Decolonizing Mental Health in the Black Community
In recognition of July as National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, Anise Health has partnered with key opinion leaders at the forefront of research and advocacy for culturally-responsive mental health care. This interview represents the first of our three-part series intended to raise awareness about mental health across communities of color and share resources that support BIPOC's mental health needs. Watch the full interview here and read below for highlights!
To kick things off, we spoke last week with Lincoln Alexander Estridge, the founder of The Fight Inside Society (TFIS). TFIS is a non-profit organization dedicated to destigmatizing and decolonizing mental illness started by young adults. To make this happen, TFIS creates culturally sensitive mental health advocates who act as front-line buffers in their respective communities. This approach is a refreshingly unique way to raise awareness and encourage advocacy around stigma and mental illness. And what better way to start than being an advocate yourself? That is exactly what Lincoln and his team do.
What was the inspiration to start TFIS?
“I always say ‘I made TFIS out of ignorance’. I didn’t know anything about mental health, but not only that, I was actually contributing to the stigmatization of it. This came from my Christian background and from being Black. I grew up as a Pastor’s kid. Mental health and mental illness weren’t even in conversations; it wasn’t something that could be a part of how you interacted with God.”
“The first big push for me towards mental health advocacy was due to having people around me struggle openly with mental illness or poor mental health.” Lincoln witnessed his girlfriend and sister struggle with their mental health after they opened up slowly about their anxiety and depression. Since they were both Christian, it didn’t feel like something that was real. He initially thought “their relationship with God must not be good enough; they must not be praying enough.”
The awakening moment for Lincoln was when his sister placed a note on the fridge that read “Has anyone noticed I’ve been quiet lately?” He thanks God for this moment because “people usually only get what comes after that kind of note. ” When the note hit that fridge, Lincoln said “it was like there was no other option than to act; you could not ignore it anymore. So then, we just dove into mental health advocacy, research, and trying to connect myself to people who could help”.
One day, Lincoln made an Instagram post saying “Hey, does anyone want to learn about mental health with me?” With a small group, this is how TFIS started…learning about what mental health is and discussing what we were doing wrong all these years.”
Tell us more about the TFIS team?
Lincoln founded TFIS in 2018 as a student at the University of Toronto, majoring in sociology and double minoring in history of religion and political science.“Our team is composed of passionate young adult volunteers. All the people in the organization, or at least 8-9 of them are Christians and one is Muslim, so we all came from a similar background where we didn’t really talk about mental health in our community - both being religious and Black.” They worked together to understand why “because we all knew someone who was struggling but there was no action towards figuring out how to help.”
“We just recently added six new members to expand the team because we want to implement more programs. A lot of us are still either working full time jobs or in school, so I really do want to get more hands-on. We are all volunteers so it’s hard to give all the time and energy to this, even though we are doing the best we can.”
How does TFIS define culturally sensitive mental health care?
“Cultural sensitivity to us means cultural safety. It means giving people of color, mainly, the respect to acknowledge the differences in what mental health may look like in different sections of the world. A lot of mental illness research and the DSM [The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders] was specifically created for White individuals and based on White experiences. Cultural responsiveness means giving the marginalized a voice and space. It also means adding resources and meeting intersectional needs for people who have never had that before.”
In what ways is TFIS practicing culturally sensitive mental health care?
TFIS’s main method for sharing culturally sensitive mental health care with their community is by being advocates themselves. “We mainly focus on workshops, forums, panels, and talks; webinars were the main thing we were doing because of the pandemic. After this stressful time, we do want to get more in person. We’ve been doing workshops especially around Ontario, Canada but we want to branch out.”
In all of these events and as advocates, TFIS focuses on cultivating a relaxed and vulnerable atmosphere where they can provide culturally appropriate information to their community. This information spans from statistics to research related to the community. Conversations cover a wide range of topics including personal experiences and stories, understanding the difference between mental health and mental illness, understanding that mental health looks different for everyone and exploring the complexities of intersectionality.
What cultural issues do you wish to address?
“Labeling is important”, especially using proper labeling. “At the first part of every workshop, we do want to mention and clarify the difference between mental illness and mental health, which exist along the spectrum of mental wellbeing. When we misuse the two, it becomes very dangerous.” People may hear one thing and come to the inaccurate conclusion that someone is unstable. For instance, someone experiencing a depressive mood and someone with major depressive disorder are two different things. “It’s dangerous because people start to act on a mental illness level, when it’s actually just poor mental health that they can address themselves.”
Another important issue is the lack of male presence in the workshops and conversations. “Experiencing it day to day, workshop to workshop, it just kind of sucks to continue to see. It is so disheartening because it just perpetuates the stigma in the men’s community, especially Black men. Everyone’s on that same mentality that you just need to be a man and tough it out; that’s not for us to talk about; get over it.’”
What are the high and lows of your experience in creating culturally sensitive mental health advocates?
“Unfortunately, the main challenges were our credibility. Again, TFIS is made up of young adults who did not know a lot about mental health in the first place. It was 8-9, nineteen to twenty-four year old Black kids that wanted to learn about mental health and help other people. The passion we had was very raw; it felt like we were pulled to do it, driven to it. But when we wanted to implement programs based on the research we’ve done and the psychotherapists we connected to, there were a lot of conflicts getting into larger establishments. For example, we had plans to have psychotherapists go talk to students in schools but were met with unexpected obstacles. The research, programs, and everything was taken care of; we thought we were set. After the fact, [we were told], they unfortunately just saw a group of Black kids and said ‘there's no real safety net here.’ We learned that there were not only going to be cultural barriers, but we were also going to have to deal with societal barriers.”
“Our highs though were definitely when we started to understand that there was no real barrier to what we were trying to do.” Even without degrees and specializations, forums were doable. “We knew that we could create conversations and safe places for these young people, so we ran with that. We got into clubs at schools and organizations that supported diversity and equity. A highlight was definitely our first workshop, which was in 2018 with the Durham Black Educators Network (DBEN). They allowed us to have our mental health workshop, which was the first of its kind.”
The response TFIS got from the youth was very positive. “It was cool to hear them say ‘yeah, counselors didn’t care about me,’ or ‘when I went to my parents they weren’t really receptive.’ It was interesting to hear the same things we were saying to ourselves for the past few years. It was us being the change we wanted to see in the world, especially when we were that age.” For many of these kids, it was their first conversation about such concepts or first time seeing someone who cares about mental health. One of the biggest highlights of this work for Lincoln is hearing his community members' stories being validated.
What resources related to culturally-responsive mental health care do you recommend for your community?
TFIS recognizes that resources are not a “one-size-fits-all; everyone has different things that are going to work for them”. Lincoln recommends doing research yourself because each individual is so unique in their needs and what works for them. “Sometimes, a culturally appropriate psychotherapist and organization, for instance, a Black Christian psychotherapist is helpful, and sometimes it isn't and this will depend on the individual.”
What would be your next goal and hope for TFIS and your community?
Lincoln’s hope for the Black and other marginalized communities is to create more conversation about mental health /mental illness and to amplify these conversations. He believes these are “conversations that will always need to take place”. His vision and goal for TFIS is to expand their services and advocacy to more communities including the homeless and single parents, and even assisting community members in academic and career pursuits.
Just as Lincoln did by starting TFIS with a courageous conversation, TFIS encourages you to act as an advocate and start these conversations about mental health within your own community. For more information on The Fight Inside Society, visit their website and give them a follow on Instagram (@officialtfis).
