happy pills
... and where to find them
Six.
The number of muscles that no longer saw purpose in their original design
As if their connection to me was no longer necessary
It seemed as if my prism no longer wanted to function
As if I was no longer in need of the analysis that only reflection could bring
It started off slow - every so often my vision would just lose its glow
I inched towards the extreme ends of the grey scale
No longer being able to tell the scale at which I could no longer see a hue
I had by now forgotten my lavenders
I had some hope when my purples simply faded to blues…
But my thistle quickly bowed to the will of fuschia
Which became a dark violet that lost its way to magenta
But I let the royal blue fool me, it only melted into a darker hue.
Suddenly everything is opaque to me
In front of me is black
I was searching for transparency amidst a sea of colors that were no longer there
My once relied upon six had now become none
Tired from their unending work that was never done.
My vision is in need of revision
The revision that only comes from reflection
The reflection that only comes from a complex prism of light that I could no longer see
Because you see
My vision used to be in technicolor.
Or was it?
Was it a lie that I told myself?
That my yellows weren’t muted
That my reds had never been dulled
That my oranges didn’t bring me joy
That they were simply imposters of happiness
That the ambers, honeys, clays, and even tangerines were just masquerading shadows of the joy within me.
No, because
You see
My vision used to be in technicolor.
happy pills... and where to find them
Before we dive deep into this one, I want to say that this is my experience. And this post will only begin to scratch the surface of mental health in the Black community. I know that you were thinking this newsletter would just be some cute little flowery thing I was doing on the side. But if I’m gonna go there, I’m gonna go there.
Let me start by saying that depression and anxiety are nothing to be ashamed of. The same goes for those taking medication. Point blank. End of story.
Talking about mental health openly just became (kinda) ok and in the Black community, it still carries a large amount of stigma. From saying that ‘depression is a white person’s disease” to believing ‘we can’t afford to be depressed’ and my personal favorite - ‘you got a roof so what you got to be depressed about?’
The problem is viewing depression as the same thing as being sad. It’s seen as just being a little upset or disappointed. But it’s not. It’s a complicated combination of several factors. For some it’s chronic and for others it’s circumstantial. For me, it’s chronic and biological. My brain doesn’t make enough serotonin (the brain’s happy juice) and combine that with my chronic illness (PCOS - we’ll chat about this another time), I am a walking advertisement for Claymore.
Ok, that may be a bit extreme but you get the picture. Research shows that Black folks are more likely to suffer from mental illness than their non-Hispanic white peers. But we’re less likely to seek help.
And sadly, there’s a severe lack of research on mental health in the Black community. As Dr. Kamesha Spates says in her 2012 paper, “The Missing Link”: The Exclusion of Black Women in Psychological Research and the Implications for Black Women’s Mental Health: “In comparison to White men, minority groups in the United States occupy a particularly socially disadvantaged position. Critical examinations of epistemology argue that White men have established the guidelines for knowledge, and their construction and reproduction of knowledge regarding how the world is to be represented is often taken as absolute truth.”
Dr. Spates goes on to say that because this system allows for the control of knowledge, it’s used as a tool for maintaining power. Because Black folks have not been fully considered in the acquisition of psychological knowledge, we’re often misdiagnosed and underdiagnosed.
Without understanding the cultural differences of Black and Brown communities, critical indicators of mental illness are lost. I think, in many ways, that’s what happened to me.
The DSM-5 defines depression: The individual must be experiencing five or more symptoms during the same 2-week period and at least one of the symptoms should be either (1) depressed mood or (2) loss of interest or pleasure.
Depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day.
Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day, nearly every day.
Significant weight loss when not dieting or weight gain, or decrease or increase in appetite nearly every day.
A slowing down of thought and a reduction of physical movement (observable by others, not merely subjective feelings of restlessness or being slowed down).
Fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day.
Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt nearly every day.
Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness, nearly every day.
Recurrent thoughts of death, recurrent suicidal ideation without a specific plan, or a suicide attempt or a specific plan for committing suicide.
The crazy thing they never tell you about depression is that it will have you believing that everything is fine. And chronic anxiety is there to remind you that it’s not.
I wasn’t officially diagnosed with depression until I was seventeen. My manic episodes appeared when I was upset with my parents. When I felt like I failed. At times, I looked more like a child misbehaving rather than a girl having a mental breakdown. I would lose the ability to communicate effectively. I oscillated between lashing out and completely shutting down. I constantly felt as if my world was turning upside down.
But it happened so often that I thought it was normal. It was normal to have constant mood swings for weeks at a time. It was normal to think about dying as the only option. It was normal to constantly mask my feelings. It was normal to constantly burst into tears one minute and feel fine the next.
~
I am the proud daughter of Jamaican immigrants. I love and adore my parents. They taught me what loving a partner looks like. What building a family entails and the hard work of - well - hard work. Like seriously, they are some of the best folks you’ll ever meet. And I’m pretty sure I want to be my mom when I grow up. But as much as they love me and I love them - they didn’t get it. Being depressed or riddled with anxiety wasn’t something I was allowed to be. And on many levels, I thought as they did.
For a long time, I was ashamed to tell people that I had depression. Ashamed to tell them that I have crippling anxiety. I was ashamed to tell people that I had to go to therapy. The crazy thing was I always encouraged people to not be ashamed of that part of themselves. They deserved to be accepted by those around them.
That’s kinda how I’ve always been. When it comes to advocating for others, I’d be the first one in line. But when it came to speaking up for me - well, I didn’t think I was worth it.
I had a two-parent home. I had a roof over my head, food in the fridge, and was involved in about a thousand extracurricular activities. I had friends. I went to church. I should have been happy.
Should have been. Then reality would set in. The world would slowly start to fade to shades of grey. Sometimes I’d go days without talking to anyone. I would just sit in the back of classrooms wondering when everything would be over. The reason I did so many activities was so I didn’t have to live in my own mind because I knew I would spiral.
I often thought that I was the one mistake God made. Then I reasoned that I, was in fact, not a mistake. But rather, God made me so others would have something to hate. Something to blame. Something foul so they could feel better about themselves. That was my true purpose. And if I killed myself, then people would loath me more because I took away the one thing they could hate.
Do you see why being in my head wasn’t great?
So instead of truly dealing with my issues. I masked it. I would keep myself so busy that there wasn’t time to break down. I could never hold my thoughts at bay for long. Eventually, something would be the final straw and I would snap. It was like these pent-up feelings and thoughts finally just bursted through me.
My behavior caused me to lose friends, disappoint and scare family but worst of all it only made me worse because I know how I affected those around me. Before I even knew what it meant, I tried to maintain the Strong Black Woman image. As my symptoms got worse, especially in high school and college, the image got more and more difficult to maintain.
The idea of being a Strong Black Woman is taught and socialized into Black girls from a young age. We have to be strong in a society that wants us to be anything but. The 2020 paper, The Misunderstood Schema of the Strong Black Woman: Exploring Its Mental Health Consequences and Coping Responses Among African American Women, links the Strong Black Woman “schema” to the goal of reversing negative serotypes of Black women. However, this schema can be to the detriment of Black women.
While qualitative interviews of Black women found that some believed the idea to be empowering, Black feminist scholars believed it limited the image of Black women. Others theorized that the idea of the Strong Black Woman was just another stereotype. It placed the responsibility on Black women while ignoring the systemic racism that’s institutionalized in our society.
I tend to agree with the latter. While it can be empowering, it doesn’t allow space for pain, grief, or depression. Because we are strong, we should be able to handle anything that’s thrown at us. Therefore if we fail, it’s our own fault. We are the cause of our own failure.
Failure. Something that I couldn’t allow myself to be or have. Perfectionism had to be my standard because I knew what society thought of Black girls. Anything less and I was a failure.
~
I remember the first time I was hospitalized. It was my senior year of high school. It was just before Easter weekend. I remember thinking that I was in so much trouble. That I may as well give up now because there was no way my parents could ever forgive me for this. There was no way they could ever love me after this. I felt so completely and utterly alone. Alone is not even a strong enough word to describe the sudden emptiness that now consumed me.
I remember seeing my mother so upset. I remember seeing my best friend cry as I was wheeled into the ambulance. I remember everything being very white. The ambulance that drove me to the hospital was white and so was the gurney they put me on. There were a lot of white walls and white blankets. I remember the food even being white.
Now when I think back, I wonder if it was that everything was white or had my heart and mind lost the will to see color?
I sat in a very small room just off of the emergency entrance. I remember my dad refusing to come to the hospital. I remember my mom begrudgingly coming because I was a minor. I remember her signing whatever she had to and leaving.
I remember falling asleep and being woken up by a very tired social worker. She tried to get me to talk and I wouldn’t. I remember that I just kept saying I didn’t want to be here anymore.
Do you have a plan?
What do you mean?
A plan to not be here anymore?
Like, kill myself?
Yes.
No.
So you don’t have a plan?
No.
But you don’t want to be here anymore?
Yes.
After that, I was put into a transitional living unit. Basically a 72-hour hold. All my clothes were taken. I was given those (very comfortable) hospital socks and some sweats. I wasn’t allowed my cell phone or anything that had strings attached to it. I cried the whole time. I couldn’t look at myself if the mirror. I watched the Sound of Music three times. And then my family was allowed to visit.
I remember my dad said, “you have to stop this foolishness or no one is going to hire you. No one is going to be around you.” And then I cried some more.
The doctors recommended putting me on medication. My parents were staunchly against it. So was I. I didn’t want to be labeled as the crazy girl who had to take meds. The girl who couldn’t control her emotions. I didn’t want to be the weak Black girl. Medication meant I couldn’t hide anymore.
Either way, I don’t know what the doctors told my parents when the big sit-down happened but they were better after that. Not as understanding as they are now but better. I wasn’t punished. I was actually given some more freedoms. And I got a therapist I actually liked.
It took me a long long time to forgive my parents for the way they treated me in my depression and anxiety. I was baffled how they couldn’t see that I was drowning. They’re my parents - they should have known what to do.
It took me a long time to understand that they didn’t have access to the necessary information. They didn’t grow up in an environment that allowed for mental health awareness. They were doing the best they could with the information they were given at the time. It’s not to excuse their behavior but to explain it. I know that during this time they were just as lost as I was.
The second time I was hospitalized, I was in my sophomore year of college. I was found wandering my college campus at night in the middle of winter without a coat. I just had a fight with friends and most things after that are a blur. Essentially, I blacked out. I found myself waking up in the on-campus police office.
The difference this time around was I insisted I was fine. Clearly, I was not. I damaged friendships that were never fully repaired. Something I think about often. The only good thing to come out of it was, that everyone including my parents, agreed it was time to put me on medication.
I now had a new diagnosis: depression with manic dissociative episodes and anxiety.
I was officially labeled and taking prescribed happy pills. I felt relief and yet deep sorrow. I cried for days.
This is the hospitalization that I find most difficult to talk about. This is the one I think about the most. And this is the one that absolutely broke me. This is where I thought I had truly failed. I had done the hospital thing before. I had gone to therapy. I had prayed. I had tried to be in tune with my feelings. I had started exercising to induce endorphins, yet I still failed. Didn’t I do everything right? I was still not better.
But what is better? My depression and anxiety were so a part of me that it felt as if it was consuming me. What a disappointment I must be to those around me? Why couldn’t I be strong?
This isn’t going to be a post that ends with me being completely healed. That somehow my brain now makes the perfect amount of serotonin. Dealing with my depression and anxiety is an everyday struggle. One that I continuously hide whether with a smile or self-deprecating humor.
Some days my depression looks like lying in bed. Other days it’s me manically cleaning because I need to keep my hands busy. Sometimes, it’s sitting in the middle of a messy room that’s so overwhelming I just leave it the way it is and read Harry Potter fanfiction. And that’s ok.
It’s not to say that I don’t experience profound joy. I have known true peace in prayer and serenity in nature. I have been fully engulfed by love from family and friends. I’ve laughed until my sides hurt. But it doesn’t last. I’m not back where I started but I’m not yet where I want to be. I am in the middle.
Regardless, Black women deserve the space to be depressed and to heal. We deserve to be seen in our brokenness and in our wholeness. We deserved to be seen and loved as we work through our middles.
My current middle is believing that I, personally, deserve these things. That my Blackness and womanhood have not been tarnished because I’m still healing and working. That I deserve this middle and I deserve to have those around me love me through it.
💕💕💕