“We must bring the issue of mental illness out into the sunlight, out of the shadow, out of the closet, deal with it, treat people, have centers where people can get the necessary help.”

—John Lewis

I will always remember sitting with my late Aunt C when I was a little girl, talking about anything and everything. Sometimes, instead of talking, we’d listen to music, usually her favorite R&B artists, like Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross and the Supremes, and Jerry Butler.    She loved to dance. With her long hair in two pigtails pulled up to crown her oval face, her flowered caftan around her tiny frame flowing as if a gentle breeze followed her everywhere, she floated across the floor, often pulling me up to dance with her. We’d laugh like two tittering schoolgirls even though she was years older than me.

Aunt C was my mother’s youngest sibling and my favorite aunt. She was a joy to be around. Her free spirit was contagious, but beneath it, a deep sadness haunted her throughout her life. A gloominess hovered over her, even when her loud laughter filled the room. Aunt C suffered from a mental illness—depression.

There were times as a child I noticed Aunt C grow eerily quiet, sometimes when we were in the middle of a lively conversation. Often, she’d stare out of the window,fidgeting nervously with the Newport cigarette in her hand. She began drinking heavily. It became difficult for my grandmother, who had health problems herself, to take care of her. Aunt C would sometimes hallucinate or fall out from drinking so much. Her behavior became more and more erratic.

One summer, during visits to my grandmother’s home, where Aunt C also lived, a family meeting was called to decide what could be done to help her. Aunt C had fallen asleep in a back bedroom, which my grandmother was thankful for because she had been trying to keep her from leaving the house, entertaining her and distracting her with stories and jokes and, of course, food. My grandmother, who was a praying woman, was very worried. Aunt C was her youngest child, still her baby girl. She’d already lost her eldest son in a drowning accident while he was enlisted in the navy. I knew she would do anything to save Aunt C.

After much discussion with other family members, she made the heart-wrenching decision that it would be best for Aunt C to be admitted to a psychiatric ward for observation. Aunt C ended up staying for a month or so, but it seemed like an eternity to me.

Watching while my Aunt C was taken from my grandmother’s home and put into a hospital van was one of the hardest things I had to deal with as a child. It was like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie, and I had many sleepless nights because I imagined the worst. I thought I would never see her again, even as everyone reassured me that she would be fine, that she was getting help.

It was only when my mother was able to sneak me in to see Aunt C at the hospital, when she brought her toiletries, a new robe, and a bunch of Harlequin Romance paperbacks to read, that I seemed to breath normally again, releasing the natural rhythm of my breaths that had been absent since she went away.

When Aunt C finally came home, it felt like Christmas and my birthday all rolled into one: a complete celebration. But Aunt C was different after her hospital stay, lethargic from the myriad of medications she had been prescribed for her depression. I watched helplessly, studied her for signs of my old Aunt C, desperately wanting her back.

As I grew older and entered my tween years, Aunt C was still taking multiple medications for her depression. She never talked about what had pushed her into a dark abyss, but I found out what may have caused it bit by bit, through conversations with my mother.

Aunt C had experienced heartbreaking loss for most of her young life. Her father, a war veteran, died when she was just a baby, so she never felt a father’s abiding love for his little girl. Aunt C also lost her only child, a baby boy, to crib death, which truly broke her. Then she lost her husband to divorce, the death of their child unraveling their marriage. Years later, when Aunt C was ready to start fresh and give love another chance, her new love was killed in a tragic car accident. The weight of it all was too much for her to bear.

Aunt C stopped going to family events or celebrations because she was depressed, and because the bevy of medications made her doze off wherever she was. She hated how the medications made her feel like she was living outside her body. When loved ones voiced concerns about her being on so many medications, she defensively took the side of her psychologist and doctor, reminding everyone that they were the experts.

As an adult, I prayed for the day when the hurt in Aunt C’s heart would be healed, and her spirit would no longer be lanced and pricked from all that had happened to her in the past. I prayed for the day when she wouldn’t need all of the medications she was taking to feel human, so she could live with more purpose and bliss…and dance again.

Regrettably, that day never came. Aunt C died in her sleep at the young age of 54. I can’t help but think that the emotional agony she carried and that she kept bottled up for so many years, coupled with the many medications she was taking, contributed to her untimely death.

Aunt C was never the face of what I thought mental illness looked like. She didn’t fit my perceived profile. I thought that mental illness looked like the characters I saw in the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with Jack Nicholson. It was one of the movies we watched together.

But mental illness has no set look. It doesn’t discriminate. It isn’t biased. However, sometimes the treatment for those who suffer from mental illness is biased. Sometimes treatment isn’t at its optimum for people of color, poor people, and women, like my Aunt C.

After Aunt C died, I began to reflect on her life frequently. Lately, with all that is going on in this world due to the pandemic and racism, I’ve thought about her life and mental health even more. This has been a time when we’re having frequent in-depth dialogues concerning mental health because so many of us are suffering, many in silence, as my Aunt C did for most of her life until she was forced to get treatment.

As I process my own pain and sadness, at times—mainly due to self-esteem issues I had as a Black girl and young adult—although it is less paralyzing than my Aunt C’s pain, traces of it still reappear. I never sought mental health counseling because of the stigma involved, but even if I did, I wonder about the disparity in the care I would have received years after my Aunt C received treatment.

I think about Aunt C’s mental health care and wish we had better advocated for her, or forced the hand of her doctors to formulate a program of care for her that didn’t just use medications to silence her cries, her grief that had been rising from her gut into her throat slowly over so many years. She needed more than multiple prescriptions and a terse goodbye.

In an article on the National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI) website it states: one in three Black or African American adults who need mental health care receive it, and African Americans are less likely to receive guideline-consistent care, less frequently included in research, and ​more likely to use emergency rooms or primary care (rather than mental health specialists).¹

The article also discusses some of the barriers to receiving adequate mental health care. Socioeconomic factors can make treatment options less available. According to NAMI, the fact that 11.5% of Black adults in the U.S. had no form of health insurance in 2018 indicates that receiving any type of healthcare is a challenge for more than one in ten Black Americans.

In regards to provider bias and inequality of care, NAMI states that “African Americans have been, and continue to be, negatively affected by prejudice and discrimination in the health care system. Conscious or unconscious bias from providers and lack of cultural competence can result in misdiagnosis, inadequate treatment and mistrust of mental health professionals. These disparities can create a distrust in mental health professionals, which can prevent many from seeking or continuing treatment.”

 

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During my Aunt C’s lifetime, mental health treatment for Black women, and Black people overall, was far worse than it is today. However, the American health system is still not at a level it should be for people of color, those who are poor, or those with little or no health insurance. This has to end. This can’t be the narrative that continues for those who suffer from mental health challenges, like my Aunt C did. This is why she has been foremost in my thoughts of late. If she were alive today, I would write a letter to her on pretty pastel paper because I remember her telling me she loved receiving letters. She was old fashioned and wouldn’t be a fan of keeping in touch through social media.

Dear Aunt C, I would write,

I love you. I’m sorry for the pain you were in because of all the great losses you suffered. You carried a huge emotional weight on your shoulders and it broke you. You were like fractured glass shards, but even during those times you were fractured, I want you to know that you were still my awesome, fun-loving aunt, and I loved you. I didn’t need to see you laugh or dance or smile to know how wonderful you were. Although at times I was scared, it was only because I was scared I would lose you. Nothing you did could have changed how I felt about you, Aunt C.

I only wish you had shared your feelings with others no matter how raw they were. I wish when I became an adult and shared my scars with you, you would have told me about your scars and the importance of not just letting them scab over, that you must cleanse them first. Just like you were with me, I would have been nonjudgmental and extra loving. Besides, it would have helped me chart my own path in a healthier way, when my own dark clouds loomed overhead.

I would have told you that there was nothing shameful about depression or having received psychiatric care or outpatient mental health therapy. Therapy, consistent therapy with the right therapist or psychologist along with medication (not overmedication) if need be, is crucial to mental health healing and recovery.“I would have told you to join a support group. You needed to be around other people who weren’t reluctant to discuss their mental health issues, and how it impacted their lives. You needed to be in the company of brave people who were unapologetic about having a mental illness and were unyielding about hammering away at the stigma and shame associated with it, specifically people of color. I would have been your most passionate supporter. I would have taken you to and from meetings. And I would have been your health advocate if you were unsatisfied with your current mental health care, reminding you that you didn’t have to settle or compromise when it came to medical care for your emotional or physical well-being. I would make sure your doctor saw you, and not just the color of your skin. And he or she heard your voice.

Aunt C, I would have encouraged you to get out of the house for a daily walk too. Arm in arm, we would have covered the cement and green turfs of New York City. It’s a known fact that exercise boosts those feel-good chemicals called endorphins, lowers anxiety, and boosts your mood.

Aunt C, I never want anyone else to feel they have to maneuver through a mental health condition in isolation or carry the weight you once did. I know others who are struggling with depression. I have extended my listening ears, my heart, my hands, and my knowledge of mental health resources to them, and will continue to do so whether through a phone call, a text message, or a face-to-face conversation over a good meal at my kitchen table. There is no set way or place for mental health advocacy to begin. It just has to begin. This is the legacy you left me: to begin.

In closing, Aunt C, I’m sorry that your story was muted, overmedicated. I’m sorry you felt you had to tuck it away in the back of the closet like dirty laundry. Having a mental illness such as depression never defined your core. It was only a part of your tapestry, a part of your unique design, but it never took away from the astounding person you were. I know you are dancing in Heaven, knowing that your voice is now stronger because it has become a part of me. I see you. When people see me, they will also see you, and because of you I will try to be the voice of compassionate treatment and help change the perceptions that surround mental health in whatever way I can.

Love,

Your niece who’s dancing each day for you

______

¹ https://www.nami.org/Your-Journey/Identity-and-Cultural-Dimensions/Black-African-American

Jeanine DeHoney is a former daycare, art enrichment teacher, and Family Services Coordinator. As a freelance writer she has had her writing published in: Essence, Mused Bella Online, My Brown Baby, Blackandmarriedwithkids.com, Wow: Women on Writing-The Muffin’s Friday Speak Out, Mothering.com, TimBookTu, Skipping Stones Multicultural Magazine, The Children’s Ark, Devozine, The Write Place At The Write Time, Family Fun Magazine, Mutha Magazine, Literary Mama, The Mom Egg, Metro Fiction, Underwater NYC, Booklocker, Jerry Jazz Magazine, ScaryMommy.co, Parent Co., Brain Child Magazine, Your Teen For Parents, Today’s Caretaker Magazine, and Rigorous Magazine. She is an essayist in “Chicken Soup for The African American Woman’s Soul,” “Here in The Middle; Stories of Love, Loss, and Connection from The Ones Sandwiched In Between,” and “Theories of HER; an Experimental Anthology,” in an anthology about sisters, and the Chicken Soup for The Soul anthology; “The Power of Yes.” Jeanine was a contributing writer to Dream Teen Magazine, and the 2013 Finalist and 2014 Winner of the Brooklyn Arts & Film Festival Nonfiction Contest. She now blogs at Wow! Women on Writing; The Muffin.

Photo: Guiding by RC Barajas