Addressing Mental Health: A piece regarding the Archaic Views of our Parents
Parents can have a tendency to make their children feel they should be grateful for the bare minimum that they do. That we should be grateful for them because they provide the food we eat and a roof over our heads, the least we could do is submit to their every demand.
When speaking with friends from ethnic minorities, a commonality between us is that none of us are in a comfortable enough situation with our parents to question their views simply because any anxieties raised with them are often used as ammunition in arguments. Individual's within minority communities who face mental health issues are more likely than any other race made to feel ashamed or self-conscious about how they may be feeling, thus causing the perpetuation of such anxieties and negative feelings.
Parents will tell their children that they can reach out if ever in a vulnerable state yet most minority parents will never allow their children to see them in this very same way. They’re likely to put up a front that they’re doing okay so to not worry their children, but this shuts them out. If you aren’t exposed to fragility and vulnerability at home, you’re more likely to shut your feelings out from the people who need to hear them the most. What you see at home plays a major role in what informs you in life and if your home holds a lack of love and compassion towards its habitants it can truly affect you day to day.
Some of the attitudes to mental health and the LGBT+ community are quite outdated. Adults are quick to proclaim their kids would never keep secrets about their feelings, that they’d never have a gay son or daughter when the reality is, they do. Sadly, there are children and young adults who identify within the LGBT+ community that are scared to come out to their parents as they are under the impression that they’ll be shunned by their families and that their parents will disown them for being who they are.
Teenagers are so easily made to feel underappreciative of themselves and their achievements purely because they aren’t always warranted with praise. It’s an all too common theme in minority households, parents having a mindset in which they feel they don’t need to praise or celebrate their children’s achievements past a teenage age, because all of a sudden it stops being of importance?
Our parents sometimes struggle to show care and compassion to the mental health of the young men and women they raise. Where we all unite in our race is within our hardships that we are so frequently subject to in our lifetimes. It is a dominant factor in the decline of our mental health yet we rarely ever discuss amongst ourselves how much we are truly affected by this. Especially at a young age.
Our parents struggle to understand that people beyond their generation are susceptible to mental health illnesses. I had a conversation with my family in which mental health came up, they spoke about how bullying was no reason for a child to contemplate ending their own life, that “kids these days don’t know depression”, they don’t know what stress is. There is so much danger in this mindset. Parents aren’t willing to educate themselves in a world that has changed so much since they were teenagers. Instead of listening to their children’s fears and anxieties, they’re brushing them aside. I know exactly what it feels like to be scared of those dark thoughts in your mind that are fuelled by the unwillingness of our parents to hear us out.
The sad reality of minority parents within this generation is that their ignorance will quite literally kill their children, but they won’t realise this until it’s too late.
Article by Selorm Torkornoo
PLEASE reach out to the following organisations in the UK if you or someone you know needs immediate support or help;
Samaritans @samaritanscharity 116 123 (24-hour helpline)
Papyrus @papyrus_uk 0800 068 4141 (helpline available 0900 to 2200 weekdays and 1400 to 2200 weekends)
(Photo credit: Ahmed Carter)