Darkness to Dialogue: Living Well With Mental Illness

July Mental Health in the News 🕒  Estimated Read Time: 5–6 minutes Summary: A 2025 peer-reviewed study confirms that exposure to discrimination significantly increases the likelihood of anxiety and depression, especially for racially and ethnically minoritized groups. In honor of Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, this post explores how these systemic experiences intersect with mental illness and why responsive, culturally competent care is critical. Navigating the Weight of Unseen Stressors For many BIPOC individuals, navigating the world often means managing not just daily responsibilities, but also unspoken forms of stress:  misrepresentation invisibility exclusion These experiences are rarely reflected in diagnostic checklists, yet they shape how emotional distress is experienced, processed, and treated. As someone who lives with mental illness and is part of a minority community, I understand the emotional complexity this creates. Still, the goal of this piece is no...

  Estimated read time: 5 minutes Summary Burnout is not just a personal failure or a lack of self-care, especially for BIPOC communities. It's often the cumulative result of navigating: historical trauma generational expectations systemic oppression This post explores how internalized productivity culture disproportionately affects BIPOC mental health and how reclaiming rest is a radical act of resistance and healing. Unlearning the Need to Be Twice as Good For much of my life, rest didn’t feel like an option. It felt like a weakness. Growing up, I learned, directly and indirectly,  that to survive, I had to keep going. There was no room for pause, softness, or asking for help.  There were times when I truly believed I had to earn my worth by staying busy, performing twice as hard, and never letting anyone see me struggle. I grew up thinking that constant motion was the norm,  that rest was something you did only at the end of the day, once everything else was d...