During my early years of adolescence, I knew I was depressed. I always felt anxious and worried, and I would express those feelings. But, more often than not, I was criticized and invalidated by those around me. I was told to “stop complaining and toughen up.” This isn’t unusual in the Latinx community. We’re constantly working to maintain a positive work ethic, to provide for our families, to ignore any and all personal issues — because “if you can’t see it,” some like to say, “it isn’t real.”
Many of my mental health symptoms were rooted in trauma I experienced growing up in a low-income community and the effects that come with it: experiencing housing insecurity, confronting scarcity on a daily basis, constantly worrying about money.
For many traditional Latinx folks, mental health issues simply don’t exist. I’ve seen folks around me suppressing their emotions due to traditional beliefs around machismo (a toxic “hustle mentality” around work), emotionally consuming familial practices, and, most significantly, not having the resources to properly address them.
It wasn’t until I recognized how toxic, unstable, and uncertain my lived experience as a Latinx person was when I started to dig into the cause of why I’d always felt so anxious, neglected, and misunderstood.
Read more at Healthline.com.
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