Black and Crazy

I am a mixed raced woman, just for clarification. I have a Black Caribbean mother and a White European father.

Something I noticed growing up was the way that black families deal with mental health and disordered behaviour.

As a mixed raced girl in school, it was fairly easy for me to make friends with people of lots of different ethnicities (though, in the UK, it's unusual not to form mixed heritage friendship groups), but it was this experience that make me notice that People of Colour don't consider mental health as a legitimate health issue.

At first, I thought that maybe it was just the communities that I grew up in but the more I asked others and looked into it, the more I realised that People of Colour have this idea taught to them from a young age and it becomes ingrained in their ideology to the point of denial.

My Uncle's Alcoholism

My first experience of this phenomena was my uncle's alcoholism. He was always drinking, from as far back as I can remember and this was the cause of the decay of all his relationships. When he was drunk, he had a bad memory, he ignored all of his responsibilities and drank his savings away. He was rude and inconsiderate and everyone kind of ignored it until he couldn't take care of himself anymore. Eventually, my auntie divorced him and the family basically ignored him until his granddaughter was born.

Knowing my uncle well enough, I feel as though his alcoholism was very deeply rooted in some form of bipolar disorder, a condition that actually runs in my family pretty strongly. But it was something that no one wanted to deal with or acknowledge, thinking that it was something that he could just get over, something that he choose to have.

Had they have tried to help him, using even the knowledge we had of mental health back in the 80s and 90s, it could have been possible to help him. He's still alive, mind you, the possibility is still there, but his immediate family has already separated out, living around the world with no willingness to help him.

But they was such a stigma attached to the idea that no one wanted to admit it. No one wanted to try.

My Sister's Dyslexia Doesn't Count as a Disability

I think the remnants of this show in the way my mother speaks about mental illness. My sisters and I have a variety of different mental health disorders but my older sister is the main focus for this particular anecdote. My mother says regularly that my sister relies too much on her diagnosis to help her through things and that she could do lots of things if she put her mind to it.

One of those things is to do with writing and reading. They both have dyslexia, but my mother's is mild and my sister's is incredibly severe. I have to help her with lots of things that involve writing and reading; filling out application and forms, writing out reports, doing essays, etc. It can take her a year to read one book, even if she really enjoys it.

Her dyslexia hinders her severely and I have no problem with that, I find it easy to read and write so I've never minded helping her out. But our mother does completely ignore this fact when I say it.

Just recently, my sister applied for Disability Allowance from the government in order to help with paying for her university course that she's starting. It was justified as she is very much disabled by her dyslexia and the extra money is helpful in giving her more time to finish her degree (even Open University is expensive) but my mother wasn't having any of it. She explicitly said at one point that nothing that my sister suffered with was a disability and that she would never be able to get disability allowance.

Unfortunately enough for my mother, my sister did qualify.

But the idea was so ingrained in her mind that mental illness and learning difficulties were not illnesses that she immediately dismissed the idea.

I suffer from Major Depressive Disorder, Generalised and Social Anxiety Disorder, mild Agoraphobia and I used to have Panic Disorder.

These are disorders that make living daily life incredibly difficult and sometimes I physically cannot take care of myself or do basic tasks on my own.

I took a long time for my mum to accept that this was a part of my life and had been for some time. It took months for her to accept that I'd been put on medication by my doctor at the request of the student services department at my University and that I had been put under the care of the Crisis Prevention Team for a semester during my 2nd year of Uni because they were afraid I was going to kill myself.

If anything, she was more disappointed that it might have been her fault. My mother is an educated woman, she has more qualifications than I can count, she is constantly learning, but her upbringing is so deeply ingrained that she can't imagine that I wouldn't feel the same way that she does.

Depression Is Cause = Effect and No More

She, herself, suffers from depression which is also mild, but she chooses not to take medication. She believes that all depression has a root cause and that you cannot be depressed if you have no reason to.

This is a flawed school of thought, because it implies that depression is a side-effect of experience rather than a condition all on its own. It implies that only those that have a reason to be depressed can be depressed which is simply not the case.

Depression is a condition that can be caused by small, traumatic events in childhood, periods of grief or the loss of a loved one, dealing with other chronic illnesses and conditions, and even genetic inheritance.

To say that depression can only be experienced by someone that has something to be sad about is absurd but it seems to be the only way for some people to accept it.

My depression is both caused by a childhood of being bullied for the traits and talents that I prided myself on, the constant pressure to be the best and a side-effect of my Generalised Anxiety Disorder.

This school of thought has been drilled into people for generations, leading to lots of people suffering and nothing being done to help them.

Learning Difficulties and Autism Are Fake Too

I actually taught a set of siblings, a brother and sister, that were the children of immigrants from Pakistan. The brother, who was a year younger, was incredibly slow academically, found it difficult to write and hold conversations as well as difficulties with annunciation and general social cues.

The school had even suggested for his parents to get him tested for some form of learning difficulties or autism but they refused.

It's sad really, because having a diagnosis like that could really help him get the support he needs and excel in school but his parents choose to dismiss the idea.

This happens a lot amongst People of Colour, they refuse help and treatment because the idea of mental health issues is considered not just taboo but non-existent or attention-seeking rather than just another health problem.

Desi families do actively ignore things like mental health and learning difficulties, putting the symptoms do to failings of the person rather than conditions that could be treated.

So why does this happen?

Racism. Mostly.

A history of negative stereotypes and discriminatory treatment by authority figures that control education, health, social, and economic resources has lead to an ingrained sense of doubt and mistrust in the services provided. People of Colour have been stigmatised by western governments for centuries and the fear of trusting governmental authority has held firm for fear that they could use these conditions and diagnoses against them for discriminatory purposes.

Despite laws being placed in order to stop the older, segregated ways (at least in the UK) many minorities still hold these ideas strongly, that by showing weakness, you allow for people to discriminate against you.

People of Colour spend a lot of time having to navigate through situations that are affected by race. The idea of having a mental illness to navigate those situations with just gives any other party a bigger arsenal.

Can something be done to help?

Even with the perpetuation of these stigmas and ignorant schools of thought, the tide is currently shifting. The percentage of People of Colour that are being diagnosed and treated for mental illnesses and learning difficulties is slowing increasing, along with the amount of People of Colour working in mental health, psychology, and behaviour therapies. 16% of African-Americans in the US had a diagnosed mental illness in the past year and more and more people are being treated for these mental illnesses.

I think realistically, we're not going to change everyone's mind overnight, the same as any major belief or ideals but I think that by educating people slowly and, most importantly, why they're young and more easily convinced, we can carry this trend to it's maximum (where everyone with a mental health disorder can get treatment without fear of discrimination or prejudice).

I also think that therapists, psychologists, and other mental health workers have a hand in this too. In order to make these services more accessible to minorities, we need to start treating minorities with the respect and courtesy they deserve, as human beings with cultural and racial backgrounds, and not as people with mental illness and backgrounds that you can ignore and outright belittle. Consider other's backgrounds and culture while treating them because race and culture has a big effect on our lives and our minds. Every human has a history and not all of our history exist without discrimination.

Overall though, I think that we are heading in the right direction, even if it's going to take some time. If we encourage people of our own races and colour to invade all these areas, then maybe we could create some feelings of comfort for others while being treated. Diversity is the key.

Further Reading:

Why African Americans Avoid Psychotherapy

How Therapists Drive Away Minority Clients

African Americans have limited access to mental and behavioral health care