Black Mental Illness

I was watching this video from the The Grapevine on YouTube about Mental Illness in the African community, more specifically in Nigerian culture. Although I am not Nigerian, I can relate because it is the same problem in the Black American community. Mental Illness is something that is not address in the Black American community. Most of them kind of push it off. Most Black American families either say pray it off or don't address it at all.

Now from what I understand, it is a little more tough to talk about menatl illness in the Nigerian culture because of how they are raised. But in black america, mental illness is something that is more open but at the same time it is still put off.

Black Americans are really big on religion and believe that if you pray God will take care of it. I think that it is a team effort. You pray to God about helping you deal with it but you have to take the step of getting the help you need. In the video, they also talked about how talking to your families can either make or break your healing proccess in mental illness. For some, talking to their families help them and for others the person has to cut out their family all together.

One solution that I would give is by simply having a conversation. Talk to your peers about how mental illness effect the black community and how can we help each other to solve it. I would also say if you struggle with menatl illness, find someone that you think that can best help you. Whether it is your family, best friend, or a therapist; find somebody that can be of good use and understands what you are going through.

I want you guys to watch enough of the video (I do prefer to watch the whole video but it is forty minutes long) to be able to compare and contrast between Black American culture on Mental Illness. Comment your thoughts below on how we can help each other on this topic.