Black Women and Mental Health: What’s the Story?

I was 16 years old. A sophomore in high school. Cheerleader. Student Council president. Girls’ League member. Show choir dancer/singer. Track athlete. A/B student. Daughter. Sister. Girlfriend. Friend. Yet on ‘this’ day, I was simply a young Black girl sitting in the school stairwell rocking back and forth. Catatonic actually. Speaking nothing to no one.??

After multiple attempts to engage me in conversation, one of the student counselors called my parents. They came to the school. Seeing their faces was the first time I acknowledged another human being that morning, after what seemed like hours on those stairs (it was not really; only a couple of hours max, maybe).??

What commenced after were random repeats of this behavior…usually when life just got to be too much for me. I was never sent to a doctor to have this behavior assessed. We just managed through it. We did not discuss it. No one talked about it. We did not know what to talk about.??

It was not until I became an adult many years later that I understood I had mental health issues. And those issues needed addressed by a professional. Just ‘pushing through’ was not enough as life’s normal challenges compounded.??

How many people can relate to this scenario? Especially those of us in the Black community? We experience situations or circumstances that nobody ever talks about. We just accept them as-is. Are we embarrassed? Afraid? Concerned? How many stigmas have we – as a community – brushed under the rug as a part of our systematic avoidance mechanism? Especially when it comes to mental health issues.??

The Statistics?

As an article at Psych Central put it, Black women have a high risk for major depressive disorder (MDD) due to such factors as racial and gender discrimination, poverty, and single parenting.?

The same Psych Central article notes that more than 4% of Black people express symptoms of depression, compared with 3% of white people. The article also reports that “just 7.6 percent of African-Americans sought treatment for depression compared to 13.6 percent of the general population.”?

Johns Hopkins Medicine offers further context: Women are twice as likely as men to suffer from depressive episodes, but only half as likely to seek treatment for them.?

Stigma and Perception?

According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, many Black women have a difficult time overcoming cultural beliefs that only “weak” people need counseling or antidepressant intervention and that admitting to symptoms of mental illness means a person is “crazy.” The National Council for Behavioral Health summarizes this unique stigma.?

Another reason Black women are reluctant to seek the treatment they need is that they are often so busy caring for other people, including their children or elderly parents, that they simply do not have time to care for themselves. (Black Mental Health: Statistics, Resources and Services | Wake Forest University (wfu.edu))?

Another big problem is lack of research into Black people’s mental health concerns: An oft-quoted study from 2000 shows that African Americans seeking treatment are less likely to be offered evidence-based medication, therapy, or psychotherapy. (Black Women Are Facing an Overwhelming Mental Health Crisis (prevention.com)). This becomes an easy way out for many people: ‘Oh, you cannot find me the right medicine/doctor/therapy? It’s all good. I’ll be fine.” We brush it off. We move on. We survive…like we always do. It is the ‘Strong Black Woman’ Syndrome.?

Strong Black Woman Syndrome?

The idea of putting an “S” on your chest and declaring yourself a superheroine has its upside. Recent research shows that there’s power in Strong Black Woman Syndrome that helps Black women deal with the racial discrimination we face. But there is a negative impact on our health and well-being as we push ourselves too hard and put others’ needs before our own. “If you have a machine running all the time and it never turns off, it burns out,” explains Williams. “Strong Black Woman Syndrome makes us terrible at self-care.” (Black Women Are Facing an Overwhelming Mental Health Crisis (prevention.com)).??

Normalizing the Message?

Black women, collectively, breathed a sigh of relief when the former first lady, Michelle Obama, spoke about having a low level of depression during the first few months of the pandemic. By revealing something that many women, especially Black women, have difficulty sharing, she made talking about mood more acceptable. She also validated what many other women were experiencing. Now that Mrs. Obama and several other high-profile women have discussed their struggles with depression, it is imperative that we continue with the necessary work to change the narrative for women of color who are now ready to talk about mental health and pursue treatment. (The State of Mental Health of Black Women: Clinical Considerations (psychiatrictimes.com))??

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Additional Resources:??

Mental Health Among African American Women | Johns Hopkins Medicine?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/career/black-women-are-leaving-the-united-states-in-record-numbersheres-why/ar-AAUgM6a?

https://adaa.org/learn-from-us/from-the-experts/blog-posts/consumer/be-female-anxious-and-black??