Microaggressions and their role in mental illness – Harvard Gazette

Both women suggested ways to protect people who may be experiencing the fallout of the thousand little cuts that assail us daily.

First, said Lee, we need to reframe the discussion. Im a person with depression or Im bipolar are classic old-school framings, she said. In fact we are all as human beings likely to vacillate in and out of episodes throughout our lifetime, and one way we can put it is this is not a mental health condition, but the human condition. We also need to prioritize self-care. Engage on a daily basis in self-compassion, she said, quieting that toxic inner critic, rethinking what youve been told about your so-called suffering or your so-called weaknesses.

Other strategies include asking for help and for what you need and want, giving help, exercising, and taking up a meditative practice such as singing, knitting, or simply playing. Cultivate joy, Lee said. Of course, thats easier said than done, particularly in an age when so many people report feeling lonely or isolated. Lee pointed out that researchers have found loneliness is as lethal as smoking, and had a recommendation for assuaging it: Community, she said. Community is where we heal, where we come to unlearn [some of the things were taught about ourselves], and relearn, and where safety is created.

Surrounding yourself with supportive people is also crucial, and can be especially difficult among minorities who feel they have to be strong for their community [and] step up, as moderator Rene Graham, a Boston Globe columnist and editor, put it. She recounted the time she mentioned to a friend that she was considering seeking therapy after her fathers death, and the friends response was, Rosa Parks didnt need therapy, why do you need it?

I didnt go, said Graham, and I should have. But the message was that youre being weak, this is not what black people do, you dont go out and put your business in the street. Theres a huge stigma, and not just in black communities. Ive heard of it in Muslim and Latinx communities too.

Engage on a daily basis in self-compassion, quieting that toxic inner critic, rethinking what youve been told about your so-called suffering or your so-called weaknesses.

Kristin Lee, Northeastern

I see it a lot with my Asian students as well, said Lee, mentioning that the idea that youre going to become the thing youre most afraid of may be at play in such reactions. It also could have raised that persons vulnerability themselves, she said. If you need it, what does that mean for me?

Graham also mentioned the Drake song Two Birds, One Stone, in which the rapper criticizes fellow artist Kid Cudi for admitting he was getting help with his depression. It ends with the line, Is you crazy?

That kind of internalized racism, which people of color sometimes swallow whole, said Robinson-Wood, is in part due to a system that doesnt allow us to name that or to insist that this is a place where we can talk about that and were not going to judge you but will throw everything we can at your recovery. Sometimes communities dont have enough tools in their tool kit to see how we dont have to perpetuate these damning discourses.

Lee said conversations like the Diversity Dialogues are slowly helping to change that. We are starting to understand now that intervention is a tool to help a person, she said, just like if you had a broken leg. She applauded Graham for telling the story of her insensitive friend, because a powerful woman sharing such experiences helps to create safety.

It really happens on a grassroots level, she said.

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Microaggressions and their role in mental illness - Harvard Gazette