much emphasis on it, especially when people are out here dealing with unhealed traumatic experiences and just trying to survive. Does it matter what he or she brings to the table when they don't have the mental or emotional wellness to even work through and facilitate a healthy relationship with others or even themselves, they can have the entire old to bring to the table yet exhibit or be prone to unhealthy behaviors due to past traumas and issues. What if the person you're pursuing checks all the material boxes, but has symptoms of an undiagnosed mental illness or mood disorder and expresses no interest in getting help? I think we need to be having a different conversation at this point, or at least change up the conversation or have some kind of nuance to it. Especially as people of color who already have to deal with oppression, criticism, and hardship of different kinds. And in multiple settings, we have so many things in this life to deal with and we need support and assistance while tackling the issues that we face. And yet we are still among the least likely to seek therapy or counseling. I just want to hit you with a few statistics to kind of affirm what I'm saying. And again, this is from mental health America. They report that serious mental illness rose among all ages of black and African American people between 2008 and 2018. And in spite of that only about 25% of African Americans seek mental healthcare. As of 2019 research shows that only 4% of therapists are black or African American. And because of the lack of diversity in the American psychological association, some may worry that mental health care practitioners are not culturally competent enough to address their issues. Now I can address how the mental health field to practices are primarily influenced and occupied by Caucasian men and women on another episode. But I can confidently argue, especially for my own personal experience that this contributes to our community, not getting the help we need. I have intentionally sought out a of color from my therapy needs because of this. I'm sure there are others who may have an understanding of black culture and shout out to those who do, and from that understanding can provide a safe environment for healing. But for me, I just don't want that potential bias or lack of understanding in a counselor to influence anything or hinder my personal growth. If that makes sense, before I bring this to a close, I wanna take a minute to shout out those organizations that are putting in the work to provide mental health support and resources for the black community. There's a black, emotional and mental health collective also known as being they seek to remove the barriers that black people experience getting access to, or staying connected with emotional healthcare and healing. There is black men heal, which offers limited and selective free mental health service opportunities for black men. There is the black mental health Alliance, which you can call at area code(410) 338-2647. And they provide information and in resources, as well as the opportunity for you to find a therapist to connect with culturally competent mental health professionals, there is black mental wellness, and they provide access to evidence based information and resources about mental health and behavioral health topics. From a black perspective, they also have training opportunities for students and professionals. There's also the Boris Lawrence Henson foundation, which was founded by T Taraji P Henson. They actually launched a COVID 19 free virtual therapy support campaign in order to raise money for mental health resource provided by licensed clinicians. So for those who qualified or those who can apply on a first come first serve basis, you can actually get up to five individual therapy sessions for free. You also have therapy for black girls on their site. They have a list of mental health professionals that can provide services for you as well as they have a podcast and an online support community. Then there's also the Steve fund and they are an organization that supports mental health and emotional wellbeing of young people of color. And then finally you have unapologetically us and they are an online community for black women to seek support. There's also me here at you're not finished and just serving to be a mouthpiece for organizations such as this, as well as doing what I can and using what I have to sound off on mental health issue use. And there are resources, blogs, and testimonies on my website at www dot. You are not finish.com. These are amazing communities that are putting in the work. And I just want to say, thank you so much to them. I wanna offer my love and support to you and encourage you to keep fighting. But at the same time, even though we have these organizations, we need to be more open within our own communities, within our homes and outside of these spaces so that we can break away from the historical and generational mindsets and stigmas that hinder our healing and impact our future going forward. So in order to keep up with the format of the short episodes, I'm gonna go ahead and end things here, but I hope the information and insight I've provided today can help affirm your thoughts or change your mind about mental health within the black community, or even help you seek help on your own. I will be adding an additional episode this month of your not finish. So be on the lookout for that, but until then, if you need additional resources for mental health addiction and suicide prevention, head over to www dot year, not finished.com and click the get help section. If you wanna share your story or testimony as someone with a diagnosed mental health or mood disorder to be shared publicly or anonymously, a Y N F website, shoot me an email to you are not finished@gmail.com. That's Y O U R E N O T F I N I S H E D. gmail.com. Make sure to follow me a on Twitter at Y in finished and on Instagram at Y and F cast to stay up to date on the latest episodes and for encouraging content. Don't forget to rate the cast on apple or Facebook, if you love it. Thank you so much. And I appreciate you for listening. Hope you have a great day. Bye.