By Sheletta Brundidge
You know I love to laugh, but sometimes when we're going through something, laughter is the last thing we feel like doing. When we are truly scared and need help, we feel lost or stuck. It’s hard for us to admit when we are not okay. I've got three kids with autism, and there were many times when I dressed my kids up and disguised them as if everything was going all right, and it was not.
We need to talk about this because there's so many of us out there who have kids with special needs like I do, and we feel this way. There's a lot of us in hard situations. We feel alone. We feel hurt. We aren't laughing because some of us are in a dark place.
People got to feel empowered to get professional help and feel safe when they're doing it and understand what resources are here for them and when they need confidential emotional support like using the 988 Minnesota Lifeline to name one.
That's why I invited my good friend, Lambers Fisher, as a guest on my recent podcast episode – he understands this topic and the complexity of it firsthand. Lambers is a marriage and family therapist, host of the Diversity Dude Podcast, a TEDx speaker, and award-winning author of the book Diversity in Clinical Practice.
Lambers sees why a lot of folks aren't laughing and what people are struggling with, including fear of admitting when we're not okay and fear of reaching out for support when we are going through heavy times. Here are some excerpts from our conversation.
Sheletta: My first question is cultural. Why is the black community and that's both of us afraid to admit when we need help and then get the help and admit that we're not okay?
Lambers: Indeed. It's a common challenge in part for everyone, no matter what your cultural background is, but also in part specifically for those in communities of color and for the black community in particular. There's often this fear of judgment, fear of shame, fear of being looked down on.
That judgment and shame is often one of the reasons why we're feeling overwhelmed, feeling like it's just too much to handle in various different ways at work, at home, in the community as a whole, how I'm seen.
To acknowledge any way in which we don't feel we're at our best can be a risk of inviting more shame, more judgment. Hopefully, that's not the case, but that fear can be all-consuming. It can make us curl up into a ball, emotionally speaking.
When you add on experiences of people of color, there's often not only this fear of more shame, more doubt, but that long-standing history, that message being conveyed that we have to be twice as good to get half as much. Regardless of whether you can point to specific instances of biases, prejudices and judgment and the racism, sexism, everything that goes along with it, there's this message that's passed on from generation to generation. You will not get the benefit of the doubt. History has shown such.
You can be pleasantly surprised, and there are exceptions, but as a whole, not quite yet. In order to do that, you have to prove that you're above the prejudice, above the bias. You have to prove that it would look worse for them to discount you because you have done twice as much just to get half as much.
That idea of having to work harder goes against the idea of acknowledging a growth area, acknowledging something that we don't feel weak at. I don't want to give someone else a reason to put me down, a reason to exclude me, a reason to acknowledge to a boss that I’m having some difficulties. We have to show perfect all the time, whatever close to perfection we have.
Because of this, there’s often this challenge to go outside the community, or even within the community – are you making us look bad? Are you misrepresenting us? We question whether someone is presenting us wrong. As a result, we don't feel like we can share. We don't feel like we can show anything other than our best.
Even if we acknowledge that our best isn't perfect, we have to show the best that we have and keep the need for help, need for support, which is genuine and human. And we all need it, but it's not always safe to share. So, we perpetuate a habit of keeping it to ourselves, which has its consequences.
Sheletta: How can we overcome our fear and avoidance of talking about mental health, grief, loss, and other difficult topics? I know that 988 Minnesota Lifeline is available, and a lot of people don't know about it.
Lambers: A lot of times, we can overcome fear and avoidance by talking about it, by addressing it, acknowledging that there's something there. It can't just be jump into the fire, rip off the band-aid. I know it's going to hurt, but do it anyway. Another motivation could be acknowledging that, just like many physical ailments, emotionally speaking, mentally speaking, if you don’t treat it, it's likely going to get worse instead of better.
You don't sweep physical pain underneath the rug. The same works with generational patterns that get passed on, pain, stress, overwhelm. If we don't address it, not only will it get worse for us over the years, but then we're modeling things to the next generation.
Whether you have kids or not, we're modeling things to all the kids who are watching us, and seeing how it's done. Oh, that's what stress management looks like. That's what healthy expression of feeling looks like. That's what you do when you're feeling imperfect. You cover it up. And we just keep on going. If we're going to do our best for our own future and hope, not just hope, but actually help our next generations do better, then we need to make sure that we're not just being complacent, even with legitimate fears, legitimate worries, but to actually address those.
In an ideal world, we can share with family and friends. But if you can't, that's when resources like the 988 Minnesota Lifeline come into play. They're not replacing family and friends, but when we're stressed and overwhelmed about our family and friends, then they're not the ones we can talk to.
When we're feeling overwhelmed and not at our best, having a neutral party comes into play. As a therapist, I know I'm not a replacement for someone's spouse, for someone's parent, for someone's child. That's not my role, but sometimes I can offer a unique outside perspective.
And the folks at 988 are trained to do such. They're trained to support in a unique way, offer something, not to have all of the world's problems and solutions to every problem, but to help things feel less overwhelming, enough to empower you to go further than you think, offer some suggestions that you may not have thought about already, and to help you be your best, not to teach you how to be you, but help you maximize all that you have to offer.
We can all benefit from things like that, even in the most difficult times of loss and of grief and of mental health struggles. There's nothing that's off limits. If you're feeling overwhelmed, get the resources you can where you can.
Sheletta: How can we better help our community to find and seek help when we need it the most?
Lambers: Talk to family, talk to friends, but a lot of times that's easier said than done. When they're not the source of your problems, a lot of times we just are out of the habit. We don't know how to say, “hey, can we talk?” And “hey, once you see it, can we talk?” And the blood pressure rises, “oh, what's the problem now? What's the drama now?”
But if we can normalize it, if we can get used to, “hey, can we talk about something?” It's like, what kind of need do we have? “I need to balance something off. I'm not saying you're the problem. I'm not saying you have to solve all my problems and say, can you just let me know if I'm off track here? Can you just let me know? Can I just share with you?” If we do that, then we can be the friend or family member someone else needs and hope they can be the friend or family member that we need.
And, knowing when we can go close and knowing when you can go far. A lot of times, in the black community, going outside the community is a risky thing. How's that going to affect things? How's it going to affect confidentiality? Who's going to talk about stuff? But that's where I'm saying, don't go to anybody.
But resources like 988 are doing that on purpose. It's confidential, just like our therapeutic services. Just like Vegas, what's said in the room stays in the room. But in that case, what's said on the hotline stays on the hotline. In many ways, you don't even have to give your personal information and disclose who you are.
On TV and in movies when they say “I'm calling for a friend who's dealing with this. Can you help me?” And I say, “yeah.” They're not here to investigate or pry or is it really you? Like, no, what's your friend dealing with? We can give you as many tips and suggestions as we can and just be there to validate. That's not the first time we've heard that.
Lots of people think they are the only one who's ever dealt with this difficult challenge. And that's why they know they are beyond help. Reality is that other people not only have wrestled with it too, making that normal and acceptable, but other people have gotten past what seems insurmountable. They've lived through it. They've had pleasant surprises. They have gone through it.
A lot of times that can be what tips somebody over the risky, scary edge into receiving help. And to know that by doing so, they can be a little bit stronger to make their life a little bit better. Then somebody can come to them and say, hey, I know your life isn't perfect, but you're a little bit further than I am on this particular issue. Can you help me get to where you got?
And if we can learn to do that, then our whole community mindset of learning to help each other, lift each other up, we can do so more effectively because we knew when we could do so on our own and when to tap out and say, can I get some extra help and then come back and help our own, not to be dependent upon someone else, but to be able to enhance what we have to offer more to our community.
Sheletta: How else can we help people see that there's hope when they're in a tough place?
Lambers: Talking about is one thing, praising it is another. To get to the point in our community where we can not only allow ourselves to admit growth areas, but to actually praise someone for acknowledging it – that’s awesome.
Acknowledging it ourselves is the first step in making progress, and to acknowledge it outwardly so people can see, other people have gone through things and overcome them. Gone through things similar, gone through things differently - it means you don't have to fear the next challenge. You can look forward to the next challenge because you’re going to be the next one to overcome the next challenge and be the next one to share about it.
If we can make that normal, acceptable, but even praiseworthy, it can change the whole conversation about mental health, accepting strengths and growth areas alike and enhance our community so we can build and learn from other people's growth areas.
We can all climb that learning ladder together.
Sheletta:
Confidentiality in the black community is so important. We can erase the shame because anyone who calls 988 can remain anonymous – you do not need to disclose information about yourself to get help. You don't have to be afraid. Like Lambers said, the 988 Minnesota Lifeline is safe. It's anonymous and it's free. It is a confidential support system. Those folks are there to listen and support you.
If you're calling for someone else who needs help, which you can do as well, you don't have to share confidential information about them. 988 provides 24/7 confidential counseling and emotional support for all people who need it.
If you or someone you know needs support, call or text 988 or you can chat at 988lifeline.org. The 988 Minnesota Lifeline also offers interpreting services for people who speak another language besides English. This road is hard and you don't have to walk it alone.
I love to laugh and joke, but we don't play here about mental health. It is so important that we take care of ourselves so that we can take care of our community. And that is what 988 is all about. We can overcome that fear factor that happens in the Black community, being afraid to get help, also being ashamed.
If you or someone you know needs emotional support with a hard situation like mental health, addiction, abuse, or loss, or you're even thinking about reaching out to a professional for help, don't wait. You don't have to wait until the office opens if it's after 5 o'clock and you're reading this. You don't have to wait until Monday if you're listening and watching on the weekend. Call or text 988 right now or chat on 988lifeline.org.
988 also adheres to safe prevention messaging through training from the Minnesota Department of Health. So please, don't just read this --- I need you to post it on your social media timelines, I need you to take this podcast and I need you to share it with a friend. Because there's somebody in your circle who needs this help.