Demystifying Therapy: Explaining to Your Relatives Why It's Worth a Try

Growing up, I was captivated by folklore and tall tales about my family’s country, Guyana. I once heard about a woman who was “crazy” and walked the dirt roads in tattered clothing, murmuring to herself. Over the years, the woman transformed into a witch who hunted children and was later trapped in the “madhouse,” where she rotted to death. 

It was not until adulthood that I realized that this woman, this supposed witch, probably had a debilitating mental illness. I also figured out that the setting of all great Guyanese horror stories, the “madhouse,” was not an asylum but probably Guyana’s National Psychiatric Hospital. I learned, perhaps as many other young Indo-Caribbeans did, that mental health should be equated with insanity and could only result in death.

In the present, conversations around mental health in our community have progressed in some measurable ways. Young Indo-Caribbeans appear more open to seeing a therapist and sharing their experience with those around them. Though some elders are uncomfortable with parting ways with their belief system, others are interested in exploring therapy and its benefits. 

If you want to talk about the reasoning, benefits, and impact of therapy with your parents or extended family, see if the rationale in the points below opens up the conversation. Try to be understanding and non-judgmental, but take a step back if the conversation becomes unhealthy. 

• Sometimes, people go to therapy because they want to talk to an unbiased person they can trust and will not gossip about them. 
  

• Therapy isn't only for those who have lost a loved one or are trying to save a marriage. It can be used to discuss anything you want to explore–childhood experiences, your sense of purpose as you age, and even power dynamics with your mother/fathers-in-law!  

• Maybe you weren’t allowed to talk about something with your parents because it was taboo or uncomfortable, or they didn’t have the time to listen. By talking it out with a therapist, you can hopefully address those issues constructively and then better support your own children, nieces, and nephews. 

• You had private feelings or emotions that weren’t safe to explore because of forced gender roles. For example, Indo-Caribbean men were viewed as the providers. Still, it was not culturally encouraged for them to vent their feelings about financial insecurity, grief, or anger in healthy ways.

The stories I grew up hearing about mental health resulted from a different time. Yet, they inspire me to think about my role as a writer and how I want to frame the stories I tell myself and others. They remind me that even though I heard exaggerated tales of mental illness, I don’t have to spread those myths in my community. Since going to therapy myself, I’ve learned to reframe my unhealthy thought patterns in more productive and creative ways. 

Call me a mad lady, but therapy is an opportunity to connect generationally around the truth that life is hard. My belief is that through the strength of each generation’s willingness to try something new or talk about something difficult, we can create new stories of healing that surpass our own time.