Somebody must go first
[Music]
when it comes to mental health
the conversations are usually
not so simple and within the black
community the conversations
are usually non-existent
black and ethnic minority groups tend to
be less likely to seek
mental health support why
because we are fine take me for example
dad’s really sick i’m fine
dad’s dead okay so
i was sad for a moment there because you
know it’s socially
acceptable to be sad when someone dies
and i was only 18 but now
i’m fine daughter’s dad left me
i’m fine child’s life-changing diagnosis
i’m fine miscarriage one
i’m fine miscarriage two i’m fine
miscarriage three
i’m fine i’m fine i am
fine except i’m not fine of course i’m
not fine how
could i be fine i am rachel
i have anxiety and depression and i
stand before you today as an example of
a black woman a black person
who did not seek help until i hit
rock bottom and even then even though
i was living proof of the fact that
black women
are more likely than our white
counterparts to experience mental health
issues
if you had asked me how i was i would
have told you
that i am fine i told the first doctor
who tried to give me a stress related
sick note that i was fine too
and i got away with it overly
emotional things like depression aren’t
really a black thing
in fact the idea is memeable
depressed who where for what
but i knew some things didn’t didn’t
quite feel right
my supplement drawer was overflowing
with
all of the vitamins and minerals under
the sun because i knew that whatever it
was
that needed to be fixed was inside me
but i woke up one morning with a really
terrible headache went to the gp
expecting to be sent away with some
painkillers and some sleeping pills
because i was
very tired
but instead i left with a sick note
an antidepressant prescription and a
little card
with the contact details for counselling
it has been proven that black
communities are less likely to be
referred to
talking therapies and more likely to be
medicated
when it comes to mental health issues
but i was one of the lucky ones because
i
was offered both my mum
flushed away the antidepressants that
her doctor tried to give her
many years ago when she came to england
from the caribbean
and she rebuked the entire
depression thing in the name of jesus
there was no mention of talking
therapies for her and
even if there had been the offer would
have been declined because she
was fine you see my mum grew up with the
belief that to have mental health issues
meant that you were crazy and the crazy
people got locked up in the asylum
that had bars in the window and they
received electric shock therapy
there was absolutely no way
my mum was going to associate herself
with any of that when
britain’s best love boxer in my humble
opinion
suffered a nervous breakdown in 2003 the
sun
newspaper decided it would be a
brilliant idea to run with the
front page headline bonkers
bruno locked up and according to them
he was locked up because he was
depressed
my mum grew up with this story
different country different time
same narrative the crazy people
get locked up
i grew up surrounded by what i perceive
to be
strong black role models just getting on
with life
and that is what i tried to emulate
my sister went to university passing
with a
two one what i saw was her just getting
on with it
what i did was compliment her on her
figure
what i missed was the fact that she was
hearing voices in her head
and her drastic weight loss was due to
stress
but she said she was fine we were all
fine apart from the fact that we were
all
most definitely living
with high functioning depression
let me explain in public i was great at
being fine
i pretended to be fine really
really really well to the outside world
i was in control i had it together
i was the epitome of
black girl magic because that
is what i was supposed to be
for me the hashtag created on twitter in
2013
had become both a badge of honor that i
did not
ever want to lose and a
noose around my neck that i wanted
to loosen just
a little pressure
how could i be seen to have
issues and also
be magical the captions posted for the
world to see
never said had a mental breakdown black
girl magic
that was not a thing
the breakdowns would happen alone
mentally and physically drained from
having been
normal all day
i would step out of my clothes and into
my bed
wake up freshen up slay the day all
black girl magically
come home and repeat
but the inside of my brain was like an
unstable mental health edition
of jenga which i continued
to stack up until it all
came crashing down
my dad was a part of that tower
he’d retired early due to ill health and
as a result he was usually home when i
got home from school
he couldn’t walk very far or even
talk towards the end and
there were oxygen tanks dotted around
the house that he would hook himself up
to
when he found it really hard to breathe
and there were the times when i would
come home from school
and he’d be sitting in his armchair
alone
in the dark but he said he was fine and
i chose to allow him to be
just that because he was my dad
a good strong proud
black man i used to avoid visiting him
in hospital
because i didn’t want him to have to be
vulnerable
in front of me and i definitely
did not want my last image of him
to be him hooked up to machines
in a hospital bed
on the night i ran out with my friends
dad had made a huge pot of chicken soup
with extra dumplings and
he was sitting in his armchair when i
left
and he was fine
and then he was dead
and the next day or maybe even the day
after that
i sat sipping on the last ever
chicken soup that my dad would ever make
and after 18 years of living in the same
house as him i was forced to admit
just how far from fine
he had been but not me though
at the funeral i was strong
i was even proud of the fact that i’d
been brave
and not made too much of a scene i just
added the event to the ever-growing
jenga tower in my head
and persevered
it wasn’t the first but the second
attempt at calling a spade a spade
that saw me accept the depression
diagnosis my first counselor was another
black girl who appeared to be
around my age and although most would
assume
that these similarities would have been
a comfort for
me they were a nightmare it was
embarrassing
i felt ashamed and i wanted to leave
immediately the
thought of her knowing that i
wasn’t the stereotypical
strong black woman oozing
an endless stream of black girl magic
out of my paws made
me feel sick
far as i was concerned she knew the
narrative that i was supposed to be
living by
like maya angelou said in her poem we
rise no matter what’s going on
we rise i have the word
tattooed onto my wrist a permanent
reminder of the
fact we rise
if i opened up to this counselor
fully then she would know
that i was failing so i didn’t
she didn’t catch me at the right time in
my journey
the second counselor was a much better
fit for me
then perhaps i could speak more openly
to my kin
now i’ve done the prep work
there are levels to this so many
of the bumps in my road involved
conversations with healthcare
professionals
but we will never know for sure
if any of them would have caught me
before
i fell i have had multiple miscarriages
i
am one in 100 but
every time after carefully making sure
that there was definitely
no remnants of what was supposed to be
my tiny baby
left in my room nobody checked on my
brain
i lived in a children’s hospital with my
daughter
for six months commuting from there to
work
and back again after being discharged as
a single mom
i was expected to administer her daily
painful injections by myself
i couldn’t cope so why
did i have to fight for the right to
change her treatment
the doctors and nurses were outstanding
with my daughter she was so happy
in their care but nobody checked in with
me
i often wonder if the people caring for
my dad
knew that i was there at home
was anybody wondering how i was feeling
what the impact of seeing my strong
proud
loving dad deteriorate might be
probably not because we were all fine
and the right questions
weren’t being asked at the right time
when i first called to book my
counseling sessions
i remember being asked have you
had suicidal thoughts and of course i
said no
because i had no intention of killing
myself
but if i’d been asked
if sometimes i wished i wasn’t
here
or if sometimes i thought that maybe
it might be kind of
wonderful if i just
happened to go to sleep
and just not wake up the next day
then my answer would have been
yes often
when it comes to suicide in the uk
middle-aged men are at highest risk
my dad never made up the numbers
that make up that statistic because
his suicide attempt failed
i didn’t even know it happened
i wasn’t even too young
it’s just that not visiting him in
hospital was my normal
and we didn’t talk about it and now
we can’t talk about it
there are so many conversations that i
wish i’d had with my dad so many
conversations
i wish i’d had with my dad
and so many questions that i wish i’d
asked
so many things that i wish
i’d explained one in four
adults and one in ten children
experienced mental health issues
he was one in four
and i was one in ten
there are so many conversations i wish
i’d had with my dad
but somebody needed to go first
i am now one in four and my
daughter is eleven i am
hoping that if she is one in ten
she will know for sure
that she can talk to me
i try to lead by example i can do this
we can do this
when i ask how are you feeling
i mean how are you
feeling i’m fine
is not the full stop i’m fine is just
the beginning my daughter
is the beginning of a new narrative
for us or maybe
[Music]
the news story started with me
the i in the word rise that i have
permanently etched onto my skin
is a semicolon
a semicolon is used when an author
could have decided to end their sentence
but chose not to i
am the author and the sentence
is my life i
persevere i am
strong enough to be vulnerable and
brave enough to go first
i am rachel
i’m not always fine and still
i rise i have
anxiety and depression
and still i rise
sometimes the world feels
a little bit heavy
and still i rise
isn’t that just a little bit
magical
[Applause]