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Mental Health, Racism and Women

Alejandra Sanchez

Pacific Oaks College and Childrens School

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In this paper I will explore a community I am part of which is the mothers of color

community. I will identify an issue that I see within this community and I will explain how the

larger structures are behind the problem, I will also attempt to develop an organizational plan

on how we can address this issue.

The issue I want to address is mental health, racism and the impact on women of color,

and what it means to be mothering on the margins of a society where the mainstream ideal of

being white, hetero-sexual and middle class has provided a safety and a list of other human

rights we dont have. Being a mother of color in these times does not simply mean to care for

ones child, it means ensuring survival.

Mental illness affects one in five adults in America. A disproportionately high burden of

disability from mental disorders exists in communities of color. Research has shown that this

higher burden does not arise from a greater prevalence or severity of illnesses in these

communities, but stems from individuals in these communities being less likely to receive

diagnosis and treatment for their mental illnesses, having less access to and availability of

mental health services, receiving less care, and experiencing poorer quality of care. Even after

controlling for factors such as health insurance and socioeconomic status, ethnic minority

groups still have a higher unmet mental health need than non-Hispanic Whites (Broman,

2012).

Emotional complications are the most common complication of childbirth, an

organization that goes by the name Perinatal Mental Health Alliance for Women of Color

developed an international program within Postpartum Support because 1 out of 5 women will
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experience a perinatal mood and anxiety disorder during pregnancy or after childbirth. What

that means to mothers of color is that we will experience these complications at twice the rate

of white women.

When I became a mother I was not informed about perinatal mood disorders, and when

I went to my doctors visits I was often seen by white doctors who dismissed mental health by

never asking about my emotional state of being. They were more concerned with my physical

well-being which often meant that I was asked to do diabetes tests and ultra sounds. I was

afraid to say anything about how was feeling because I had grown up with trauma around white

people and racism and because I feared having a mental health illness on my record.

Growing up my family culture placed a significant emphasis on us being silent about our

struggles, my mother modeled taking care of everyone else before herself, and turned to

religion in an effort to overcome oppression, racism and other socioeconomic stressors,

naturally I assumed I should do the same and applied this to motherhood.

Because of the stigma around mental illness, I thought my depression developed as

soon as I was pregnant, however that was not truth. I was depressed way before becoming

pregnant but because I was embarrassed to share about my feelings of frustration towards

poverty and racism, I went unnoticed and without any support.

The stigma around mental health is prevalent in our culture but this is especially true

when it comes to motherhood. Once I had my first child, it was very hard for me to hide my

illness. My fears about my mothering overwhelmed me. I wasnt sure if I was doing anything

correctly. The moment I became a mother I was expected to know exactly what to do with my
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child and if I didnt then I was a bad mother. I was expected to parent in a way that I was never

parented. My child was not even a year old and I knew all the ways I could mess up and had

images of white parents on tv shows playing non-stop in my mind while feeling completely lost

and overwhelmed on how to recreate something I was never given.

When I finally decided to seek medical support the result was not what I expected. I was

still nave about the racism within the health care system, I spoke to a clinical psychologist for

15 minutes and walked out with a diagnosis and drugs. He didnt care to talk much to me and

was actually very dismissive of what I did share and was quick to give me medication and kick

me out of his office.

I took the medication which led to me being unable to breastfeed, this added to my

depression and feelings of failing as a mother. I decided to stop taking the medication and I

realized that even though I had health insurance that did not mean anything because I was still

a woman of color which meant that I was not going to receive the support I needed.

In an interview Dr. Satcher, who is the author of a recent report on mental health and

the interplay of race, ethnicity and culture she stated that women of color may seek

alternatives to formal therapy because of a profound lack of trust. What I found to be the

most helpful was the community of people who encouraged me to seek support from a

therapist and to use alternative medicine. I was fortunate that I could afford to seek a private

therapist and that I had a large community that counseled me and supported me. Sadly, this is

not the case for all mothers of color.

I know that I did not experience depression because I was pregnant and a mother. I

knew that there was added stress on top of the stress of being a person of color in this society
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that pushed me into a place of feeling overwhelmed. I chose to address this issue because of

victims such as Charleena Lyles who recently called the police to report a robbery and ended up

shot dead.

Sadly, Charleena Lyles death is not an isolated event, 258 black people were killed by

police in 2016, and 20 percent of unarmed people who have been killed by police since 1999

are black women and girls add to this that 60% of women of color do not receive any treatment

or support services for perinatal emotional complication due to lack of insurance coverage,

social and cultural stigma and the lack of culturally appropriate care. Charleena Lyles may very

well be alive today if she had received the support and care she deserved.

Whats really behind is a lot of it is racism, says Jennie Joseph, a midwife who founded

Commonsense Childbirth, a birth center in central Florida. And inequalities in treatment lead to

alarming inequalities in outcomes. Evidence from the CDC revealed that 46 percent of maternal

deaths among African-American women were potentially preventable, compared with 33

percent of such deaths among white women. And among women diagnosed with pregnancy-

induced hypertension, African-American and Latina women were, respectively, 9.9 and 7.9

times more likely to die than white women with the same complications.

In an article I read recently the latest statistics show that women of color and those

living at or below the poverty line have a higher rate of depression, the findings show that

women regardless of race or ethnicity are more likely than men to experience depression,

and African-Americans experience major depression at higher rates than whites, then black

women in turn also experience high rates of depression compared to the general population.
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Yet there are very few organizations discussing maternal mental health and the disparities that

exist in regards to diagnosis, support, and treatment.

It is absurd that the research on women of color and mental health is limited and

outdated. I chose to write about mothers of color because I think it is important to understand

how race-related stress impacts the physical, psychological and social well-being of mothers of

color and specifically examine how trauma manifests in the victims of racial violence.

Based on what I have seen other organizations advocate for around Mental Health I

believe that a Mental Health campaign should focus on making sure that there is a public

awareness campaign that redefines mental health to make sure that we are providing

individuals support while taking into account historical trauma and present oppression that can

contribute to the breakdown of peoples emotional health.

I advocate for Universal Mental Health Access that should improve care and access for

mental healthcare and for addressing root causes of the mental health crisis. Also, moving

beyond medication and addressing social contributors to mental health such as poverty,

housing, drugs, and lack of support to parents. Finally, I think it is really important to make sure

that we are funding to building capacity and diversifying from within.

Women of color have had a tenuous relationship with the mental health

establishment. Historically people of color have been more likely to have been diagnosed with

mental illnesses real or perceived. It has not been until recently that mental health workers

have started looking at the impacts of racism and poverty on mental health. More research

needs to be done regarding the impact of historical and ongoing trauma associated with racism,

sexism and poverty.

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Additionally, emotions and reactions seen as outside of normal white, middleclass and

male reactions are often misdiagnosed as an illness when in fact such reactions may just be a

natural reaction to a patriarchal, white supremist capitalist society and in fact a necessary

component to dismantling it. As such campaigns to address mental illness, especially for

women of color must recognize these systems of inequality and actively challenge them. To

ignore them is to ignore the root cause of much of the trauma that is impacting our

communities.
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Resources

http://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/ethnicity-health/racism-stress.aspx

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/charleena-lyles-loved-her-children-dancing-and-
fourth-of-july-says-brother-of-woman-slain-by-seattle-police/

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/07/01/484083305/for-centuries-a-small-
town-has-embraced-strangers-with-mental-illness

https://orwh.od.nih.gov/resources/pdf/WoC-Databook-FINAL.pdf

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4694220

http://womensenews.org/2001/10/lives-women-color-create-risk-depression/

https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/33/5/1138/623988/Understanding-health-and-illness-
research-at-the

http://www.newsweek.com/2016/07/15/pregnant-womens-care-affected-race-477087.html

http://www.rwjf.org/en/culture-of-health/2014/05/the_culture_of_menta.html