Minorities and mental health
While conversations and attitudes around mental health and mental illness have made strides in wider society, ethnic minority communities continue to lag behind
I recently took my mother-in-law and partner to lunch along with my son. While my son was being playful with his food, my mother-in-law jokingly recalled a story of my partner’s childhood when she had been playing with her breakfast and taking too long to eat. This was an act that was met with disapproval from her parents. They considered her actions to be tardy and not in line with their signature rushing. It was also, inexplicably, seen as an act of wrongdoing.
Consequently, she was punished. Indeed, this story was among similar tales from my partner’s youth that continue to be regaled with nostalgia as amusing memories. Only for my partner, it wasn’t a joke. It was a recollection of trauma that in today’s lens would be considered abuse.
Thankfully, my in-laws would no longer validate such actions and as grandparents, they are unrecognisable as the parents my partner experienced growing up.
For many minorities, our childhoods are littered with incidents like these. Events and cultural norms that we recall well into adulthood and have shaped a PTSD that is often not addressed. In many cases, they have provided a fertile ground for damaged mental health and toxic attitudes that we have embraced — until the awareness that they need to be unlearned. That epiphany can be gradual with personal growth. Critically, it can also come via a crisis in our mental health.
The generation gap with a cultural double down
Millennials onwards have arguably shown the most progress in acknowledging our collective mental health, and mental illness, shouldn’t be ignored. Meanwhile, prior generations typically lag far behind. Many baby boomers will disregard conversations around mental health as “being soft” or making excuses for why one “can’t just get on with it,” instead of whining about being sad.
For minorities, many of those attitudes are still entrenched in our communities and culture. For our elders especially, our conversations around mental health have barely moved on from where they were in our childhood.
The derogatory notion of being “sick in di head” still exists in West Indian communities in reference to anyone who might be suffering with their mental health. Similarly, the term “parrow” (derived from paranoia) is the ultimate term in gaslighting. Yet the pushback on vernacular and sentiments like this has been weak in contrast to their enduring nature. And the conversations around addressing this are even quieter.
For many minorities, it’s a cultural norm and considered ‘banter’ to play on one’s insecurities. Nicknames will be given, with total disregard for one’s self esteem, and accepted without question. If you’re overweight or slimmer than someone feels you should be, someone will likely give you a name to reflect that. Imagine hearing that as an insecure adolescent, perhaps struggling with your weight, and what it would do to your mental health. Especially for that name to stick for many years.
Similarly, Jamaicans will label someone with severe acne as “yu face like bumpy collision” and laughed off at the expense of one’s self esteem under the guise of cultural banter. Many teens and adults would have felt a crippling anxiety at family functions, just knowing it was only a matter of time until their insecurities were played upon with an audience. In many minority communities, shaming and embarrassing someone for not being in a relationship or for not having children has become normalised as a feature of any wedding or family gathering.
Younger generations are increasingly gaining the awareness to unlearn some of the toxicity peddled by elders (and indeed some of our less-enlightened peers). However, whether it be through deference for those who came before us, or an enduring narrow-mindedness, the ignorance and sensitivity around mental health within minority communities has sadly prevailed.
The necessary push back against our elders and their ignorance may appear out of step with the high esteem usually reserved for them. Yet the alternative is we perpetuate the narrative or harmful, insensitive and offensive tropes as being part and parcel of the culture.
Preserving our culture within the diaspora needn’t mean holding onto cultural norms that we desperately need to unlearn and let go of. To do so simply reinforces our cultural toxic traits. It leaves our elders, and those who provide a conduit for their rhetoric, unchecked.
The bastion of ignorance
Much of the fault lies at the feet of our elders. Ignorance and being wrong and strong has fortified their stance. Meanwhile, many see it as part of the culture. In our diasporas especially, what they fail to see is how they have weaponised these cultural norms against us.
It’s beyond toxic that triggering and deeply insensitive phrases have been internalised and normalised in our communities. But the conversations around addressing that appear silent. It’s rare that an elder will be called out for making an inappropriate comment that will trigger someone. When they are, it’s often taken as disrespectful and amplified above correcting one’s behaviour.
The inability to articulate and reason has been a flaw that has underpinned this. The misinterpretation of questioning as disrespect has been an export along with our respective diasporas. Meanwhile, it has stunted our capacity for emotional intelligence and growth within our communities.
The norm of being beaten as a child (which is different to being smacked) as a tool of discipline has also played a role. I’m not going to pontificate about it always being possible to reason with children. Nor will I pass any judgement on smacking as a legal choice (in the UK) for parents. Although when your only recourse for perceived misbehaviour is to beat a child, what opportunity is there for either party to articulate and navigate their frustration or annoyance?
What does it suggest when a beating replaces dialogue and is the first port of call for meeting a child’s inappropriate behaviour or poor choices? And what is the consequence that has on one’s ability to articulate themselves and their emotions?
Toxic nostalgia
So often, trauma is celebrated and romanticised through a lens of cultural nostalgia in our communities. From childhood neglect to flagrant disregard for our emotions and wellbeing growing up, these tales are regaled as whimsical stories. The storytellers and their audience of family and friends, and even the subjects of said experiences, will punctuate these tales with a laughter that depicts them without the trauma that they understandably represent.
Until we’re able to no longer conflate all that happened in our childhood with rosy memories, we won’t be able to move past this. Nor will we be able to compartmentalise trauma as distinct from fond memories. That in turn skews our perspective in being able to create necessary boundaries that support our mental health from childhood into adulthood.
Our collective awareness of how to protect our mental health has undoubtedly improved in recent years. While there is some way to go in many sections of society, necessary conversations, empathy and sensitivity have begun to come to the fore. We now need the same to happen in minority communities, and with the necessary humility from those who have remained gatekeepers of such enduring trauma.
