Episode 5: Therapy vs Life Long Mental Patient

Just Doing the Little Things - Episode 5: Therapy vs Life Long Mental Patient, the balance between seeking help and avoiding labels

I added a disclaimer to episode five of Just Doing the Little Things:
“This film is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The content shared represents the personal story and experiences of the filmmaker.”

In this episode, I address a comment I made in episode four, where I shared that for years I had been in therapy, focusing on what I didn’t like. I compared that to what I do now, which involves forgiveness and getting to know myself. I want to emphasize that this change didn’t happen overnight. It has taken me a very long time to consciously unlearn old patterns and relearn new ways of being. I also encourage viewers to reach out for the support they need or desire.

I address the title Therapy vs. Life Long Mental Patient, which reflects two distinct dynamics I have observed and experienced in society.

The first involves people with knowledge and awareness that when they face challenges and seek therapy they are rewarded with support. These individuals are not typically subjected to discrimination. However, many with access to education, and resources tend to promote mental illness diagnosis labels, often without acknowledging the second reality that exists.

The second thing that exists reflects my own experience: facing adversity, lacking knowledge about how systems operate, and navigating struggles with poverty, limited resources, and a lack of awareness about historical and ongoing societal issues. When I sought help, I encountered the discrimination associated with a mental illness diagnosis that I then turned inward and further oppressed myself.

I shared about the first therapist I saw, Josh, who was very beneficial to my life. However, after experiencing homelessness and staying in a shelter, I was offered a housing voucher. The stipulations for receiving the voucher required me to attend therapy at the community mental health center, see a psychiatrist, take psychotropic drugs, participate in group sessions, and accept help in applying for Social Security Disability. I now see this as coercion but what was I supposed to do, I wasn’t working and I needed a home for my children and myself. It would be lovely to receive help in society without a label. Human beings, soul to soul, walking each other home as Ram Dass said.

Looking back, I now acknowledge the role I played in this situation, driven by a desire for what I thought was what would make me happy, white picket fences and Mercedes Benzes, without understanding the concept of working to live.

My example growing up, I had a mother who trafficked drugs and discouraged my brothers from working for five dollars an hour. When one of my brothers turned eighteen, I remember she told him to apply for city welfare. When I had my daughter, I applied for both city and state welfare. I didn’t understand working to live as I do now.

In my pain and suffering, I often remembered all the negative things. But as I write this now, I practice forgiveness and have learned to observe my thoughts and not let emotions turn into pain. This allows me to also recognize the positive aspects of my experiences.

My mother, for example, dreamed of a better life. She earned a blueprinting degree from Bullard Havens Technical College, all after coming to America as a housekeeper and nanny. She left behind her four children and husband in Jamaica. She was on welfare for a time but then educated herself, found a job at Sikorsky Aircraft, and worked there for many years. She saved her money and eventually bought a one-family house on the east end of Bridgeport, Connecticut.

She also hosted many dances, bringing Jamaican reggae artists like Dennis Brown, Michigan, and Smiley among others to perform for the community. She tried to make money from these events, but I don’t think she received much support and often lost more money than she made. Along with bailing out friends and her sons from prison, she ultimately lost her house. I know that my mother tried, and she never gave up on her dream of living a better life in America.

When do you know you’ve had enough therapy? I had no clue. I didn’t know when to stop going or if anyone would ever tell me that I could stop. I know I’m not alone in this, and I found validation in watching season two, episode eight of UNPRISONED. In that episode, the therapist, played by John Stamos, tells the Alexander family—played by Kerry Washington, Delroy Lindo, and Faly Rakotohavana—that it’s their last day of therapy. The family members are perplexed by this revelation.

Check out the scene from UNPRISONED on my YouTube page, and also a paper I wrote back in 2016 called “Where Would I Be If I Didn’t Believe in Me?”

I also never want to downplay the extreme distress and despair I was living in when I first reached out and accepted therapy. I struggled with lack of sleep, perfectionism, bingeing and purging, being overweight, starving myself, crying, anger, and a deep longing to live a beautiful life. I name these things now and call them out by name, which gives me the power to examine them and ask why they happened. From there, I can figure out how to move forward because those behaviors are not who I am.

When I shared these struggles with someone for an hour, they gave me a diagnosis and medication. If I hadn’t witnessed someone telling my child that they no longer needed therapy after just three months, I could have continued that path for the rest of my life—rather than the two decades or so I spent in that cycle. I now look beneath the iceberg of all those behaviors that I listed and what I see is the spiritual disconnection caused by childhood physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. I see bullying in school, abandonment, poverty, lacking adequate necessities, racism, sexism, and all systems of oppression that affect me.

The pain from the adversities I experienced was real, and the best example I can share with you is a scene from The Birth of a Nation (2016), written and directed by Nate Parker. In the scene, the young woman Cherry Ann arrives at the plantation tattered and torn. The master had just bought her from someone else. She is not only physically sick with a fever, but also has matted hair, dry lips, dirty clothes, and is emotionally enraged. Her fear, stemming from what had happened to her before, comes out in her rage as she doesn’t know what will happen to her next. The Black women on the plantation clean her up, nurse her back to health, and she becomes as beautiful as the day she was born. The story goes on to say that she became Nat Turner's wife.

Check out the scene from The Birth of a Nation (2016) on my YouTube page.

Also, see the definition of Drapetomania. Black folks took care of each other as best they could when they were enslaved. The only time they were considered mentally ill was when they tried to flee from slavery and the diagnosis was called Drapetomania.

I write and share because I hope that people who have spent years or even decades struggling, will know that there is a way through the pain and that we can change our behaviors. I also hope that those in the roles of psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists will take a moment to look beyond the label and see the soul of the person sitting across from them. I hope they will recognize the possibilities for that person and support them, not just judging the behaviors or social categories, but seeing below the iceberg and helping them to move beyond the story of what happened to them, helping them realize that their joy is within and they are enough.

I know that this is easier said than done. There is so much learning and unlearning that I had to do myself and it is my seeking and remembering the freedom and knowing that it exists why I never gave up. Do you remember that little light? Stillness Speaks, just breathe into it!