Mental Illness in Black America

           There was a forum last night speaking about black people and their experiences with mental illness.  Personally, it left something to be desired.  It basically had black people who suffer from various forms of mental illness come and speak on their experiences at Rhodes College.  This would have been helpful if there was more of an emphasis about self-care so one does not find themselves in an extremely debilitating state.  I did like how it gave validation to black people that do experience forms of mental illness.  In most African American households, mental illness is something that is ignored and forgotten.  Mental illness in itself is hard to pin down because it cannot be seen only experienced by the person affected.   Many of the shared stories involved at one point or another blatant ignorance to what mental illness is and how it should be treated.  From a dad saying “handle it” to one’s own struggle with believing that they have a problem.  The stigma around mental illness in the African American seems to be a very unwavering force in the battle to normalize self-care and seek psychological help.

           Although black people tend to actively ignore mental illness as a problem, it does not stop the disorder from affecting a majority of the demographic.  The forced ignorance is creating an upswing in serious psychological distress.  African Americans teens are more likely to attempt suicide than white teenagers (8.3% vs. 6.2%).  The stigma associated with mental illness was also found to hinder the research in the experiment because black people were less willing to talk about it.  Problems were also found to arise when it came to the psychiatrists treating black people for mental illness.  “Because less than 2 percent of American Psychological Association members are Black/African American, some may worry that mental health care practitioners are not culturally competent enough to treat their specific issues.  This is compounded by the fact that some Black/African American patients have reported experiencing racism and microaggression from therapists”.    During the talk last night, this was also a consistency found in many stories.  Another frightening statistic that is also consistent with an example Professor McKinney has mentioned with painkillers was that “In 2011, 54.3 percent of adult Black/African Americans with a major depressive episode received treatment, compared with 73.1 percent of adult white Americans”.  Since slavery, African Americans have been looked at as an unbreakable slab of stone instead of as a person.  So much so that black people portray those assumptions onto themselves as well.  Society forces black people be strong and unwavering because in most cases that mentality is necessary to succeed.  But this façade of steel can be more harm than good.   The idea of a strong black man or woman must be met with a sense of understanding instead of a chosen ignorance to their problems. 

http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/african-american-mental-health

WC: 474

Pledged by: Logan Griffin