April and May are Stress Awareness and Mental Health Awareness months. Taking care of mental health is critical. It is especially so during this current moment rife with war, civil rights pullbacks, and increased, unchecked discrimination against racial, gender and religious groups outside of the power elite. As in so many other areas, social class plays a role in the level of stress one experiences and the level of support people dealing with mental health challenges can or cannot depend upon.
The following is one young woman’s story of how her mental health struggles were magnified and made worse by a lack of social class advantage. This post, which initially appeared on the Classism Exposed blog, has been edited for space. The author wished to remain anonymous.
Just Wanting to Be Happy
When I was in high school, I knew something was wrong with me. There were many days where I felt like I had lost all purpose in living. I remember crying a lot in my high school years. My chest would feel tight, the air would get thick, and my mind would race with negative thoughts, and then, I would breakdown in despair – sobbing and hyperventilating until I stopped. I was left with a numb feeling.
I had this preconceived idea that it was my fault for feeling sad, and if I wanted to be happy, I could just “be happy.” When someone in high school noticed tears silently sliding down my cheeks in class, I would reassure them that I was just stressed out. It was better than telling people the truth, “I don’t feel like being alive today.
Only a handful of teachers and friends knew I took on many responsibilities from home, since my mom was a single parent with two jobs: one at Kmart and the other as a janitor. It was that cliché thing where my brother and I definitely matured years beyond our age. When I got home from school, I was a pseudo-caretaker for my grandma with severe rheumatoid arthritis. I tackled more chores and errands than my peers, and then, I had hours of homework from my Advanced Placement (AP) classes.
“Catching” Economic-Based Stress
When my mom was stressed from work, she brought that stress back home with her. She would begin to criticize me and my brother when chores weren’t completed up to her standards. And every time, I wanted to share my point of view or express why I thought she was wrong to criticize, I was shut down. Sometimes, when I talked about how demanding my academic responsibilities were, she would tell me to drop a class or ditch the extracurriculars.
Being the first in my family who had the possibility of attending college, I knew I had to keep all those AP classes on my record when applying for colleges. Every time I explained why I wanted to keep my favorite, but time-consuming extracurriculars, she couldn’t understand what I meant. Other times, when I talked about stress, she would remind me she was the single parent with two jobs, and I had no reason whatsoever to be stressed.
Class Stigma Against Therapy
I remember occasionally asking my mom if I could see a psychiatrist or psychologist, because I knew something was wrong with me. Sometimes, she’d reply, “But, you’re not crazy.” And when I persisted I would get, “I can’t afford to leave work to take you to appointments. You know I’m very busy.” Or she would say, “If you still want to be pre-med, you should know doctors can’t have psychiatrists. Medical schools don’t want to take in crazy people.”
Validation!
I didn’t get help for my depression until my first year of college. My full ride for financially disadvantaged students at MIT completely covered my healthcare costs. I alternated appointments with a psychiatrist and psychologist in the Mental Health department.
Today, I still have breakdowns, but the severity and length of these breakdowns decreased after finding the right antidepressant for me and hours of therapy with my psychologist. Frankly, my improvement could have occurred for many reasons. Was it the fact MIT tries to destigmatize mental illness on our campus? Was it because my buried feelings from back home were finally becoming validated, as my psychiatrist put it? Was it because I had the support of a new best friend who also had depression and listened to me without degrading my feelings? Was it because my new set of friends grew up learning mental illnesses were not synonymous with “crazy”? Was it the fact I was out of the environment that had catalyzed my feelings of worthlessness at home?
I don’t know, but I’d like to think it’s a pure mix of all of the good that came from choosing to attend a supportive university.
Class, Money and Mental Health
Occasionally, I wonder if things could have been different if money wasn’t a problem. Maybe my mom would have been less stressed out with one stable job rather than two low-paying jobs and thus, less critical. Mental health could have been a priority if she could’ve afforded to leave work to take me to psychologist appointments. We could have had more time to bond and strengthen our mother-daughter relationship. In a parallel universe, could Mom and I have been doing our mother-daughter high-five, because we were actually financially stable and close?
I don’t know. But today, depression doesn’t have a strong grasp on me. Right now, I like living most days, and that’s enough to keep me going.