A friend of mine asked me to write a blog post about mental health and I’ve gone back and forth about what exactly to write. Should I just share resources as I’ve done before? Should I share my own experiences dealing with my mental health? I was at a loss because I strive to be very honest and this is something I am battling with. I even went back to her to ask her what she was looking for and I guessed correctly, she wanted me to get into it all: like many young, hardworking, millennial BLACK, women, working and living on the content, we have no resources. We are dealing with so much and not only are some 
of us living in countries where even other health facilities are terrible, the lack of mental health resources are even more scarce. So, in her own words:
How to maintain mental health as a busy 21st century millennial, how we don’t talk about mental health issues in black communities, how women carry so much mentally and emotionally.
Ok girl I will try my best.
I live in Sierra Leone and my friend in another West African country and we don’t know of many (if any) psychiatrists, therapists that we can go to seek help. This post is not going to have a head or tail because literally it describes how well I have it together mentally most of the time, because like I said before: I don’t have my shit together. I am pushing and trying, but that’s because I am a black woman and we don’t know anything else but this. Let me describe the last few years and how I’ve been trying to get a handle on my mental health because I believe in taking care of yourself mentally as much as you take care of your physical health.
I finally listened to the advice I’ve been giving many others for years back and decided to use my health insurance to see a therapist back in 2016. This was about five months after I fell and broke my elbow. I had come to the realization that my spirit was down. I tried to hide it, but being stuck at home not being able to do anything (like literally nothing, but watch reality tv and eat, which gets old real fast), made me question my entire being. Who am I without the million things I was doing? I stole the question from the first session with the mental health counselor I saw back then in Baltimore. I was taken aback when she said I am ME, loved for just ME, without the work I was doing with my then organization, even if I wasn’t working at the institution I was working at and whether or not I was in service to anybody. Me not doing any of these things did not make me worthless, but I didn’t want to hear that. I define myself by my work. My work is me, which is why I take it very hard when people question my skills, put down my work or even make me think twice about whether or not I am capable.
I was really down in the dumps like I said and it didn’t help that this guy who I was seeing (sort of, you know how it is), said something to me one day after I pushed for him to answer a question because I got the sense he looked down on me. He literally revealed that him and another good friend thought I was underqualified for a recent job that was offered to me and that in general he sees my work experience to that point as basically entry level. I was hurt. He wouldn’t know it then, but it was the catalyst I needed to walk away from something I had poured my all into for three years. Here I was pouring, but humbling and not making it like I was doing much, so this person thought they were basically doing more than me, better than me, and just so much more, but I digress. I went to the therapist every two weeks and we barely scratched the surface.
I held back a lot because the first time I ever went deep, as in I gave her a glimpse of my past: sexual abuse, war, etc. etc. and I could literally see in her face like “ok this is some hard shit.” To be honest, this is actually one of the reasons why I avoided therapy up until this point. I was afraid to open up about things in my past. I had buried so much, I thought I would fall apart and lose my mind if I ever opened those doors again. I thought back to when I first moved to the U.S. and how I would burst into tears for no reason or avoid interacting with people. Anyway…that’s another conversation. My therapist was young. I think mid 30s if even that. She tried to get me to do different exercises, but I just enjoyed speaking my mind about some things and just took the sessions for what they were.
[continued in pt.2]
Salone Creatives 
Leave a comment