The Black Male Mental Health Struggle | Curtis Jasper | TEDxGeorgiaTechSalon

The Black Male Mental Health Struggle | Curtis Jasper | TEDxGeorgiaTechSalon



This talk will involve the current state of The Mental Health industry and how it does not address, support, or sustain the current state of Black Mental Health— specifically Black Males and the struggles and challenges of receiving effective, culturally specific, accessible mental services from qualified mental health practitioners. Dr. Curtis Jasper will address how these deficiencies sustain the prolonged struggle faced by Black Men regarding their unique-lived experiences filled with grief, trauma, injustice and abuse. This talk will also include an explanation of the struggle, why the struggle persists and what we as a society can do about it. Pastoral Counselor/Therapist, PhD, MEd This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

death depression divorce debt devastation deadbeat despair there is a black male mental health struggle i became a therapist in therapy the unsustainability of black male trauma black male rage black male resentment is a real thing an unsustainable thing so what's the struggle one and four psychologists are black and when i say black i mean that includes black men and black women according to the american psychological association 4 psychologists worldwide now in this country are black for every 100 000 black americans only one black psychiatrist seven percent of black men received any form of mental health services in the last couple years black youth particularly black boys are introduced with the struggle of mental health at a very early age it's treated in elementary school by suspensions or special education referrals what's the black struggle that's it the inadequacy of practitioners who look like black men who have a unique experience with mental health all right what does that mean for all of us the current mental health industry does not sustain black male trauma black male rage black male resentment which means we have to look at the factors that are uniquely attributed to black males in this country what makes me qualified to talk about black male mental health struggle well beyond the obvious of being a black male i crashed in 2008 the year the mortgage industry crashed the real estate market right that same year my mother informed me she had stage four cancer in 2009 i became a father for the fourth time but this time was unique because the child was already 21 years old which means right before my 17th birthday i had a child in 2010 my mother ended up passing away from cancer i moved from chicago to georgia before the diagnosis to live out of golden years under the sun of the south to work with me and for me schindler passing in 2011 i went to what i now label as a very eventful divorce i lost everything i walked away from everything i lost my family my spouse at the time time away from the children assets things of that nature in 2012 i experienced my very first panic attack found myself in the middle of a public park here in atlanta lying on my back crying profusely for what seems like hours in 2013 i had my second panic attack this one was different this one i was depo i was with the partner at the time and she said that she overheard me saying some things that were troubling later on that day i had a special event i needed to be at my friend at the time took me to the local emergency room because as black males that is how we address our mental health struggles right when it really gets to a point we have to see someone at the local hospital emergency room so of course they kept me 72 hours suicide watch i missed the court date my partner at the time took the signed medical excuse to court at the time that i was supposed to report the judge refused it subsequently generating a bench warrant and i eventually had to address that that same year 2013 my father passed just when we were attempting to repair a 40-plus year fragmented fragile broken relationship he passed went to chicago did the morning and back to atlanta two days after morning my dad's death was pulled over by local law enforcement i had to settle that warrant from a few months earlier so for the next 57 days i sat in a jail cell in a jumpsuit grieving what i thought initially was only my father's death what i now know was all of the stressors the losses the trauma the rage the resentment i had since i crashed the same year the mortgage real estate market crashed so during that time i went to five different therapists now i wasn't shy from therapy because my mother bless her heart she was ahead of her time she took me to see a therapist in high school we talking in the 80s the good thing is it ended up being family therapy and we learned a lot of tools and strategies that really benefited us but when it was my time during 08 to 2013 it felt differently right but i still went i went to five different first four nothing it was cool to share my struggles but i didn't get any help why because it was irrelevant right the practitioners who did not look like me were culturally incompetent they meant well i didn't have time to teach them about my lived experiences i needed tools and strategies i needed them like yesterday so after going through four different therapists i gave up on therapy i knew i was in trouble it was evidence in my life i still didn't know where to go good friend urged me to take one more attempt to finding a therapist so i did found this gentleman walked in his office i knew the drill right sat down poured out my heart all right for the next 30 35 minutes and at the end of my spill the gentleman looked me in my eye and asked me this question that forever changed my life he said you ever thought about becoming a therapist i said man what are you kidding me i'm here for therapy i'm not here for career coaching he said no hear me out he said look i am about to retire i've been doing this 35 years i've seen black men come and go i can't help them i don't think the entire mental health industry can help him but i think you can i said what he said yeah you're not clinically depressed you're emotionally exhausted you're sad you're angry angry you're devastated right you're going through trauma you're grieving but it's not clinical depression it's the unique experience of being a black male in this country right i'm not asking you to give up on therapy just find someone who looks like you better yet become the person you're looking for you are your own solution and i left out of his office philly defeated right devastated right i was passed walked out of it i said okay no worries i figured out as a matter of fact i'm not doing anything three weeks later i started to feel better his words touched me spiritually mentally emotionally i started feeling lighter right things started to make sense to me he went on to say go back to school let your journey be a part of your healing and somehow i think this is your purpose this is what the last therapist told me and that's what i did that gentleman was a middle-aged white guy so i did what he told me right it makes sense he said it's no accident you're here i did it didn't necessarily training i dropped out a phd program so i can add d to that list of ds i started off with right so i got back in school i had nothing else going on it changed my life so now i spend my days supporting black males those who care about them and love them and those who are raising them with a unique approach to black mental health struggles you see the struggle is because black men are not being taken care of in a way that really touch moves and inspire them right black males we like males we don't do well with one-on-one right we don't like isolation we definitely don't do well with labeling you know in in the hood we call that name calling we don't do well with that right we don't do well with cold switching when it comes to our lives right and we definitely don't have time to break down our lived experiences from others who need some type of explanation before they can give us some colonized version of how we need to go about healing so i set out to create a unique experience for black men to address the black male mental health struggle you see as black males i found out we need some things we know a lot we just need it in a way that we can use our own language to get it right we know about breath work right we know about meditation we know about yoga we're even for the dialectical approach the cognitive behavior approach right we good with relationship and individual therapy we'd rather have it in group barbershop that's where we're comfortable right most of us have had some type of sport so we get the importance of breath work we get that we just need it to come from someone who looks like us and who has walked the walk and talked to talk right says black males we don't do what you say we do what you do right so if you could tell us show us guide us walk with us we honor some and that's what i did so how does that look how does that work in terms of sustaining the existing mental health energy industry well we have to uh take more of a uncolonized approach to black mental health we have to encourage one another that there are certain signs and and symbols that are indicators of distress and not necessarily mental disorders or mental illnesses right but we need to be able to convey it to this unique group black males who have been born under racism because racism aggression and microaggression oh born into that make something of you right it's exhausting so when you start adding on debt and depression and divorce you get the picture you have now become exhausted right not necessarily a mental illness but things are definitely out of order right so that's what we need we need the existing practitioners to become culturally competent on what this means for the people they serve we need young college students who are black preferably male to be encouraged to go into mental health right we need the existing black practitioners to be amplified and elevated right and we need all of us to know that there is a unique experience for black males that starts when we are born mostly caused by racism right exacerbated by unemployment increased with ptsd symptoms due to violence right and it starts when we're in elementary school with suspensions and special education referrals so i employ i employ all of us to sustain the existing mental health industry we have to take into consideration the uniqueness of the black male mental health struggle that goes for first responders on every level it goes for clergy university teachers students nonprofit organizations right law enforcers lawmakers politicians all of us have to be re-educated on what that means uniquely for black males and our struggle and in the spirit of the late great earl dmx simmons in order to speak for the people must walk amongst the people rest in peace dante wright rest in peace adam toledo rest in peace george floyd thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

#Black #Male #Mental #Health #Struggle #Curtis #Jasper #TEDxGeorgiaTechSalon

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