Brown Girls and Mental Health Podcast
On Brown Girls and Mental Health Podcast we persist relentlessly towards our healing. We have the tough conversations with love, laugh through the pain and dig deep.
Brown Girls and Mental Health Podcast
Seeking Help. When Just Praying Isn’t Enough.
In Episode 2, Tiara details her experience in a Mental Health Facility, and her major takeaways from that experience. She discusses moving beyond just praying and into action, which ultimately saved her life.
Welcome to Brown Girls and Mental Health Podcast.
Follow us on Instagram @browngirlsandmentalhealthig
http://www.browngirlsandmentalhealth.com
Hello everybody welcome in the room. This is Brown Girls and Mental Health podcast season one episode two. I am your host Tiara and today we're talking about seeking help when just praying isn't enough. Hear me clearly when I say I am not in this episode telling you not to pray because lord knows We all need some prayer.
We're talking about moving past Just praying into action So welcome again to episode two . Episode one, I mentioned that I went to a mental health treatment facility and we are circling back on that conversation. So I can go into a little bit more detail and tell you guys about my major takeaways from this experience.
I feel like it's not often that you hear black women admit that they have been to a mental health treatment facility, but I feel like if more women did admit that they have been to a mental health treatment facility then other women would feel um less stigmatized when they realized that they really needed to go or that it was time to seek help beyond talking to friends or praying about it but really seeking some some medical attention and so I want to tell you guys a bit more about that story that experience for me and how it it brought me to where I am today.
So this was back again in 2018. I had just moved back home from out of the country. So my family and I had moved for a teaching opportunity.
Girl, I thought I had hit the jackpot. Like I thought this was my time. You didn't have to pay rent like all the money was tax -free and All you had to do was teach in this school and long story short. We ended up being there for Only about three to four months Because it got real it got real real real fast and honestly it was just it was too much.
All right, so in brown girls and mental health fashion I am going to pause and pray this is what happens i start off telling the story and then i get emotional and i have to stop and i have to ask god to come into the room and to help me to say what's necessary to say and to get across the message that he wants me to send so i'm gonna do that right now God I thank you so much for who you are.
I thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my story. God I thank you for the woman, the girl, the person who will listen to this story and be touched by it and be changed by it. God I pray that you feel this room. I pray that you watch over me. Keep me safe. Keep my mind safe as I retell this story. You know, I just thank you for who you are. I thank you for giving me the worst to say and Jesus name. I pray amen.
So I had come back home from living in another country. We had been there about four months during that time. My husband had a surgery. I was dealing with some issues with my mental health. And I ended up quitting that job and we were homeless in another country. So we spent a couple of weeks going from hotel to hotel because if you come to a country on a visa, once you quit that job, you basically lose all the perks that come with coming to that country.
So we lost our housing and, you know, it was coming to the end of the time that we were allowed to be there on that visa because I was no longer working.
So, we came home and we... moved in with my husband's parents and I found myself struggling so deeply So we came home at the end of November of 2018 and I was trying so hard y 'all I was trying so hard to just Maintain a normal life.
I applied for some jobs back home. I quickly got interviews like like on the surface. It seems like things may have been okay but I was experiencing such a deep internal struggle mainly because of what I felt like was a failure,
a massive failure. So I was supposed to be in this country teaching, saving money, you know helping my family to have a better life and it was supposed to be at least three years, two to three years and we were there for four months. Um, and I felt like it was my fault.
I couldn't handle the working conditions and it ended up being really hard on my mental health and I decided to save myself basically and I was like, okay, so instead of tumbling into into an abyss of struggle,
right? I just need to take myself and my family back home. But on the end of that was, again, this grief from a massive failure.
And so I found myself at my in -laws house, I was in the kitchen, and I had been struggling really, really, really, really bad and I wasn't really saying much.
But on this particular day, I decided to call my mom and admit to her that I had become suicidal, that I was ready to take my own life. And you know,
up to that point, it's like, I don't know if anybody else has experienced this, but when you have this feeling of like, the pain. is too much and you feel like you can't continue living number one it's not like a one -and -done type of thought like you might have it and then you decide okay I need to live for my children I need to live for my husband I need to live for my family whatever the case may be but for me the thought had come come and Stayed right so I was used to it coming and going but it had come and it has stayed And I was to the point where everything that I had tried to do was difficult literally being alive was hard and I was ready to not be alive anymore and I Am a woman of faith like I believe in God wholeheartedly But I was ready to go and I didn't know I I did not have the tools to deal with the pain that I was, and the shame that I was suffering from.
So I called my mom and I admitted to her that I was suicidal. I said, you know, if something doesn't happen today, I'm not gonna last till tomorrow. And that was a lot for me to say because I had two small children at the time. I was married and, you know, I had two children. you can stay alive for a little while for other people but when you're dealing with like deep pain and deep hurt and and you don't have the tools to manage what you're feeling it's only so long that you can live for someone else because the pain the pain becomes so deep and so penetrating every single part of your life and so that's where that's where I was I called my mom my mom came she picked me up she took me to my parents house and she called the mobile mental health crisis people and they came to the house and they talked to me and it took the lady all of five minutes to say yeah we're gonna go ahead and get you over to the mental health facility.
I spent about five days in the in that mental health treatment facility and one of the biggest things that it did for me is that it gave me quiet.
I think when you're a mother and a wife and a daughter and a sister and I was a teacher at the time and like you life is always going and sometimes you just need time to process sometimes you just need time to sit with your feelings and since I had gotten back I had been on go right I need to find another job I need to still need to take care of my children I like all of these things and the first bit of
relief that I got from being at that mental health facility is I got some quiet I got to just just sit with myself. I got to just lay there and not be responsible for anybody else or anything else.
And once I got some rest and I got some quiet, I had therapy. That was my very first time having therapy and it's crazy. I really feel like this particular angel, like I consider her one of my guardian angels because I I saw her this one time and then I never saw her again. But I was talking to her about my experience and you think it's just what's at the surface that is causing you this pain and this turmoil.
But then you talk to a therapist and you start getting to the root of the thing and you realize there were triggers throughout this experience that caused you to feel this turmoil so deeply, right? So I realized that it wasn't just The being away and the failing, right? It was the way that I felt like I was treated up to it being time to leave It was the relationships that I felt like Had been broken in the process.
It was not feeling Not feeling deeply loved right to the point that I felt like I had to run and that's just the God honest truth and these are just my feelings it doesn't mean that people didn't love me but not being able to accept and and truly feel that love is where is where I was and so having all of those feelings atop of this recent failure just was too much for me So when I got to talk to this
therapist, the first thing that she did for me that I truly needed, right? So I was able to get rest. That was one of the first ways that being in this treatment facility helped me.
But then she affirmed me. She affirmed me and I think that was something that I so deeply needed. Like, oh yeah, I can see why that was painful.
yeah i'm so sorry that happened like that shouldn't have happened to you you know we started talking about things in my childhood and some some hurts that i had endured and she affirmed me she said to me that should not have happened to you and that was the first time that i had heard that And I was like,
oh, like I'm not trippin'. These things are actually painful. And I have a right to have the feelings that I have surrounding them. And that validation, it like turned on a switch. And I was like, okay, what do I need to do next? So that was super helpful.
And then I also was able to... to take part in some activities that I felt like were really helpful to me. So some of the activities we had art therapy,
we had group therapy, and I was put on a medication. And up to that point, medication was a big no -no, like I know that I was not alone in my time. thought that no, medication makes you crazy, this is what takes people over the edge, like all of these stereotypes around medication were swirling in my head, but I was so desperate at this time that I was willing to get on the medication and this was another thing that I feel like changed the trajectory of my future because being on this medicine I was able to get up in the morning again.
I was able to feed my kids again. I was able to feel like life wasn't so hard like the act of existing became less challenging and sometimes you're in a situation where yes you have these things going on mentally, but if the act of living is hard for you, there's no way to unpack what's going on in your mind, right? And so this medication was so helpful in helping me to be able to live my day -to -day life.
And then I was able to start unpacking. I was able to start unpacking what was going on in my mind because day -to -day life became livable. So that was really really a big takeaway for me was not shunning things that I didn't have a lot of knowledge on and really taking some time to educate myself on the medication that they were giving me.
One of the things I learned and educating myself on this medication is that you don't have to be on it forever. Like that was one of the big things that scared me was I can't start this medicine because then I'm gonna have to be on it for the rest of my life. And I don't wanna be on anything for the rest of my life. And that's just not true. I was able to use the medication to get me from one stage of my life to the next. And then once I had better tools from going to therapy,
I was able to wean myself off of the medication. And right now I'm medication free, right? But it took some time. and it took a lot of learning,
educating myself, talking to people, seeking help, having difficult conversations to be able to feel like, okay, I don't need this medicine anymore.
I have the tools that I need to cope with what it is that I'm dealing with and I can do this without this medicine. now to speak on the the main topic of this of this podcast today you know seeking help when just praying is not enough one of the biggest takeaways my biggest aha moment from seeking help was we have to do more than just pray right so you might be feeling like I'm praying God I'm praying I'm praying, it's not working, but are you listening? Are you listening to what he's telling you once that prayer is over? And maybe you're not audibly hearing him,
but do you have a feeling in your heart about something that you need to do? Because a lot of time that feeling in your heart, that's God talking to you, right? He's giving you a message, what do you need to do next?
And in this particular instance, I had been praying for you. and praying and praying and just the praying was not getting it I still was ready to die and so I had to move past just praying into action and that action was what was able to help me continue my life and still be here today so it's important to pray but it's also important to act beyond that prayer right right?
What is God telling you? What is your heart telling you after you pray? What action do you need to take next in order to be able to keep going?
So those were my big takeaways. You know, I feel like being in that mental health facility was a catalyst really for the rest of my life and my life's purpose.
purpose because I learned so much in that facility and I knew that my sisters didn't know and I'm not talking about my biological sister I'm talking about my sister's other black women we fight so much of this stuff internally and independently and there is help out there there are resources out there that I think sometimes we're afraid to tap into due to the strong black women trope right or the need to be superwoman. Girl forget all that trying to be superwoman will kill you and that's just what it is trying to be superwoman will kill you stop take a break take a breath and get some help thank you guys so much for listening and for being with me for episode two of Brown Girls and Mental Health Podcast.
This was relieving to get off of my chest and I really hope that it touches somebody and it inspires somebody to go seek the help that they need,
right? Maybe you seeking help is not you going to a mental health facility, but maybe you need to start therapy. Maybe you need to see a psychologist and talk about some treatment options for you. That may include medication. Maybe the journaling is working, you know, maybe praying is working, but like what else can you do to help yourself?
Because let's face it, we need help. We can't, we can't do it independently. We can't do it on our own. And there are resources out there, and I beg of you,
seek Seek those resources if you're in need of help, okay? Thank you again for listening. Y 'all, I love y 'all, I love this. Stay hopeful, bye.