Welcome to State of Mind, a new section from Slate and Arizona State University dedicated to exploring mental health. Follow us on Twitter.
Recently, I had one of the most successful weeks in my career as an English professor while secretly dealing with some of the worst depression and anxiety I had ever experienced. I hosted a world-renowned scholar at my institution, published an article, and was offered a contract for an academic book. Truly, everything I ever dreamed of came to fruition for my career.
But I could hardly enjoy it, let alone appreciate it the way I hoped. Months before, I began suffering from prolonged abdominal pain that even today remains unresolved, with the cause unknown. While teaching, my stomach turns in the middle of lectures, at times stopping me midsentence. I think about my mortality more often, my family health history, and whether I’d be around next year or the year after that. These thoughts became more frequent, but I just keep moving on as I always have.
I find myself more and more in this paradox of success and depression as years go by. The more I accomplish, the more work I create, the more my mind and body weaken, and the more desensitized I am to accolades or recognition. I have wrongly assumed that professional rewards—in my case the publication, glowing evaluations, and praise—would heal me. In reality, work is driving me into mental despair.
People of color in predominantly white industries and institutions often must work twice if not three times as hard as our white counterparts. We are expected to meet unrealistic standards and goals for being the first of our kind, to prove that we belong, that our existence isn’t accidental, and that our roles are merited. But at what expense?
My personal relationship with work comes from my parents. We came to this country from the Dominican Republic when I was six. My father worked many labor-intensive jobs to make ends meet. In the early 90s, he was a “delivery boy” in mid-town Manhattan; in the early aughts, he was a “helper” for a juice distribution company; in the last years of his life, he, in his own words, “settled down,” and drove a cab. My father took me to all these jobs, modeling for me how to make it in this country. In his early 50s, he was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. While in the hospital, he worried about his business and customers. He died three months after his diagnosis, the day before I defended my dissertation and completed my Ph.D.
Before immigrating to the U.S., my mother dropped out of school at 16 to help her family make ends meet as well. She was employed as a servant by a wealthy Dominican family in Santiago. When she moved to the U.S., housekeeping was the only job she could do. She worked all over Manhattan, ultimately finding purpose in this work because it provided for us. Her true passion, however, is singing which she only does at her church.
These aren’t just family stories. They became a roadmap for how to survive in the world, one that I am still processing, one that hems me in even as it helped.
As the oldest of my siblings, I became the one in my family who checked off the list of first accomplishments: first to graduate high school, first to go to college, first to get a doctorate, and first to become a professional. I did this with a sense of responsibility for my family, my students, and the future of my profession without thinking much about my own physical and mental health. On most nights, I wake up in a pool of cold sweat. I want to keep this to myself, bury it somewhere no one can find.
At my recent doctor visits, I find myself with a 10-year-old’s vocabulary for speaking about my pain. My acute abdominal pain becomes a ball in my chest; my night sweats become hot sleep. When asked how much pain I have on a scale of 1-10, I nervously minimize it, answering 1 and 2. For someone who writes and reads for a living, I am perplexed by my own verbal inability. My partner becomes my voice. She tells my doctors my symptoms and takes rampant notes. I listen as if they are talking about someone else in the room. I’ve always been taught to suck it up—to be strong and push through, to not complain, and be grateful—all the while believing that this is the measure of a good person.
The isolation makes the suffering worse. I don’t tell my family because I don’t want to stress them out. My brother with two kids working 12-hour shifts, 6 days a week at a supermarket in Harlem, my sister traveling from Brooklyn to Westchester to babysit, and my mother who recently moved to Florida where she gets up at 4 a.m. to cook at a hotel—they, I tell myself, don’t deserve more stress.
I go to social media to post about what I’m going through—a cry for help, maybe to feel less alone. And junior and senior colleagues, many first gen and BIPOC, reach out to make sure I am okay. Many also tell me that they’ve suffered from this same cycle of toxic productivity, that is, when the constant need to “do” harmfully impacts your physical, mental, and emotional health. They say that the pressures of producing endlessly for job security and a sense of self is very defeating and cyclical.
I still haven’t celebrated my book contract or publications, although my partner has tried. She suggested dinner at a nice restaurant, a weekend getaway, or on a new suit for work to commemorate my accomplishments. I tell myself I will celebrate once I figure out the cause of my abdominal pain. My partner tells me that I should consider therapy. I watch her head off to regular sessions and tell myself that I will try it one day. But the day never comes.
Depression and anxiety are significant problems among BIPOCs. While depression can affect anyone, a mounting body of research reveals the BIPOC communities in the United States are often hit hardest by this illness. According to the National Institute of Health, Black and Latinx people are at a higher risk for depression than white people. Latinxs (11.3 percent) and Black Americans (10.4 percent) were more likely than Whites (7.1 percent) “to meet depressive disorder criteria” according to a Preventative Medicine.
Black and Latinx communities, however, have the least access to mental health and substance abuse treatments, according to 2021 National Survey of Drug Use and Health data. “Rates of prescription treatment for diagnosed major depression are 13 percent lower for Black communities and 33 percent lower for Hispanic communities than for White communities per the Health of America Initiative. Furthermore, although marginalized racial and ethnic communities are more likely to experience severe and debilitating signs of depression, social stigma regarding mental health issues may influence a their chances of seeking care.
The other week, I scheduled my first therapy appointment. I’ll be the first in family to do this too. I’m nervous, scared, and even ashamed for waiting this long. But I need it.
State of Mind is a partnership of Slate and Arizona State University that offers a practical look at our mental health system—and how to make it better.
