This week, Farai interviews Kiara Imani, Esq on how navigating “Black disprivilege” throughout her life led her to write her debut memoir “Therapy Isn’t Just for White People”. Then, Farai speaks to affirmation musician, Toni Jones, about how she uses music as a tool for healing. And on the weekly segment, Sippin’ the Political Tea, Farai is joined by Dr. Kali Cyrus, psychiatrist, activist and co-founder of Gemma and Adriana Alejandre, trauma therapist and founder of LatinX Therapy on the state of our collective and personal mental health journeys, and how they are shaped by what’s happening in the world.
Farai Chideya:
Hi folks. We are so glad you're listening to Our Body Politic. If you have time, please leave us a review on Apple Podcast. It helps other listeners find us and we read them for your feedback. We'd also love you to join in financially supporting the show, if you're able, you can find out more at ourbodypolitic.com/donate. We're here for you, with you and because of you. Thank you.
Farai Chideya:
This is Our Body Politic. I'm Farai Chideya. On the show, we center how Black women and all women of color shape civil society. As they say, nothing going on here. Nothing big in democracy, nothing big in the economy, nothing big on the health front. All quiet over here. Okay. Yeah, not so much. A variety of studies actually show Americans are facing historic levels of stress. Mental health challenges of course, affect people of all races and genders, but the cultural wisdom and baggage we bring with us based on race and gender as well as healthcare and wealth disparities affect how we can take care of our mental health. Kiara Imani's debut memoir is called Therapy Isn't Just for White People. She's an attorney and talk show host whose book covers her journey as a Black woman navigating racial trauma and healing. From being called colored by a white professor in law school to nearly losing her life due to medical negligence, Kiara Imani examines the underlying effects these encounters had on her mental health. Hi Kiara.
Kiara Imani:
Hi. How are you?
Farai Chideya:
I'm really glad to have you on the show. You have been through quite a lot and you have come out of it with many things including a book. So tell us a little bit more about yourself and what led you to write this.
Kiara Imani:
Yeah, so I'm from Manassas, Virginia. A lot of people are familiar with Manassas only because it was the first battle of the Civil War and the south, although they lost the war, they won the battle and it's a fact that the town still proudly boasts. We have Manassas Museums where they celebrate Confederate soldiers and there are roads and parks named after Confederates. Just recently they started renaming some of the high schools that were named after Confederate soldiers. There are a lot of things growing up that I just didn't process until I became an adult and landed in therapy at the suggestion of a friend, I was very hesitant to try therapy, and started just processing a lot of this stuff that happened as a kid and I was like, "Wow, I have a lot of trauma that I didn't know was there."
Farai Chideya:
You mentioned that your friend who introduced you to therapy is not Black, she's Filipino and white. What did you think before you went into therapy in terms of Black people in therapy?
Kiara Imani:
Oh, I definitely did not think about therapy as a viable option for me. Again, I grew up in the south and everybody went to church. Everybody was Christian. My mom is first generation Haitian American. Her family came from Haiti and they definitely had no concept of therapy. And when people were stressed, the answer was just to pray it away, "You're too blessed to be stressed. God's got it." I know a lot of churches teach anxiety's a sin, so if you are anxious, it's something that you're doing wrong, and that was just kind of how I thought about mental health. You take it to the Lord, you lay it at the cross and if you were feeling some type of way, then it's your fault.
Farai Chideya:
I have a friend who's not Black and she's not Christian, she is a person of faith and she is now going to therapy in her sixties for the first time because she was told not to by her religious leader. That's something that happens in many different forms. I just wanted to point that out because though we are definitely going to focus on Blackness as we do many times on this show, a lot of what we talk about stretches across all these disciplines, and right now we're in this historic mental health meltdown for this country. Now let's turn to your family. You write a lot about your family. Let's just start with who your family is. You talk about your grandmother and your grandpa, Joey. Who are your people?
Kiara Imani:
Yeah. So as I mentioned on my mom's side, her family is from Haiti and they're first generation Haitians, and I have a few stories about them too. My grandma Claudia, my grandpa John, but I actually didn't include as many stories about them as I did my dad's family, and that also comes a lot from Haitian culture because they both have some really incredible stories about when they first came to this country and my grandma was 14, they didn't speak a lot of English, they didn't know anybody and went from being in that space to eventually they learned English, they got their education. My granddad went on to become a doctor. My grandma went on to become a principal of her own school and a lot of Haitian culture is about not airing your dirty laundry and not talking about your low points, just celebrating the high points.
Kiara Imani:
And I think a lot of Black culture in general can be the same where you just keep it in the closet and there are a lot of stories that I wanted to tell that my grandma specifically really didn't want me to share. And you have to respect that people are in different spaces and it wasn't just my story that I was telling. On both of my parents' side, both of their families came from having absolutely nothing. They both grew up in the projects. I talk about my grandpa Joey growing up in Newark, New Jersey and being the first in his family to go to college and really just the struggles that I think a lot of Black Americans had, whether they were immigrating at that time or whether their families had been there in a time where black people were just going through civil rights, starting to get the right to education and the right to vote and just fighting to live.
Farai Chideya:
You talk a bit in the book about how you assumed that you should be married young and going into therapy made you process why you thought you should be married young. Talk a little bit about how you dealt with what you actually wanted or at least began to have a conversation with yourself about it.
Kiara Imani:
Yeah. So it started before my parents are now, they're a doctor and a lawyer. They've been happily married for many years and so when I went into therapy, I went in very cocky, "I don't have any family issues. My parents are still married, they are relationship goals," and so I didn't realize that there were a lot of things that my parents had accomplished that I was reflecting negatively about myself because I wasn't able to do a lot of those things. They met in college at Cornell University and my mom was 19 when she got pregnant with me. My dad was 21. They ended up getting married before I was born, and there were a lot of people who thought that having me was a terrible idea, including my grandparents. They didn't think that they should be married. They still had their whole careers ahead of them and my grandparents loved me as soon as I got here. I didn't realize until later that there was a little bit of controversy.
Kiara Imani:
But just knowing that my parents got married young and it worked for them, I subconsciously started to believe that people were supposed to be married young. That's what works, that's what's healthy because normal is just what we're used to. So I remember processing with my therapist one time, "I'm not going to be married by the time that I'm 30 and then I'm not going to have kids by the time that I'm 32 and then my whole life is just not going to be what it's supposed to." And she kind of stopped me in my spiral and was like, "Where did you learn that you had to be married by 30?" And I had to sit with it for a second because I thought to myself, "Oh my gosh, this is not actually anything that anyone ever specifically told me." It's a role that I've come up for myself based upon what I've seen.
Kiara Imani:
And I think that was the first moment of realizing I really need to deconstruct a lot of what I've been taught, do a lot of unlearning so that I can build back up what do I believe about this stuff for myself? When do I think marriage makes sense? Do I even think that marriage is important? Is that something that I want for my life? I have never imagined my life being anything different than what my parents' life was.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah. Let's go to another very specific yet broad topic, which is shared racial trauma. You went viral on TikTok after George Floyd's death explaining what you refer to as Black disprivilege. I wonder if you could read a little bit from your book about this idea of...
Kiara Imani:
Yes, absolutely. In my experience, white people often have a difficult time talking about white privilege with Black people. Their body posture tenses up, their lips tighten and their cheeks flush. They become defensive listing all the Black people in their lives to prove that they are good white people. I've had many white people, like my friend Sidney, assume that I'm angry at them for being white and for having privilege. But I'm not angry that white people have privilege. They have no more control over the skin color they were born with than Black people have with their own skin color.
Kiara Imani:
However, I am angry at what I refer to as my Black disprivilege. If white privilege is a collection of advantages that white people have based on the premise that whiteness is the unquestioned ideal, then Black privilege is a collection of stigmas and disadvantages that Black people have accumulated from the pervasive and systemic racism that America was founded upon. My family and I have all experienced Black disprivilege at differing times in our life. Each time is equal parts humiliating and infuriating. I've spent a great deal of time as an adult unpacking Black disprivilege and the effect it's had on both myself and on the Black people I love.
Farai Chideya:
So, I happen to have just had a really meaningful vacation with one of my dear friends who is also my aunt by marriage, and she is white and she completely gets Black disprivilege in this very integral way that I sometimes struggle with with different white friends or non-Black friends. How do you deal with this conversation, not just in your public writing, but with the people you love who are not Black?
Kiara Imani:
Yeah, I have a whole section called Black People and the White People we love because oftentimes I think the conversation starts with the white people who are racist, the white people at work who you experience the microaggressions with, and all of those conversations are important, but I think one thing that a lot of us struggled with that were forced to reconcile in 2020 is how do we handle these issues with the white people that we love? The people that we're doing life with, that we care about, that we've shared moments with? For me, I thought about friends that we used to be in church choir together, in class together and we had sleepovers. I think there are people like your aunt who you can sit down and have these conversations with, and then there are other people in our life who it gets really sticky and difficult.
Kiara Imani:
I kept coming up against people, like one of my friends I talk about in the book Sydney, who when you start to talk about white privilege, their first thought automatically is, "Well, my life isn't perfect. I also struggled. This is all of the things that's been hard about my life." And I don't think that a lot of white people understand that white privilege does not mean that your life is perfect. It doesn't mean that you don't struggle. It doesn't mean you don't have mental health issues. It's just simply that you have certain privileges as a white person that Black people are not afforded.
Kiara Imani:
So I started to just think about how to turn that narrative on its face and to make it more Black centered, because white privilege is very white centered when you start talking about Black disprivilege and all of the things that Black people have to deal with in this country and a lot of the stories I tell in my book that a lot of my white friends did not have to deal with, I find that people tend to be a lot more receptive and it's also just an easier conversation because white privilege really is a conversation about how people of color struggle.
Farai Chideya:
That was attorney, author and radio host Kiara Imani on her debut memoir, Therapy Isn't Just for White People. Coming up next, more from Kiara Imani on her book and how she sees race and the law, plus on Sipping the Political Tea, we look at the state of mental healthcare with psychiatrist and activists, Dr. Kali Cyrus and trauma therapist and founder of Latinx Therapy, Adriana Alejandre. That's on Our Body Politic.
Farai Chideya:
Welcome back to Our Body Politic. We're continuing our conversation with Kiara Imani, attorney and author of the memoir, Therapy Isn't Just for White People. Let's take a listen. I want to talk a little bit about your career in the law and read you back a couple of quotes from your book. One, "For many Black people, the laws of our land are not sacred rulings to blindly revere, but guidelines that we must assess and question as individuals and as a society." That's one part of your writing. Another part, "Every social revolution that has benefited Black people has centered on the abolishment of a law." So considering that this is part of what you're writing about here, how do you view your life and practice in the law?
Kiara Imani:
Yeah, I love that you're asking that question because I think even when we talk about the very political stance of law and order there tends to be a disconnect between a lot of Black Americans and a lot of white Americans. I have found that a lot of white Americans assume that laws are set up to benefit everybody, whereas a lot of Black Americans understand that a lot of laws were written to benefit some and not others. So we do not assume that breaking a law is necessarily a bad thing all the time, or that following the law benefits everyone as a society. So there's kind of a breakdown there.
Kiara Imani:
And it's definitely been interesting as my career as an attorney, although I practice in the entertainment space, I talk about one of my bosses in the book, a boss that was talking about immigration and how "it's so terrible that these people are breaking the law, they're illegal, this is our country," and I very boldly reminded him about the stories he told me when he was in college and he used to smoke marijuana and do other drugs with his friends and pointed out the fact that his car, he parks it illegally all the time. I'm like, "You're breaking laws for fun. These are people who are breaking laws in order to create better lives for themselves. You have no right to stand on a pedestal and talk about how these people are wrong because they've broken laws when they're convenient for you." Just the way that politics and bias is not only written into the law, but the way that we perceive laws I think is really problematic.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah, I have to say that one of the more painful events of recent years in terms of this whole racial landscape was that I have a long time white friend where I saw, among many things, there was the whole "Michael Brown was no saint," meanwhile valorizing extralegal activities of young white men in the same conversation. I was just like, "Okay, I can't stand for that." And so I think the friendship may be over, but I literally spent years trying to deescalate it and I just couldn't. And it's painful sometimes. It's also very different when the person is a work colleague because that has its own baggage. I have so much I could talk about with you, but I want to just end this with a little reflection on your medical experiences and you had a negative medical experience. Just tell us a tiny bit about that in terms of race and the law and how you did or did not feel protected and respected.
Kiara Imani:
The medical experiences in my book I would say of every story that I tell, of everything that I dive into from kindergarten, being called buckwheat by my friends, to having a professor say, "Well, you're smart for a colored girl," I would say that medical piece of this was the most traumatic and it goes back to just my body. This is Our Body Politic. When things are specifically affecting your body, it's hard not for it to really affect you, but my mom is a doctor, so I kind of grew up with a trust of doctors, whereas a lot of people grow up with the distrust of doctors. I talk about my grandpa Joey and he has never trusted doctors. You think about the syphilis experiments with the Black men who were told that they were being cured and really they were just watching how this disease affected and killed them. Think about the Mississippi appendectomies when women were being told that they were getting their appendix out and really they were being sterilized.
Kiara Imani:
And there are just so many documented paths of ways that the doctors have really abused communities of colors, and that doesn't even include all of the undocumented paths, but again, your normal is what you're used to. My context was that my mom's dad was a doctor, my mom was a doctor, so I really went in trusting doctors, believing that they had my best interest at heart, believing that I was going to be well taken care of. When I moved to California and I was away from my family for the first time, I wasn't going to the doctor with an advocate and had a terrible infection in my uterus. The first time I went, they didn't really take me seriously. I knew that it was something wrong and they were kind of waving it off, "Oh, maybe it's cramps." And I talk about how I had a doctor who was being particularly cold with me and then left, checked my chart and said, "Oh my gosh, well, you're an attorney. I guess that means I have to keep you alive now." And that was infuriating.
Farai Chideya:
Wow. That's supposed to be a nice thing to say?
Kiara Imani:
Exactly. I shouldn't have to prove or show you my resume in order to receive competent care. That doctor, when he found out that I was an attorney, sent me to the ER and was like, "Well, just in case this is something, now I want to send you." So I still believe that he would've sent me home if he didn't check my chart. So I get to the ER, more white doctors, again I'm in terrible pain, I have a high fever. They waved me off too. They're like, "Sleep it off." Gave me some medicine, sent me home. Within 24 hours, I was back at the ER, it turns out that I had a terrible infection in my uterus that turned into pelvic inflammatory disease, which I tried to tell them the day before. And even in learning more about that got angry because so much of getting it is catching it early. Just the idea that if had doctors listen to me, it wouldn't have probably developed at all still makes me really angry.
Kiara Imani:
That was a really traumatic experience and my parents ended up having to fly out here. I was in the hospital for days and once my parents get here, they learn that my mom is a doctor and again, all of a sudden the conversation changes. And I write in the book about when I went to the ER, how the first thing my mom asked was, "What are you wearing?" Which I've learned a lot of white people don't worry about when they go to the doctor, because she was like, "If you show up in a T-shirt and sweatpants, they're going to treat you homeless. They're not going to treat you well. I need you to put on nice clothes." So I'm hunched over in pain, crying, about to throw up, and I'm having to worry about what I'm wearing to the emergency room just to make sure that they pay attention to me.
Kiara Imani:
Even thinking back on a lot of those stories, I hear people like, "You should have said something to your doctor. You should have complained to the hospital about the terrible treatment you have." But when you are in a life or death, or what feels like life or death situation, and you're in excruciating pain, I'm just fighting to feel good in my body. I don't want to have to fight the system or write letters to the doctor. I just want to feel okay.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah, my grandmother died of medical negligence from a doctor who gave her antacids for four years and by the time he finally ordered a colonoscopy, she had stage four metastatic cancer, colon cancer that had spread all over her body. So medical negligence is a big thing to me and also at the disproportionate levels of it. And I just want to say this book manages to be very structural about race and gender, but also very personal. You go there, and I cannot thank you enough for doing that. You'll have to come back on the show. Kiara, we're going to leave it there, but thank you so much for spending time.
Kiara Imani:
Of course. Thank you for having me. I just feel honored to be able to have these conversations because I think they're important topics and we should be talking about them.
Farai Chideya:
That was attorney, author and radio host Kiara Imani on her debut memoir, Therapy Isn't Just for White People. You're listening to Our Body Politic. I'm Farai Chideya. This week we're focusing on the relationship between personal journeys and mental health. We live in a society where people are constantly on the move, pushing themselves to do better, go farther, be faster, but where does that leave us as humans? As part of our special episode on emotional wellness, we are talking to Toni Jones who started creating music for her clients when she was a life coach so they could get affirmations on the go. It turned out what really got going was a whole new career as an affirmation musician, blending highly produced songs, drawing on genres including chill trap, soul and spoken word with her own vocal stylings and lyrics. The point is to recenter us emotionally and help us rise, and I have definitely felt the power of your work, Toni. Welcome to Our Body Politic.
Toni Jones:
Thank you so, so much. It's very exciting to be here. Thank you for having me.
Farai Chideya:
So let me give folks a little bit of backstory. We met during the pandemic at our friend Justin's house. I am so grateful our paths crossed. And then months later, a friend of mine sent me your song "Energy Budget." I was like, "Oh, that's Toni. I met her. We have to have her on the show." Do you hear things like that a lot, people getting turned onto your music by their friends?
Toni Jones:
Yes, absolutely. I mean, I have friends that say, "I've had people send me your music and they don't even know that we're actually friends." So I get that often.
Farai Chideya:
We really try to talk about the intersection of physical health, mental health, spirituality, and just life. And so a friend of mine had a doctor's appointment and as she puts it, the nurse took her blood pressure, it was a little high and she said, "Give me a minute." She went and sat outside and she listened to your song "Take Up Space Sis" and listened to it all the way through and came back and her blood pressure was lower.
Toni Jones:
Wow.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah.
Toni Jones:
I'm hearing stories like that all the time. I had one lady who's doing my hair, like in the middle of doing my hair, she was like, "Are you Toni Jones? Oh, I have to FaceTime my mother," and her mother explaining she had been addicted to drugs like majority of her adult life and so she listened to my album. She's been Drug Free for two years. And I was like, "What in the world is happening?" It's one thing to do it because that was your intention, but to do it just because... I was just creating this music for my clients and then eventually it was something I shared and created because it was something I love. I didn't really go into being a full-time musician because I wanted to heal the world, save the world. It was like, no, this feels like... this feels true for me. It's just really... I'm actually in awe that this is unfolding the way it's unfolding.
Farai Chideya:
You know, have this song, Money Worships Me. I thought it was so interesting because there's that line in the Bible about the root of evil being the love of money, not money, but the love of money and money worships me is a really interesting take on our relationship to money.
Toni Jones:
(Singing)
Farai Chideya:
Tell me about that song.
Toni Jones:
I've been healing my relationship with money for some years now and so for me, the money worships me is my own personal self-talk of reframing the way that I speak to myself about abundance. Because a lot of us have this subconscious way of being enslave to financial status or wellbeing, and it's like, what if we just reframed our mindset and says, "Actually money actually needs me." It's because if I have more abundance, I have more options to share, serve, show up, be well, and so on. So it's kind of like a anthem for people to say, "Hey, let me expand my perspective on financial wellbeing."
Farai Chideya:
One of your lyrics says, "I owe it to myself to be consistent, focused and soft daily."
Toni Jones:
(Singing)
Farai Chideya:
What does it mean to be soft, especially for a Black woman where we're supposed to be Atlas in a skirt?
Toni Jones:
To be soft means allowing the parts of myself that I've suppressed to be felt, the painful parts, the parts that I want to heal away really fast that I don't like about myself, allowing the pain of that, the heaviness of it to be felt. As a Black woman, it's very important for us to allow ourselves to feel the pain of not being able to be strong for everybody. We have to let that identity go and allow life to soften us so when there are moments of joy, when there are people that want to support us, we can allow ourselves to receive that in the softest parts of ourselves that actually need that. And so the soft life is really about letting life soften you in those hard areas of your life that have helped you survive trauma, helped you survive society, helped you survive injustice, allow yourself to feel that. It is definitely a journey. It's not a destination. It's definitely you take it day by day and sometimes moment by moment.
Farai Chideya:
So your song, "I forgive" as billed, focuses on forgiveness.
Toni Jones:
(Singing)
Farai Chideya:
You've mentioned forgiveness already, but what does it mean to forgive, to you?
Toni Jones:
Forgiveness is giving yourself personal freedom to expand your perception, expand past the victim mindset, allowing yourself to feel like, "This wasn't fair. This was not okay." Whether you did something to yourself or someone did something to you, or whatever the case may be, and allow yourself to feel that, but then say, "But there's more here than what happened. What are the lessons? How can I define myself past the pain of this?" That's what forgiveness has been to me. And when I've recently been performing that song, "I forgive," I get choked up because again, once again, these songs are my class. They're literally my lesson and I'm in that lesson right now. I thought I was creating this music for everybody else, but really it was foreshadowing what I actually needed for my present moment to learn these lessons from what happened to me since I've got to this planet.
Toni Jones:
And so forgiveness is letting things go, is letting the old perception of what happened, how it felt and being curious about what else is here besides the pain. And it's a mantra you repeat over and over again because it doesn't have actual lyrics. It's a mantra you say over and over again. The power of repetition impacts the way the mindset is formed. Advertising companies use this psychology all the time. You have icons and celebrities and billion dollar companies and brands that are always marketing and advertising to us. It's because their message has to be on repeat to sustain the brand and our purchasing habits. If we don't have a message on repeat, it won't land in our subconscious. And so when it comes to these new ideas of I forgive, I need to put myself first, I love myself, I release, these are new concepts, these are new messages and we have to market and advertise that to our brains on the daily.
Toni Jones:
You have to advertise to your mind this new way of thinking for it to download into your mindset, to impact your behavior and perception of how you view yourself, how you view forgiveness and so on. So that mantra I forgiveness, it's not just some positive anthem, it's literally you're creating a whole new way of thinking about pain and what happened to you in this country, in your family, in that relationship at that job with your friend, You're allowing yourself to create a whole new mindset on how to react to duality of life. Music is one of the most ancient medicines used since the beginning of time. And so I definitely have seen the connection between mental health, wellbeing and the music that I've created for people to practice wellbeing on the go.
Farai Chideya:
Well, Toni, again, I have loved this and I hope you come on our show again. Thank you so much for spending some time with me.
Toni Jones:
Thank you, I appreciate this.
Farai Chideya:
That was mental health expert and affirmation musician, Toni Jones. Her latest album is Me Versus Every Me: Affirmations of Self-Love. Coming up next on our weekly round table, Sipping the Political Tea, we get into mental health and communities of color with psychiatrist and activist, Dr. Kali Cyrus and trauma therapist and founder of Latin X Therapy., Adriana Alejandre.
Adriana Alejandre:
There's this saying in Spanish is [foreign language 00:31:33], which is, what would they say? What would they say if they found out you go to therapy? If you're saying you have trauma?
Farai Chideya:
You're listening to Our Body Politic.
Each week on the show, we bring you a round table called Sipping the Political Tea. This week we're diving into the state of our personal and collective mental health and how it relates to what's been happening in the news and what's been happening in the world. I certainly have been on my own mental health journey, which I will talk a bit about. So just as a note, we are going to be discussing suicide during this conversation. We know many find this a difficult and triggering subject and we encourage all of you to take care of yourself and others. So joining me is psychiatrist and activist in Washington DC, Dr. Kali Cyrus. Welcome back Dr. Cyrus.
Dr. Kali Cyrus:
Thanks for having me.
Farai Chideya:
And trauma therapist and founder of Latinx Therapy, Adriana Alejandre. Welcome, Adriana.
Adriana Alejandre:
Hi. Thank you for having me.
Farai Chideya:
I'm really delighted to be with both of you. This year has brought a lot of health issues in my family, which have definitely been part of my own mental health journey. And then also sometimes just staring into the void of the news, all sorts of stuff, both things that directly affect me in the news, but also things like we've talked about Brittney Griner and now she's been denied in appeal. So when I look at geopolitics, sometimes it's through the lens of how are other people being harmed? All of it can kind of come home and hit you in your soft spaces. So this appears to be a national thing. According to the CDC, 32% of American adults reported symptoms of depression and anxiety in September. That's a huge increase from 9% back in September, 2019. And both of you are trained mental health practitioners, and your work is focused on communities of color. So I will ask you first, Dr. Cyrus, what is behind this trend of accelerating stress and people feeling tapped out with their mental health, and how is it reflected in groups of color?
Dr. Kali Cyrus:
Yeah, so I think your explanation of how your mental state is really captures this. So not only are we still sort of in a pandemic, I think people forget that, that's looming around us, and so I just think there are a lot of demands that are being placed on everyone collectively. And then you have people of color, LGBTQ people of color, LGBTQ people of color with disabilities. We have all of these people with intersectional identities who are not just struggling with what everyone else is dealing with, but the minutiae of being any of those identities and all of them and just trying to get through day to day. Plus everything that you see in the media with the elections. So the way that I see this is that it all adds up and it's hard to find a release to this kind of stuff.
Farai Chideya:
Adriana, part of your practice is working with first and second generation Americans who are people of color and dealing with the issues around identity, relationships, depression, anxiety, PTSD. With some of this collective trauma that Dr. Cyrus was talking about, has the way you approach your work changed at all over the past couple years?
Adriana Alejandre:
It definitely has because there's been a lot of bubbling frustration as a professional in the sense that there are just not enough resources. And not only am I providing therapy, but it also feels like there's emotional and resource triage that is happening in our role as therapist as well, because our clients need more resources, our community needs more resources and bilingual Spanish speaking therapist, we can't wait for the government to provide this. Leadership is not acting fast enough for the mental health crisis that we are in. So it has changed. And what we do notice also with our clients is that just like the statistic you shared, the symptoms have exacerbated, the need is now.
Farai Chideya:
And tell us a little bit about Latinx Therapy, the group that you founded, Adriana.
Adriana Alejandre:
Latinx Therapy specifically is a national organization that has a bilingual podcast in English and in Spanish where we destigmatize mental health myths and taboo in the Latin X and Hispanic cultures. As a daughter of immigrants, I know too well all of the mental health misconceptions, and again, the barriers to treatment to mental health that resonate with Black, brown and Indigenous communities as well. I also have within Latinx Therapy the directory, which is a free national resource, and 98% of our directory hold Spanish speaking therapist. But we're also very careful with the providers we have because we do want our providers to have a perspective of accepting decolonizing work and of inclusivity as well. Culturally responsive care is really important.
Farai Chideya:
Dr. Cyrus, you're also the co-founder of Gemma and organization that is online dealing with women's mental health. So can you speak to what you're related to and what Adriana was saying and also what Gemma does?
Dr. Kali Cyrus:
Yeah, so I very much resonate with culturally responsive care. There's just something that you can't really understand unless you sometimes look like the client, even though we might have different styles of Blackness, grew up in completely different environments. And so culturally responsive care, being able to make those adjustments and code switch, but also meet the needs your patients are presenting to you and be understanding and not deny whatever story that they're coming with is really important. I'm also finding that there are a lot of people who are at a stage where they don't just want someone to talk to, but people also want to understand why. And there's so much information that's on the internet that may not be coming from providers or folks who've studied this kind of work. And I'm glad everyone's talking about it. And so this is one of the reasons why we launched Gemma. So Gemma is the first and only for all women, and that means women across the spectrum, whatever you identify as. And it's a really accessible educational form.
Dr. Kali Cyrus:
So when you are trying to figure out why at the end of the day your brain is so tired, you can't do anything, you might love your kids, but you really can't stand them right now, why that's happening. And so we're able to explain the science around that and give you some strategies of what to do, which I think is the ultimate goal of mental health treatment. So we want to be able to help people when they're in an emergency situation, but we want to arm them with the information that they need to understand what's happening so that they can do something about it and develop their own long-term patterns. And so my role within Gemma is really bringing my lived experience as a 38 year old Black queer, anxious, depressed, ADHD human, but also what I see with my clientele, which are mostly Black, brown and LGBTQ individuals. And so a lot of the material that I contribute is around social justice and oppression. And I think that we really have to fine tune what we're doing to help people in various scenarios because it's just, it's so intense these days.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah, I mean, I definitely hear a lot of that. I'm in a support group where one of my former interns was in the group before I joined, and there's a lot of discussion about the stresses of being a woman of color at work. What kinds of things are coming up in the world that you operate in around Latinx Therapy, Adriana? What sorts of things are coming up for people navigating the world these days?
Adriana Alejandre:
Something that I've actually noticed that's very beautiful is that there is more people craving healing. There's more people wanting to get help within my community. I think that that's been on the positive side. And then in general in regards to what I've seen since the last couple years has been that increase of anxiety and people discovering also neurodivergency within themselves that has gone unaccounted for, I don't want to say misdiagnosed, but just unaccounted for, because again, of the lack of resources, the lack of education, the stigma that still exists to this day.
Adriana Alejandre:
In my community, and I know in many communities, there's this saying of in Spanish is [foreign language 00:40:25] which is what would they say? What would they say if they found out you go to therapy? What would they say if you're saying XYZ, that you have trauma from this or that? There's always this hypervigilance of the perception of others and I think that people are discovering that we as people within collectivistic cultures really do need to prioritize their own needs and learn to set boundaries, but they don't know how. So it's been a mix of things, but definitely an increase of symptomology.
Farai Chideya:
You are listening to Sipping the Political Tea on Our Body Politic. I am Farai Chideya and this week we're doing a special round table on mental health with psychiatrist and co-founder of Gemma, Dr. Kali Cyrus and trauma therapist and founder of Latinx Therapy, Adriana Alejandre. So Dr. Cyrus, this is actually a special mental health themed episode. Talk about the Black community specifically and this idea that you shouldn't let strange people inside your head.
Dr. Kali Cyrus:
So there is a skepticism, and I'll even say a suspicion, against sharing your business on the street, which is exactly what you do with a therapist, except for you're sharing your business, but it's not on the streets, it's in a confidential manner where this therapist isn't going to go blabbing about what you tell them. My own mother has even said this to me once, "Well, I saw a therapist, but I think she knew some people from church and I didn't feel comfortable going."
Dr. Kali Cyrus:
And I think this is the issue is that one, there's a shortage of Black and brown providers, and then if a bunch of us are seeing them, how comfortable do we feel around sharing in general when this is already a sort of quality in our community that we don't like people to know what we're sharing? And so that's definitely a thing that is historically always present. But I do think the stigma is real. And so until we have more therapists, until we have more social workers, until we have more psychologists, more psychiatrists who are embedded in our medical system, and not just that, but education around what we do and then present so that they know we're not just representing some outside hospital or actually sharing their business on the street, the more that it'll become acceptable is my hope.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah. And Adriana, I'm thinking of someone I know who's Latina and who had to secure mental health resources for her child and it was so expensive. How do you deal in talking to people about the cost of sometimes finding the right therapist and what are options?
Adriana Alejandre:
Yes, I think that's an excellent point and I want to bring up that there's a lot of bureaucracy unfortunately in insurances that makes it very difficult for Black, brown and Indigenous providers to be able to just be able to afford life. On the other hand, in regards to the cost, I want to encourage everyone listening that it's okay to discuss your finances with your therapist. If you see a rate on a directory profile or on their website that just seems astronomical to you and it's too high for your budget, talk to them about that. Talk to them about what you can afford.
Adriana Alejandre:
I really do want to encourage people, just give yourself that opportunity to discuss reduced fee rates, sliding scale rates, because therapists do tend to hold slots for either certain populations or just folks that can't afford their rate. It's a very complex issue because I can understand why some therapists need to increase their rates or have high rates, but I also understand the community need because I'm a consumer myself and want to advocate for speaking up about your financial situation so you find the right fit and the length of treatment that you need.
Farai Chideya:
I want to turn to a couple of questions from listeners. Dr. Cyrus, we had a listener who asked, "It feels like everything is opening back up after the pandemic, but I'm still really anxious about going to in-person events. What should I do?" What should people do when they're feeling that anxiety about to go out, not to go out?
Dr. Kali Cyrus:
Great question. And I definitely have patients right now who are struggling with this as they're immunocompromised or immunosuppressed in some way and have been held up in their homes. So the first thing I'll say about anxiety is that it's basically a fear that something is going to happen. And so I assume the fear is that you will catch COVID and that maybe you will die, which I think can be a realistic fear. But is there a way to go about going outside of your home in a way that minimizes that risk? So I'll first say, examine the anxiety and then see if there is a plan that you can come up with that addresses the fears, but also you feel comfortable with. So it might not mean you go to a restaurant right away, maybe you don't go to a restaurant right away. Maybe you invite your friends over who you know have tested and have been vaccinated and boosted and you make dinner with just the two of you, have a regular every other week kind of thing. There are a lot of establishments that still require you to wear a mask.
Dr. Kali Cyrus:
And so I think finding out what kind of establishments still require that and also to make sure that waiters and kitchen staff are also wearing masks. But I do think there are ways to safely go out and socialize. And I think that's the most important thing is that this anxiety can keep you from being around people and being social, which is so important right now for your mood, everything we're learning about, loneliness also, again, as winter comes and there's not as much sunlight. So I think I would just really ask folks to think about that anxiety and come up with a plan that seems feasible. And if you fail to do it, if you get somewhere and you have a complete panic attack, be gracious with yourself, go home and then try it again. But maybe take a step back and not fully immerse yourself in that plan. So it's going to be an iterative process. You're going to have to trial and error what feels comfortable for you, and it's okay if you don't hit that successful plan right away.
Farai Chideya:
And Adriana, another listener asked, "What are ways to practice self care without spending money?"
Adriana Alejandre:
Oh, that's an excellent question because there are many different ways, and I think what I tend to teach my clients is that the key is within us. For me, self care is coming back into the present moment versus being in my mind with my to-do list of what comes ahead of what is in my future. Some ideas can be taking walks, doing some sort of body movement is excellent for our mental health. And even if that's rocking back and forth, again, can be very accessible to different folks. So I think it does require some reflection of not just abilities, but also what mood are you in during this given season for your own self care.
Adriana Alejandre:
And other ideas can include socializing aspect as well. Who are the people that nurture you and soothe you, or would you rather spend time with a pet or your plants? I think in regards to self care without spending money, I would invite folks to look outside as well, and literally just outside your window, outside of your home and see what is an activity that you can create. Or going back to even inner child work, hopscotch, chalks, something that's just very accessible, quite literally, and you don't really have to spend money.
Farai Chideya:
Well, I could talk about so many things, but I love hopscotch, so I'm going to have to leave it there, get some chalk and go out in front of my house and get a game going with somebody. There are many beautiful roads to refreshing our mental health. I've certainly have had my journeys with generalized anxiety disorder and many other things, and I talk to my friends about my journey and they've been so helpful to me and I get to be helpful to them. So you have both been helpful to us. Thank you both. Thank you, Adriana.
Adriana Alejandre:
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Farai Chideya:
And thank you Dr. Cyrus.
Dr. Kali Cyrus:
Again, thank you so much for having me. So glad we're talking about this issue.
Farai Chideya:
That was psychiatrist and activist in Washington dc Dr. Kali Cyrus, also the co-founder of Gemma and trauma therapist and founder of Latinx Therapy, Adriana Alejandre.
Farai Chideya:
Thanks for listening to Our Body Politic. We're on the air each week -- and everywhere you listen to podcasts.
Farai Chideya:
Our Body Politic is produced by Diaspora Farms. I’m host and executive producer, Farai Chideya. Jonathan Blakely is our executive producer. Nina Spensley is also executive producer.
Emily J. Daly is our senior producer. Bridget McAllister and Traci Caldwell are our booking producers. Steve Lack is our producer. Natyna Bean and Emily Ho are our associate producers. Kelsey Kudak is our fact checker.
Farai Chideya:
Production and editing services are by Clean Cuts at Three Seas. Today's episode was produced with the help of Lauren Schild and Hannah Looney, and engineered by Andrew Eppig and Andrew Rooner.
Farai Chideya:
This program is produced with support from the Ford Foundation, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Democracy Fund, The Harnisch Foundation, Compton Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, the BMe Community, Katie McGrath & JJ Abrams Family Foundation, and from generous contributions from listeners like you.