Navigating the Unique Mental Health Struggles Women of Color Face
Mental health is a significant aspect of everyday life for all of us. The state our minds are in can influence our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
It impacts our communication with others and how we handle stress. Taking care of one’s mental health requires tremendous honesty and effort.
It takes courage and time to admit treatment is needed and seek a mental health care provider.
However, people of color (POC) typically have a harder time finding appropriate care than their white counterparts. Caring for the mental health challenges Black women experience, specifically, requires confronting and navigating unique struggles.
Black women and others who identify as non-white encounter racial and gender discrimination that present barriers to mental health treatment. By confronting societal injustices and addressing disparities in the mental health care system, we can create safe, inclusive spaces that are more considerate of Black women and POC mental health.
Before you begin, remember that our professionals are always here to help
Recognize the Reality of Racial Injustice
Historical and current racial injustices contribute to the unequal access many people of color have to economic opportunities and medical care. Women of color, particularly Black women, often stand at the intersection of several barriers.
They’re forced to navigate disparity-riddled institutional structures and systems—systems once designed with the intent to impede how well they provide for their families. Systems that say it’s okay for them to be paid and treated differently in the workplace.
Such discrimination (behavioral bias) leaves them feeling the combined effects of racial, ethnic, and gender bias. It contributes significantly to why factors like economic stress, job loss, and COVID-19 exposure and infection disproportionately take a toll on POC mental health, specifically Black women’s mental health.
Furthermore, absorbing media regarding incidents of police brutality against Black men or recounting these personal experiences can be traumatizing. Such situations can cause many Black women to fear for their relatives and their own lives, impairing Black women’s mental health and wellness in ways that individuals of other races may not be able to relate to entirely.
What This Injustice Means Regarding POC Mental Healthcare
Unfortunately, many women of color often lack access to high-quality healthcare. And in instances when they can access care, they may face negative stereotypes (cognitive bias) that impact the diagnoses and treatment they receive. For example, a Black woman who exhibits an irritable mood when interacting with a mental healthcare provider may be seen as fulfilling the ‘angry Black woman’ stereotype. However, perceived hyper-irritability may actually be:
Historical trauma and long-standing mistrust in the medical care system
Frustration with the process of trying to access mental healthcare services with or without insurance
Depression that remains untreated
Implicit biases (automatic or unintentional bias) may cause mental healthcare providers and emergency personnel to perceive POC, specifically Black people, as angry and dangerous. Consequently, Black people may be restrained excessively in emergencies.
Providers who don’t recognize how these unique struggles and forms of mental distress often manifest in the mental health of Black women and other POC’s experiences ultimately contribute to the criminalization, demonization, and dismissal of POC mental health.
Sever Ties With the Superwoman Complex
The angry Black woman trope isn’t the only harmful one that can stand in the way of receiving mental health support.
Ideas like the ‘strong Black woman’ can also be physical and mental healthcare barriers. This stereotype pigeonholes Black women into always being strong providers and caregivers.
Being expected to bear others’ burdens while having the natural strength to shake off their own. Consequently, the challenges related to the emotional and mental health of Black women face go uncared for.
The expectations associated with this stereotype are similar to the cultural pressures some Asian and other non-white women feel as the eldest daughter in their families. Eldest daughters in some cultures grow up hearing, “you’re the oldest, you should know better.”
They may have been given excessive responsibilities and been seen as mother figures even when they were just children. After such a childhood, the expectation is that they’ll continue supporting their siblings. That they’ll continue mothering in the household and nurturing in the workplace because they “can handle it”—an assumption detrimental to POC mental health.
Acknowledging Perceived Weaknesses Can Make You Strong
Part of navigating the unique mental health struggles faced by women of color is recognizing their existence. Stigma and stereotypes may pressure some women of color to hide any negative emotions they experience. They may feel like needing to see a clinician or therapist means they’re broken. This couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Women of color need to know that experiencing mental health struggles doesn’t mean they’re weak or flawed. They can still be strong and seek mental health treatment.
Seeking treatment can actually make them stronger. Doing so means putting themselves first and taking the time to improve their overall health and wellbeing. It means living their best lives for themselves and then being an effective support system for the loved ones who depend on them.
Open Up and Embrace Healing
Racism can be a stressor, with racist experiences resulting in trauma that harms POC's mental health. Women of color may end up compartmentalizing such trauma. This, on top of medical mistrust, may cause them to be wary of seeking help and healing in a world that has hurt them historically.
They may want to keep their troubles to themselves. However, connecting with a clinician that can embody and understand the experiences and challenges unique to Black women’s mental health and POC mental health can be crucial to getting deserved help.
The right therapist can help women of color understand that the Superwoman complex isn’t all bad. When done healthily and realistically, embodying Superwoman can help women be resilient. A therapist trained in providing treatment to women of color can help clients understand that a part of being strong and healing is:
Listening to feelings of distress
Giving attention to the impact of race-based trauma
Recognizing how unique racial struggles affect thoughts, feelings, and actions
Find Holistic, Women-Centered Care That Prioritizes Thriving
At LunaJoy, our clinicians are here to help and care for women of all races, ages, and phases of life. We give our clients the personalized care, respect, and support they deserve. In this compassionate community founded by women for women, our experts:
Have judgment-free conversations. Clinicians in our care community will listen to your experiences without judgment. We won’t downplay your experiences with prejudice (emotional bias) as simply common occurrences in a racially unjust patriarchal society that you should get used to.
Provide an empowering, safe space focused on you. At LunaJoy, we understand that women of color are not a monolith. We consider that every client may experience unique mental health struggles even when compared with other women of the same racial and cultural background. We treat each client like the individuals they are, personalizing online therapy sessions and treatment options to meet them where they are.
Contact us at LunaJoy today to receive the treatment you deserve. Our holistic psychotherapy, mental health coaching, and evidence-based psychiatric strategies help you navigate and persevere over the unique racial, ethnic, and gender-related mental health struggles you or someone you know may deal with.
