BIPOC Mental Health Awareness Month: A Reflection

By Makenna and Ajia

July is BIPOC Mental Health Month (also known as Minority Mental Health Awareness Month), a month dedicated to acknowledging the unique ways that the mental health of people of color is challenged in the U.S. and beyond. As creators of two platforms that prioritize the wellness of Black women, Makenna (@whatwewater) and Ajia (@gardenofintention) offer a reflection on mental health awareness both personally and on a communal level. 

With this reflection we hope to expand this conversation beyond the month of July, and always with the intention of destigmatizing mental health issues and nurturing ourselves, and our own, from the inside out. 

Makenna:

When we talk about mental health and conversely, mental “illness,” especially as it exists within Black communities, we are talking about the thing that makes it hard for us to speak openly about our struggles. Black Americans have long endured external, visible “ills,” in great part due to the trauma of being dehumanized and ostracized for all of American history. When it comes to our invisible traumas, though, our invisible afflictions, we continue to struggle with being transparent and with asking for help.

It has been the tradition of Black women–as individuals with multiple oppressed identities–to hide the parts of us that might be taken for weakness. We see this reproduced in images like the “Strong Black Woman” stereotype, which many of us have come to know as the most acceptable way to present ourselves. No fear, no crying, no weakness–they already think less of us.

In 2024, we know these stereotypes to be damaging and hurtful, causing Black women to shrink inside themselves in times of difficulty rather than reaching out for support. We find them to be destructive and one-dimensional, forcing us into a box that makes others comfortable and denying our needs in the process. And we won’t have it.

Earlier this year, I was diagnosed with premenstrual dysphoric disorder, described as a severe extension of premenstrual syndrome. Naming what I was experiencing was only half the battle, as figuring out how it could be managed alongside a previously diagnosed anxiety disorder was an additional challenge. I’ve always prided myself on being open about my mental health with friends and family, and sometimes in my writing. Rather than fearing my diagnoses, I was quick to turn to books and vetted internet resources that I believed could help me better understand myself. As for treatment, I took a deep dive into the world of “holistic medicine.”  

To me, holistic health involved upping the ante of my wellness routine: more yoga, more meditation, more routine cardio, healthier eating habits, herbal supplements. As this year went on, I felt frustrated with my progress, or lack thereof. I wasn’t feeling or managing PMDD any better, despite the lifestyle changes I was making. Something was missing, and I was reluctant to acknowledge what it was. 

 It’s not uncommon for people struggling with their mental health to be prescribed an SSRI, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. More than 1 in 10 Americans take antidepressants, such as Prozac, Lexapro, or Zoloft. Even so, in comparison to their white counterparts, Black Americans are less likely to use antidepressants, likely due to stigma within the community and the fact that health care providers often overlook Black suffering.

When it comes to my own mental health treatment, I was very reluctant to try SSRIs. I was insistent on only using natural, holistic remedies, a stubbornness that in part comes from my cultural upbringing. If there is a natural way to address an illness or pain, Black people are going to use it. To this day my grandfather believes he can treat anything–hearing loss, diabetes, even cancer–with an herb. To his credit, herbs and other natural remedies can be very effective medicines. However, and I learned this the hard way, sometimes it’s just not enough.

In a way, asking for and receiving an SSRI prescription felt like admitting defeat. I needed more than I could offer myself, and as a Black woman, that felt like weakness. But I had exhausted my self-help strategies, and I needed relief.

I worked hard to get over my own reluctance and attachment to the idea that my healing needed to be linear. The earthy, au-naturale, body-attuned, self-healer aesthetic that many Black women embody so beautifully was not going to save me. I needed to free myself of this fixation on internal strength that so many of us have come to adopt, whether we mean to do so. And did, and it was the best decision I could have made for myself this year. 

From this experience I’ve learned that our avenues to health and wellness over the course of our lives are as likely to change as is our personal growth and development. Even when we think we’ve defeated our biases, our misconceptions, there is always another chance to change perspective. Another way to liberate ourselves from self-destruction, to liberate ourselves from the narratives that our oppressors impose upon us. We don’t always need to be “strong,” and strength has no single definition. This BIPOC mental health awareness month, I reflect on my own expansion, my own ability to delimit, destigmatize, and detach. 

Ajia:

The sun had just risen, and I woke up frantically–my phone was dead. I hope I didn’t miss a meeting. This morning felt weird; it was too silent, but not nearly tranquil. I fell asleep on the couch the night before, so I chalked it up to that. After plugging my phone up I saw two missed calls from my dad and a text that read “911 911.” He’s never up this early. I called back. Once he said “baby, I have some bad news,” I knew somebody died and moments later found out it was my Grandaddy. 

Like many Black girls, I began feeling the weight of Black womanhood at an early age. As many of the women in my family would say, “you just gotta push through it, girl!” Now at twenty-six years old, I often reflect on this notion and what it means for the mental well-being of Black women who have also been brought up in this way. That somehow, it was normal to constantly be pushing through our emotions instead of allowing ourselves to sit in and feel them. That somehow our emotions were some sort of infliction or inconvenience meant to get over quickly. When I began interacting with grief, in all its various forms, for once in my lifetime I was unable to simply push through. Grief debilitated me and forced me to be still in the most uncomfortable ways, yet there I was lacking the tools to navigate what felt like the worst moments in my life. 

For the Black woman in America, grief has been inherently embedded within our existence. Those of us who descended from slavery unfortunately experience the residue of intergenerational trauma passed down from our ancestors. This means grief is always compounding and expands far beyond just the death of loved ones. Historically, and currently, we inevitably experience the collective grief associated with the dismantling of our families due to slavery which we temporarily recognize as the Prison Industrial Complex. We experience the grief associated with the loss of our dreams and aspirations due to gendered and racial violence that pushes us to exist in a constant state of “survival mode.” We experience the loss of our identities when we grow up and realize that our intersectional identities lend us not to fit neatly into labels.

Grief not only requires us to be still, but it calls for us to honor this stillness. The notion of “pushing through” and “getting over” our pain does not coexist with grief–and this made me angry. Grief made me feel a loss of control I have never felt before; this was not something I could move past quickly. Grief felt unmoving. Day by day, it would never shrink. Having to mentally accept something I could not emotionally fathom accepting further fueled my anger. Since life would not allow me to bow to the stillness required for me to be okay, it was easier for me to be angry than to confront my overwhelming sadness. 

For most of this year, I have been in constant motion with traveling, working, and just avoiding stillness because I knew it meant I’d have to truly sit with how I’m feeling. I have been outside, okay?!  Maybe if I go to this concert, this party, this new city, it will somehow lift this heaviness off me. Disguised as self-care, I was doing what I have seen my mother, grandmother, and aunties do my whole life–continuing with life even when their bodies are crying to be still. 

While this season has been marked by the passing of my Grandaddy, I came to realize that he was not the only source of my grief. There were so many other things I was grieving: the loss of romantic and platonic relationships, the loss of community due to moving from state to state, the loss of fixed ideas I had about how I would live my life, and more. Navigating these feelings has led me to lean deeply into perspective shifting and growing around my grief. Allowing grief to transform me as opposed to seeking to return “back to normal” after experiencing it really held me during this period. The loss of relationships meant creating space for me to connect deeper to myself and those who align more with me. Moving to another state created space for me to curate new experiences. Shedding fixed ideas about how I saw my life allowed me to surrender to all the possibilities life could have for me. 

Grief in many ways is an honor to experience. It is an extension of the love we felt before experiencing loss, even when it does not feel that way. It is an experience of deep transformation and causes us to integrate these lessons into our everyday lives, not run from them. We will never fully recover after experiencing grief, and we should not expect to. This BIPOC mental health awareness month, I want Black women who experience the compounding effects of grief and loss to know that our journey to being mentally and emotionally well has no end goal, it is an ever-evolving practice. It is okay to embrace wherever you are in your mental health journey and give yourself grace throughout the process.

My hope is that through this reflection, you see how you too can decolonize your process of grieving. In no way is this process meant to feel light or easy, but it requires you to be tender and gentle with yourself. We, as Black women, were not placed here to merely push through. Giving ourselves permission to be vulnerable is where we find portals to our own liberation.