Cultural Stigma: Why we get stuck
Cultural Stigma: Why we get stuck
Why we get stuck; cultural stigma and breaking through
Mental health has become a very hot topic these days, with “single-servings” of therapy available on every social media platform. The pendulum has swung hard, illuminating suffering, and spurring many to accept help.
Still, many others feel in their bones that therapy is for a different type of person. Weak people, crazy people, privileged people. Some others. While this type of thinking appears to be slowly fading out of society, as a whole, its pervasiveness lingers like a trap, holding some captive.
My family of immigrants and laborers didn’t exactly prioritize healthy coping. Much too busy surviving to worry about thriving. And spending time concerned with such novelties felt like a betrayal to their efforts.
When those in our environment insist we figure it out, peers may hand us their tools and say, “This is how I did it!” Try as we may, we can feel like failures using their hammer when a wrench is what is needed. And, even more, our loved ones may feel frustration as they watch their hammer fail us. From here, we may feel stuck and the cycle of shame and frustration loops.
While we can become comfortable in this shame cycle, we notice feeling bad over and over again. Befuddled. Not because we are bad or broken. But because we don’t know another way to be or another tool to use.
Because, in my culture, asking for help feels wrong, sometimes counter to what our environment or brain says we need. But all of that is noise. Chatter your brain loops out of habit. Until you feed it something new.
Some hope.
A momentary reprieve allows a new perspective-- a glimmer of insight. The insight that we are a collection of circumstances; our experiences, our environment and how we perceive it all. We weave them together to become us. And can unweave, re-weave and design the life we choose.
So, we carve new paths, trailblazers- no longer held back by fear of asking for help! To be the first, or amongst the few, can feel scary. Entering the unknown. But we carve these paths for that instinct that says push because I’m done just surviving.
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Jenny Sandate
Registered Clinical Social Worker Intern
Written by:
Teen & Adult Psychotherapist, Se habla español, Telehealth