by Arielle Gray

“Would you cure it?” she asked me with wide eyes. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “You know, your bipolar disorder? Can you do that? I’m sure you can!”

I just tentatively opened up to a long time friend about my long time struggle with managing my Bipolar Disorder. Recently, I became more open about my mental illness and was trying to be honest with the people in my life about what I went through on the daily.
I got a lot of questions from friends and family. Mostly “I would’ve never guessed!” or “You hide it well” or “What’s Bipolar Disorder?” But never before was I asked if I would cure it if ever I could. She wasn’t trying to be malicious or problematic when she tentatively asked me that question. But when she whispered my illness, she unconsciously cloaked it in secrecy and shame. I could tell she was uncomfortable with the situation- I could see it in her eyes every time she glanced down at my scared forearms.

For y’all that don’t know, there’s currently no way to cure Bipolar Disorder. Traditional methods include medication and therapy sessions, depending on the severity. I went through various bouts of self-harming behavior when I was younger and in college, I spiraled out of control. I went to see this doe eyed, white psychiatrist who immediately suggested a hospital stay because of my suicidal ideation. Those eyes stayed strangely blank & glassy as I told her about all of my angst.

When I assured her that I was mostly bark & no bite, she wrongly prescribed me Prozac, thinking that I was clinically depressed when I was really in the midst of a severe depressive episode. The Prozac did me in. I failed all of my classes and had to drop out of college and fly back home to ATL. After cycling through a few therapists, I was correctly diagnosed and started on a regimen of medication & therapy sessions. Since then, I’ve managed via a myriad of methods, mainly therapy, weed and spiritual-examination. I’m lucky enough to be able to manage my symptoms- many are not able to.

A lot of people don’t understand when I tell them about my disorder. Black folk seem to live in this mysterious veil where we think we’re wholly unaffected by mental illnesses. Depression can be cured with prayer, suicidal thoughts are spelled away by the “strong Black woman” trope. We’re especially disenfranchised when it comes to mental health because we stand at a unique intersection of race & gender. Low-income Black women are particularly high risk for experiencing depression at some point in our life and we are also the demographic least likely to seek professional help.

There are stigmas rooted so deep in our culture surrounding mental illness that over one half of Black Americans think long term depression is normal. That’s. Not. Okay. I could write an entirely different piece about the insensitivity of our mental health care system and how our institution’s lack of cultural sensitivity and the normalization of black bodies in conjunction with pain has created a vacuum of space for black women to safely address their mental health concerns.

So when she asked, “Would you cure it?”, I realized that what she was really saying is “Wouldn’t you just want to be normal?” I realized that her inability to connect with my story about mental illness was symbolic of a larger societal & systemic problem- the failure to see black women as vulnerable human beings. Her question centered the conversation around my mental illness and reinforced it as a “problem”.

The longer I thought about her question, the more and more I realized that no, I wouldn’t want to cure myself. “Curing” myself, to me, implies that I have something to be ashamed of, something insidious inside of me that needs extraction- the exact opposite is true.
Living life with Bipolar Disorder is hard. There are weeks where I want to die, weeks where I have days long bouts of insomnia. There are times when my manic episodes cause me to forget to eat. There are times when things get so dark that I think about hurting myself again like I used to do. But ultimately, no matter how fucked it is, this is my brain. My disorder has inherently shaped and in many ways, enhanced my life. Having a mental illness is not always limiting- sometimes, it opens our eyes to how ephemeral yet precious things are. Sometimes, it shows us life exactly as it is- beautiful and at the same time, saccharinely cruel.

I have never appreciated the sunlight more than when I’ve managed to drag myself out of that deep dark pit. Embracing my shadow has allowed me to step more fully into my purpose in life. To live in my truth. There are no bigger demons to face than my own. I face them every night.

My Bipolar Disorder is a part of me. It always will be. If there is eventually a cure, I hope that whoever needs or seeks it receives it. But for me, it’s more than a disorder- it’s now a part of my identity. I am able to write the way I do because I’ve experienced darkness. I am able to connect with other people like me because I’ve gone through the things I’ve gone through. I am able to, in some small way, be a voice for the millions of Black women who stay quiet when it comes to their mental health. My story is not my own, it is ours.

That in itself is a blessing.

Arielle Gray is a Boston based freelance writer, graphic artist & music journalist. You can catch her stalking live shows around the city or eating Lucy's on Mass Ave.

I first heard about a “pop star suicide attempt” in passing while TMZ was playing on the television during a visit to my mother-in-law in Fort Greene. Then, while scrolling through Facebook later that evening, I saw a Blavity post about Nick Cannon visiting Kehlani in the hospital. I may not know the singer personally, but anytime a life is saved, I consider that a beautiful thing. I recognized her name, and although I'm not very familiar with her music, I have been a fan of her style for a while.

Upon checking out some of her music, it dawned on me that baby girl might be super bad and tatted up, but she's going through the same things every other 20 year old woman goes through.
I found a particularly disrespectful round up of tweets in one article that suggested that not only is Kehlani a “hoe,” but that any woman “defending her” was a hoe as well. This infuriated me.

While back tracking through news stories and blogs online, it became clear that a variety of societal ills and people were to blame for this life almost being lost. We could place all the blame on toxic masculinity and cyber bullying, but there is a particular group of people involved in the situation that were not only silent, but also complicit in creating the misogynistic framing of the entire episode—Black men.

It is high time that our brothers realize the impact of their words, attitudes and behavior, in seriousness or jest, when it comes to Black women, and it is imperative that they take a stand in our defense when we are attacked on any basis, but especially when it is because we were
“theirs” at some point and moved on.

Party Next Door, Kehlani's self-professed first love, posted a photo on his Instagram of the two holding hands in bed with the caption “After all her shenanigans, I got the r&b singer back in my bed.”

Let's examine that.

I can tell you plainly that I don't know Kehlani, Kyrie Irving or Party Next Door personally. I will never be privy to the ins, outs and intricacies of their relationship. For all I know, Party Next Door is as deeply in love with Kehlani as she is with him. That is my hope, and I have no reason to believe otherwise. This post may very well have been his expression of that love, passion and excitement about getting back together with the one that got away.

But we need to look at the language here.

Party Next Door could have announced to the world in a multitude of ways that he and Kehlani were back together and he chose the most sexual, possessive, minimizing language humanly possible to describe his reunion with a woman he supposedly loves. The post starts out insinuating that Kehlani was the reason for their break up. It was her “shenanigans” that caused her to wind up with someone else. But in spite of that, she was back in bed with her ex. Not in his arms. Not in his life. In his bed. They may not have even done anything intimate during the time the photo was taken but with this phrasing, he sends a message of blame and ownership. It suggests they had sex. As if he was trying to say “she was fucking up but she's still mine and I hit that- ha ha.”

That is a dangerous way to present your reunion with a black woman in the public eye to the world. Kehlani was in another high profile relationship, and Party Next Door’s words promote violent, dehumanizing language in the name of subtly shaming a woman, giving outsiders permission to be outright disrespectful because we have now collectively decided she is a “thot.”

Men and women in relationships are partners, and the moment you engage in shaming a woman for exercising her freedom as a result of your perceived lack of allegiance to her counterpart, past or present, you are actively engaging in misogyny. In the case of Black women there is a particularly violent and disrespectful way they are shamed as a direct result of prevalent notions suggesting we are simultaneously undesirable and hyper sexual. “How dare this b*tch. She's lucky he even looked her way! But you know how ‘they are.’”

Party Next Door set her up for this.

He may love her, but we need to acknowledge the tendency of men, even when they are in love or a relationship, to act and speak about the women in their lives as though they are property- and/or disposable. Party Next Door, and all men who claim to be in love with black women, need to be accountable for how their language perpetuates and reinforces misogyny, intentionally or unintentionally.
We see it all the time. Black man loves black woman. Black woman loves black man. Black man and black woman are no longer in love/break up. Black man all of a sudden never thought she was shit anyway. Black woman moves on. Black man suddenly recalls how much of a bitch/ho/lame Black woman is and actually always was. Black community comes to defense of black man and shames black woman for being “loose” and a “hoe” and moving on “too fast.” Meanwhile black man is on his third girlfriend and 9th hooker since the break up.

Party Next Door is out of line not only for making that post, but also for offering no public apology for such a blatant act of machismo at the expense of his lady. He deleted the post that started the fire storm without addressing what he said and how he said it. That is a problem. Language matters. Public reaction to their getting back together might not have been any less brutal if he captioned the photo with “So good to have my baby back.” But how even the men we love frame their relationships with us during and after them reflects their disrespect for black women.

As for Kyrie, he may be hurt, but I cannot give him a pass for staying silent while the Internet tore her apart. If he ever loved that girl, regardless of how he feels in this moment, he should have come to her defense.

Even if they did not break up amicably. Even if he feels like she moved on too quickly. Even if the girl is lying and she did cheat, I would really love to see the same grace bestowed upon Black women that is bestowed on Black men when relationships end.

Folks are still calling Amber Rose a slut and acting like she destroyed her family when it was Wiz Khalifa who cheated on her. People still treat Karrueche as though she is at fault for the deterioration of her relationship with Chris Brown. Meanwhile he was singing about disloyal hoes while getting other women pregnant. Ciara is expected to wait for Future to bring his simple ass to the future and step up to the plate as a daddy, making it impossible for another man to do so, instead of be happy with her current fiancé in a functional, healthy, committed relationship.

This is the pattern we will continue to see if Black men don't step up. Until loving a Black woman is about more than having her in your bed and laying claim to her body, we can expect more of the same. Until Black women are allowed to be sexy for themselves and not the man they're with at the moment, we will continue to be harassed for existing in our truths. Until Black men stop forgetting their entire journey with Black women the moment it ends because they cannot get out of their feelings long enough to show the kind of love that doesn't involve sex, every Black woman who ever loves more than one person in her lifetime will be subject to what Ciara, Kehlani, and so many others have been victim to.

Black men should to react to the words “hoe,” “slut,” “thot,” and “trick” the same way you would if you heard a woman call a man a “dog.” I want Black men to realize your sisters, mamas, cousins, and, yes—one day your daughters—will make use of their vaginas and like it. This will occur with multiple men (and perhaps some women.) This is the natural order of things. You are all products of some form of Black love no matter how long it lasted. Black women are tired of having to bring up mothers, sisters, aunties and female cousins in order to appeal to Black men’s love for Black women you know personally as though we are not all the daughters, sisters, lovers, cousins, mothers and grandmas of Black people. Kehlani's experience with being judged after moving on is the story of every black woman who has ever dated or dared to love more than one person in her lifetime. It's about time we acknowledged the second class citizen status of black women and started loving them longer than it takes for them to realize a relationship is not working out.

Author Note 4/20/18: While my identification of Kehlani as a Black woman was woefully misguided, I stand by the points made in this piece and hope they resonate despite my misstep. 

Photograph by WireImage

by Bobby London

I am here sitting in my bed fighting my depression, trying not to bask in somberness for too long, pondering how I’m going to shatter ceilings with three generations on my back. I’ve always been nervous and scared about writing so personally about myself in such a non-intimate way, but I find myself in a writer’s block that only raw honesty can chip away. There’s a feeling of liberation that comes with being vulnerable, and of course there is also tons of anxiety that comes with that as well. I also wonder about the security culture aspect of this personal disclosure and how wise is it for me to discuss such things in a time when all keystrokes are being analyzed and stored for the State to use later. Maybe in the future I’ll regret revealing so much, but for now I will choose self-empowerment over strategic resistance.

Or maybe the act is both.
I think it’s interesting that when I talk about my depression in a public manner people usually feel the need to prescribe things to help the situation. As if I have a cold and I just need to drink some lemon tea or something, not understanding that depression is, at least for me, something that is structurally created. I am depressed because I live in a white-supremacist, patriarchal, capitalist world. I am depressed because people that look like me are constantly being murdered. I am depressed because the State has purposely made it difficult for black families like mine to survive. I am depressed because I have suffered traumas from white supremacy and the police state. I am depressed because the only way this will end is if we have continual revolutions. I am depressed because I don’t know if I’m going to know how it feels to be free.

I do not understand how more people aren’t depressed in this world. I find that people are quick to blame depression on the person who has it. I’ve been told often, “well you just got to focus on the positive”. Like, oh wow, why haven’t I thought of that? I’ll just simply ignore my circumstances and just find the good things in life, like peanut butter with chocolate or pool parties. Yeah, there you go, that’s it.

When someone declares that they are depressed there is this fear and uncomfortability that happens to those that are listening. People are uncomfortable with the honesty and self-awareness, they see the sadness as a weakness, as something to be addressed.

But, I am not weak, and my depression is not weakness.

The awareness is isolating. Which makes sense that social anxiety is such a common thing for black people and non-blacks in intentional resistance spaces. It feels as though this country and its cohabitants are constantly gaslighting you. When people ask me “how are you doing?” or “why are you depressed?” I wonder if this is someone’s extreme privilege and distance from my struggle that allows for them to be so naive, or are they just willfully ignorant?

My depression is not a mental health problem, it is not fixable by seeing a therapist, or popping any pills. My depression is the direct result of anti-blackness and all of the cruelty that this country has shown to black people. My depression is political and should be treated as such.

I think of Sandra Bland often, the picture of her mugshot still haunts me. It shows the capability of the state, the level of fascism, and organized badge wearing white supremacists. When I watch the video of her arrest, the whole time I thought that could have been me. It reminded me of a recent event where I was encircled by heavily armed police officers and threatened to be arrested for cop watching and asking the police officers why they were using excessive force on a man that you could hear his waling from down the street. Even though I had my press badge on me they told me that they would gladly arrest me. I told them that if they arrested me that I would take them and the LAPD to court. More police officers arrived in riot gear, with shotguns ready in hand. I was intimidated, and successfully bullied away from the scene.
I think about what if I would have stayed and was arrested, would they have murdered me, and if so, would they try to cover it up as a suicide? I wonder if they would use my depression to aid in their cover up.

I know that we live in a surveillance state, but I refuse to be silenced about the violence that is consistently being inflicted onto me and others. My resistance is strategic and I’m allowed to be vulnerable. So if the State ever wanted to kill me and tried to rule it as a suicide, here it all is – your “Exhibit A”.

by Iresha Picot

She yelled all the time.

Yelled about the house not being cleaned.

Yelled about my school work.

Yelled about spending too much time on the phone.

Yelled that the music was too loud.

She just always yelled.

I can remember thinking about cutting her vocal box out of her once. Or a few times. I told her this in a fit of rage, when I was about 16. She just looked at me and yelled some more. I am pretty sure that Audre Lorde was talking about my mama when she said, “I am deliberate and afraid of nothing”.
My mama didn’t always yell. When I was a young girl, my mama was noted for her laughter and the jokes she told to not only her own children, but to the children who would come over to our home. They loved my mama’s jokes and her eagerness to make everyone laugh.
I have fond memories of my mama as a child. She used to let me rest on her lap all the time or ride me on the back of her bike as we went on adventures through our small country town. As the youngest of three girls, I used to have her all to myself when my sisters would go off to school and my dad went to work. And we had fun. Going to her girlfriend’s home, to the beauty salon, out to eat; wherever my Mama went, I was right there with her. Even when my sisters came home from school, there were good times to be had by all. On Saturdays, she would walk the three of us, hand and hand to the Three Guys restaurant for pizza across the train tracks from our home; telling us jokes the whole way. On Sundays, we awoke to pancakes being cooked, and the Alvin and the Chipmunks record being played on our record player. We danced, and laughed. We enjoyed our Mama.
Then things changed. My dad became addicted to crack cocaine. Things became hard. My mother started to laugh less. She started yelling more.

Her workload increased as well.

With my daddy’s addiction, his paycheck would be depleted in two days. Sometimes the same day. Bills weren’t getting paid, and we struggled. We moved at least once a year. Sometimes twice. Our electricity was never on. We couldn’t even afford the $25 dollars for our books at school. My mother started working 2 to 3 jobs to compensate for my father’s habit. She rarely slept, going from one job to the next. We hardly saw her and when we did, we stayed out of her way if we didn’t want to be yelled at. Even moments that seem to be fun times with my mother turned sour. I can vividly remember on one of her rare off days watching our favorite television show, Martin, together. We went from busting it up, laughing loudly at Martin’s punch lines, to her becoming upset. Her mood could change like a light switch.

She would suddenly look up and realize that the house was dirty and the yelling and cursing would start. “Why is the house so fucking dirty?” or “I work all damn day and no one washed the dishes.” It got to a point where we started to enjoy her being away from the home. It was peaceful.
She also developed these control issues. Probably because her own life was spinning out of control. She couldn’t make our plight much better, even by working several jobs. She couldn’t stop her husband from smoking crack. The only little bit of control she had was overpowering her children. If we didn’t do something my mama wanted, she went into her rages. She hid the home telephone when she went to work, and we were trapped in the house without being able to communicate to anyone. She did this, too, with simple things such as the soap powder. If she was mad at us, we couldn’t wash clothes. This was the same for the iron, the cable cord, the soda. She had to have control over everything. Over us. But not herself.

I have great empathy for my mama’s plight now. She struggled to raise children in poverty by herself, and in return, she developed mental health problems. As a mental health professional, I now understand that my mother was suffering from stress related mental health issues. My mama was unhappy in her own life. Even with a husband present, she was raising her children up as an overworked, Single Black Mother. She fell into her own stereotypes. In Black communities, Black women aren’t supposed to crack. We are not supposed to become depressed, even when we experience poverty, poor and unstable living conditions, psychosocial challenges, and white supremacy.

Just because we are Black and Woman.

Black Women, as the keepers of children, suffer silently. They have to be present under this system to raise vibrant children. It is a difficult task, at best, because if our children do not flourish under our rearing, it is the mamas who have to answer for those failures. As the great bell hooks stated, we must “cherish our mothers,” not just uphold them for the things that they do for us, but also assist them in making their load lighter. If we see a mother struggling, we have to be there as a community to lift her up and when we see her not doing well, we have to be able to assist in creating a space for her to be able to say that she is tired and needs help. Yes, we need to cherish mothers.

After I wrote this piece, I decided to not only share the content with my mother, but to also include her voice. What follows is an interview that I did with her when she came to visit me on 5/14/15.
Conversation with my Mama

Iresha: What were some of the struggles you faced with basically raising your children by yourself?

Mom: Trying to pay the bills. The bills were always on my mind. It was a constant worry. Also, for five years, I did not work, and with your father’s drug problem, not only was I thrown into having to go to work, I had to work 2 to 3 jobs, which means I always had to go to work and leave my children around.

Iresha: The name of this piece is called “The Mama that Yelled.” Do you think that you yelled a lot when you were raising your children?

Mom: To be honest, yes. I didn’t know that at the time, but I see how it affected you now. My mother yelled, and her mother yelled. We were just a yelling family and it seemed normal. But yes, I can say I yelled at you all a lot.

Iresha: Do you ever reflect back on that time and wonder what you could have done differently? If so, what are you doing now with your children to change those patterns?

Mom: I could have been a better mom with my attitude and did family things with my children.

Iresha: Do you think that you suffered from depression at that time?

Mom: Absolutely. I just had so much on me and it was kind of hard. I was away from my family in DC and so I had no family here in Virginia for my own personal support. Your dad’s family helped me out a lot with raising you all, but I had no one to talk about my husband being on drugs and having to struggle. I cried all the time. I cried in the morning, at work. Especially, when your father would come home on pay day and there was no money. He had spent it on drugs.

Iresha: What advice would you give mamas, raising children by themselves?

Mom: Whatever you do, put your children first. Be a good mother to your children. And for the mothers and their own health, use your support systems and look to God; because to me that is looking up.

Photo: Shutterstock

Iresha Picot, M.Ed, BSL is a Licensed Behavior Specialist and Therapist in Philadelphia. Iresha is also an activist, with a lot of her work concentrating on prison abolitionist and birth work as a Doula. Her Doula website is 52ndstreetdoula.com

by Vanessa Hazzard

I thought I was well. It’s been over a year since I stopped cutting and almost two years since I’ve been released from the hospital after being treated for borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder and PTSD. Since then, I’ve held a steady job and re-enrolled in a Bachelors degree program. My life had been successfully recalibrated after years of trauma. That life was so far in the rear view mirror, so small, that it seemed just a blip on the radar compared to all the good things that lay before me.

By M'Shai S. Dash

The moment he closed the bathroom door, the guilt washed over me and I gathered my clothing as quickly as I could. I was still disoriented from all the alcohol I’d consumed at the legislative conference we’d both attended. Sighing heavily, I double-checked my bejeweled clutch for my credit cards and black makeup compacts (as both things are of nearly equal importance to my daily life, and I wasn’t sure if the contents had fallen on the floor when I’d accidentally kicked it off of his king-sized bed during sex precisely—and sadly—just six minutes before). Once I heard the toilet flush and water running I picked up the pace. I tiptoed down the hallway of (Charles’? Simon’s?) modest one-bedroom apartment, glancing briefly at his address on a piece of mail that lay on a table by his door before stepping out into the coolness of the late September evening. Down the dark corridor and out into the artificial, fluorescent light of his apartment building’s second floor landing I went, light on my feet as I could possibly be. I slipped on the sequined peep-toe pumps I’d been holding only when I’d reached the bottom of the stairs.

By Anna Gibson

The number of Black women who die in police custody continues to climb. A video was recently released of 37-year-old Natasha McKenna, who died in police custody in early February of 2015. McKenna had suffered from schizophrenia since she was a teenager and was having an episode in prison. The 45-minute video shows her staggering out of her cell, completely naked and clearly confused as a group of fully armed men, in hazmat suits and shields, pull her to the ground. They then proceeded to administer 5000 volts to her 5’3, 160 lb. frame. She was later pulled off of life support, and the cause of her death was listed as “agitated excitation.”

by Anna Gibson 

In the wake of the Sandra Bland case, the black community was outraged and prepared to take action against a system that continues to subject us to violence. They drag our teenage girls to the ground at pool parties. They shoot us for carrying skittles, or even knocking on doors. Despite this, we continue to fight against a culture that seems to get off on dehumanizing us then ignoring the consequences, claiming that we live in a “post racial society.”

On the night of November 12th, 2014, Tanisha Anderson was detained by police officers after agreeing to undergo a psych evaluation. While handcuffed, the situation took a turn for the worse as Anderson began to become uncomfortable, resist, and kick at policemen. Eventually, she stopped struggling and was pronounced dead at 12:30am on November 13th.

by Neisha Washington


In light of the recent passing of Titi Branch, entrepreneur and founder of Miss Jessie’s, due to a reported suicide, many have called for elevating the discussion of black women’s mental health into the wider consciousness. The story of black women and mental health is a difficult one to tell. It is not pretty. It is not poetic. It is something that requires stripping down to the bare bones of intersectionality and oppression. It is a story often told by examining the reasons for the silence in our communities, schools, and homes. It will take a toll on the myths of strength that black women have told ourselves to survive.

by Nancy Laws

It took me three years to tell my family that I suffered from anxiety and panic disorder. Even then, I was still ridiculed for saying that I had panic attacks, and was told by a very close family member that I was pretending for more attention.

by Brittany Dawson

Two years ago, my twin sister was diagnosed with multiple mental illnesses, including bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, depression, multiple personality disorder, and others—all of which induce anxiety, paranoia, and psychosis. It was only when I saw my sister’s suffering during my sophomore year of college that I realized the taboo surrounding mental illness, the inherent shame that accompanies it, and how we continue to fail the mentally ill.