Editor's Note: This post discusses suicide. If you have experienced suicidal thoughts, this article might be potentially triggering. If you or someone you know is experiencing dark thoughts of hopelessness or feeling suicidal, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
As Told To is a recurring segment on xoNecole where real women are given a platform to tell their stories in the first-person narrative as told to a writer.
This is Dr. Arabia Mollette's story, edited by Charmin Michelle.
A few weeks back, I read the story of This is Us writer, Jas Waters, who had committed suicide at the age of 39.
I didn't know her personally, but I knew of her accomplishments as a fantastic writer for various television shows and her work on the movie, What Men Want. To help me gain a better understanding of who she was, I decided to visit her Twitter page. For the most part, her tweets were inspiring and thoughtful. Some mentioned her struggles with anxiety. I was enamored with who she was.
But it was this tweet that stood out:
Twitter/@JasFly
Was it a cry for help?
Additionally, R&B singer and Braxton Family Values star, Tamar Braxton, was admitted to a hospital following a suicide attempt at a Los Angeles hotel, which she has since publicly addressed. She was found unconscious inside her room after a possible overdose from unspecified pills and alcohol. Again, the professional in me drove me to her social media accounts, searching for possible signs of depression. One of her posts mentioned not feeling as confident, how affected she was by blogs talking about her hair loss from stress, experiencing ups and downs in her life, and yet bouncing back from it all.
But a post that alerted me most stated, "I just want to know if anyone else besides me needs a vacation...", of course, a popular and common question amongst everyone since the pandemic began. Even still, I couldn't help but wonder, was any of her posts also a cry for help?
Although the mental health toll of the coronavirus pandemic has begun to reveal itself, it's still too early to predict the impact it has had on our mental health—but did the chaos of the pandemic take a toll on her?
These examples are all high-profile cases on the topic of suicide, but I want to know how those of us who are reading this are holding up too.
As an Emergency Physician, not only have I taken care of a variety of patients challenged with chronic depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders, but I too suffered tremendously from depression and anxiety—starting back in my early childhood. I was raised in a poverty-stricken, single-parent household, in a South Bronx housing project in the 80's. My family struggled with drug addiction, poverty, domestic violence, crime and a host of other issues.
At the age of 7, I remember sitting alone in the bedroom I shared with my siblings, staring out of the window, and thinking, "Maybe it would be best if I did not live."
I recall my spirit feeling so heavy and I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders. I did not understand what I was feeling, nor did I know how to process all of those emotions. I did not tell my mother because she was suffering from mental health issues and was silently crying for help herself. And unfortunately for the first time, when I was 11 years old, I witnessed my mother's attempt to commit suicide.
Today, the state of America's mental health system continues to deteriorate and there is a lack of good mental health services for Black Americans. According to a recent 2018 study from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suicide rates in 2016 sorely increased to approximately 25 percent in the United States in nearly twenty years. Twenty-five states including Indiana, South Carolina, and Minnesota experienced an increase in suicides by more than 30 percent, tallying a total of over 45,000 people who died from committing suicide.
Studies show that adolescents and young adults have the highest rate of suicide of any age group of Black Americans. And even more alarming, suicide was found to be the third-leading cause of death among Black Americans ages 15 to 19 years, fourth among those ages 20 to 29 years, and eighth among those ages 30 to 39 (with 56% of Black teen females that died by suicide, used strangulation or suffocation and 21% used firearms.). Black women have a higher incidence of suicidal thoughts due to poverty and the racial and gender bias that we experience.
Ladies, we are literally considering suicide more than any other race or gender, all due to societal norms; all for simply existing.
And although we're less likely to actually act on committing suicide, the statistics of follow-through, are there—on a higher scale than they should be.
From generation to generation, many of us, including myself, were taught that mental illness is a "white disease". Even today, there are stigmas surrounding mental health issues, and they're looked at as a sign of spiritual weakness. "All we have to do is give it to God and just pray it away."
Those ideologies stem from Black Americans having a huge mistrust of our healthcare system, and that distrust is ultimately being passed down from generation to generation. America historically has a legacy of medical and scientific research mistreatment and abuse to Black people that span over centuries, and additionally, costs and access to culturally competent mental health care professionals are barriers to treatment for marginalized communities.
When I was a teenager, I believed psychotherapy was taboo. I was unaware of the benefits of therapy. For many years, I was often reminded how strong I am, but I was dangerously suffering in silence. I, too, went to church and asked the congregation on numerous occasions to pray for me because I thought the prayers would make all of my problems go away. I believed God could love me again. Don't misunderstand, there's nothing wrong with seeking care through family or church, but it wasn't enough for me. I was in dire need of help; my anxiety heightened, which then pushed my decision to seek out a therapist.
Photo Courtesy of Ruthie Darling
And I haven't looked back since.
When I tell people my story, oftentimes I hear, "Well, you're a doctor, and you're in therapy and made it through. So can I." Which is absolutely true. Both myself, and any mental health care professional's only hope, is for you to know that in sharing our stories, we are creating the ability to build those necessary connections in assisting and making therapy suitable for many. And no matter how strong we may seem, or how diligent we are expected to be from society, Black women and young girls are committing suicide, or have attempted to take their own lives, at staggering rates.
No more. I want us all to emphasize no longer having to suffer alone or in silence.
Let's ask for professional help. Let's dismantle the "strong woman" myth and admit to suffering from depression, anxiety or thinking suicidal thoughts.
We must take care of ourselves, and we must take care of each other so that we do not continue to pour from an empty cup. Let's demand for culturally sensitive therapists and look for ways to carve out safe spaces for us to be vulnerable. Because at the end of the day, no one can tell your story better than you.
So...are you good, sis?
If you or someone you know is experiencing dark thoughts of hopelessness or feeling suicidal, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
Dr. Arabia is currently an ER Physician at Brookdale Hospital Medical Center. She has been featured on CNN, The New York Times, NBC News, BET and a host of other media outlets where she often discusses her passion for black women's health. To learn more, visit her website.
Feature image courtesy of Ruthie Darling
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Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak