Mental health: ethnic minority carers’ experiences
Negative attitudes to mental health problems
Unfortunately, many people don't understand mental health problems and may have a negative view of people who have them. This can cause people with mental health problems to be treated badly or labelled in a way that hurts their standing in the community. This is sometimes called 'stigma', and can affect those with mental or emotional problems and their carers and families.
People's lack of understanding of mental health
A mental health problem is not something you can see and it can be 'difficult to get your head around' it. Some carers talked about wrong ideas people often have about those who have mental problems, for example that they are often violent.
People described the names others used to describe people with mental health problems, such as 'mad', 'crazy', 'cuckoo', or 'nuts'. They said people with mental health problems can be excluded from the community or made fun of. One woman said that jokes about mental health problems 'are just not funny' because of the way people are treated.
Even the name of a diagnosis, such as 'schizophrenia', can sometimes be used as a negative word. One or two carers mentioned that some languages lack words for mental health, which might keep old stereotypes alive.
Some languages need better words for mental health problems.
Some languages need better words for mental health problems.
Asian communities, you know, the language unfortunately doesn't change in the Asian community as it does in the recent mental health services. As a worker, -so we will say 'people with mental health problems' rather than, 'mad', or whatever. But I deliberately used the word, 'mad', a few times in my conversation because I think someone, a professional, not within mental health services but from outside said that, you know, as a mental health service worker I might say that, “Oh the English language has changed and it's got, -it's much better at expressing people, you know, and not condemning people with mental health problems”. But he said that, if you go outside in the community people will still use words like, 'mad' and 'nutter', and all kind of derogatory terms. But to me, because the Asian languages don't have good ways, at least in England as, -because I'm also now really far from my own culture, back in India or wherever, that maybe it has changed. But I don't know about it, so my concept is still the same, that maybe the community still consider everybody in the term of, 'mad', rather than somebody having mental illness really, so.
Some said their whole family was treated with suspicion or as 'untouchables'. This was shown in body language, by staying away, by staring, making fun of them or ignoring them on the street. Such behaviour hurts people and affects social and family life and in some cases even opportunities for getting married and starting a family.
TV and media were seen as almost always portraying mental health problems as something dangerous or scary, particularly, some said, when discussing mental health in minority ethnic communities.
Sophie thinks the way people think about mental health needs to change.
Sophie thinks the way people think about mental health needs to change.
It needs to be revamped and changed and lots of things need to be taken into account about how we view, how everybody sees mental health and how we view it, you know. Even simple things like advertisements on the TV and stuff like that just to make people be aware of things. A lot of people are not aware of lots of things that's going on. They're not aware of diagnosis and helping people and they're just not aware of things and it's about, you know, knowing that you might have a five year old and that five year old is able to see that somebody isn't quite normal and there's reasons why instead of it being fun or some pointer or ridiculed or whatever or they're not knowing how to deal with it because it's part and parcel of everybody's every day life. We pass somebody in the street lying there who's down and out or a vagrant or whatever, or somebody that's eating out of a garbage bin or somebody that's, you hear on the news -and that's the time you only hear it on the news when people have mental health problems and have done something terrible and to think that there's thousands and thousands of people who are coping with mental health problems and it's only when the negativity arises that it's addressed and this should be done and why wasn't this person in proper care and that kind of stuff. And I thought how dare anybody question that when there isn't anything there to look after people who are going through that, there's nothing there for the carers, for myself and for other people that every day have to go through this system and try and be heard, there's nothing there really.
People agreed that it is necessary to teach others that those with mental health problems, “are not 'mad' but have an illness”. Many get better or manage fine, and they should be treated just like people with other illnesses.
Some people said that despite the need for improved understanding, the communities' understanding of mental health has improved over the years.
Views of mental health problems in different communities
Views differed on whether negative attitudes are more common in some communities than others. Some believed negative attitudes were more widespread in their own community: others thought it was much the same everywhere. Some people with an African-Caribbean background said that people with mental health problems face less stigma in the West Indies than in the UK. Many thought different cultures could learn from each other (see 'What different cultures can teach us').
Most of the carers recognised some negative views of mental health problems in their community here in the UK and said people in their family at times felt ashamed of mental illness.
Nita felt ashamed before she learnt about mental health problems and says awareness needs to be...
Nita felt ashamed before she learnt about mental health problems and says awareness needs to be...
Yeah there is a lot of stigma, and there's also, I think, I think there's, you don't get anything until you experience it first hand. But I, I felt ashamed at times, I felt ashamed to say, especially in the early days to say, 'Oh she's got mental health problems', and I didn't know that she had mental health problems. So there is still a lot of stigma and taboo, especially because people don't know the full extent of the illness, and how it manifests, and why it's created. And I think that's been part of the, -my journey, healing journey, understanding that it might have happened because of this, and this is how it looks like, and this is the treatment for it, some kind of rationale.
One African-Caribbean woman who grew up with mental health problems in her family suddenly, when she was 11, discovered that “people don't talk about this”, and people from other communities too said that talking about mental health problems, especially to someone outside the immediate family, was not 'the done thing'. Some described cultural 'taboos' that make it hard to talk about what being a carer is like.
One woman said that her community in East Africa blamed her for her son's illness because she had brought him to England where they thought he wouldn't learn to stay away from harmful behaviour.
Her family 'back home' blames her for bringing her son to England where he became unwell.
Her family 'back home' blames her for bringing her son to England where he became unwell.
I mean, the culture that I come from, I think that is a big problem in the sense that everybody knows that if you're here you're here for, eh, there's a reason you go to England and you do something for yourself and, you know, at times, as a carer, you get, you feel that people blame you as a mother, maybe where did you go wrong, or is it your fault, or did you bring him up well enough, or are you doing something wrong that's making him do such things and I think as an African I get the blame most of the time, that people feel that it may be the way that I brought him up.
And is that within, the interpretation within African culture, that this, that the blame is put on you? Can you say a bit more about that, what is that linked in with in African culture, do you think?
As I say, the mental illness is not a sort of hereditary thing, and there's no-one' in that they feel, -I think my family back home feels that maybe because people know or understand that children in this country are not disciplined, they understand, and so they do what they want and they will drink and they whatever, so maybe you were not able to bring them up well enough, to be able to understand and the sort of lifestyle that has made them the way they are. So, they always say, oh you have to bring him home, you have to bring him home, but they also don't understand that you cannot force anyone under 20 years old to say, go in a plane and go away. You know, so, that becomes hard and as I say, most of the people that I know, that come from the same background as I, or I know from my cultural background, I don't talk to them about him, because I know that they will always have something negative about the whole situation, that hurts, so.
Some carers believed that mental health problems can have spiritual causes. Others felt beliefs that explain mental illness by curses, or part of one's destiny or Karma, don't help and are misleading. One woman said that such beliefs 'do not serve us any more' because they focus on blame and not on helping people who are ill.
Another woman was cross about the way people in her church claimed mental health problems are a result of sin or not praying enough. She had joined a group that try to make churches more aware.
Dealing with negative attitudes
Carers sometimes protected themselves and their families by keeping to themselves or not telling others about mental health problems.
To avoid gossip, many 'kept it under the carpet', or kept a 'stiff upper lip' when others talked about them. Some were careful who they talked to and some did not even tell their close family about the problems. Others said they 'pretend that things are different', such as saying someone is 'working from home' rather than being unable to work.
Nick sometimes says his son has depression because it is more accepted than schizophrenia.
Nick sometimes says his son has depression because it is more accepted than schizophrenia.
Depression is better than schizophrenia?
Yeah, apparently Churchill was also a depressive. So that is more acceptable than anything else. And in any case, they, people suffering from depression, even manic depression, can and are able to do a damn good job of work, you know. I know that personally. So, but not a schizophrenic. So we had to say that and of course our relatives, close relatives and -unfortunately we don't have many in this country, only my wife's sister, that's all, and her family. Even they, she was kept from the truth quite a while, until recently.
When builders came to fix damage her son had done to the wall, she pretended it had always been...
When builders came to fix damage her son had done to the wall, she pretended it had always been...
One woman said that her ex-husband had decided their son should not go to a psychiatric hospital because he was worried it could affect his future career. Another mentioned that her son didn't want to socialise with other people with mental health problems to avoid being labelled.
Other carers said they 'did not bother' about who knew and that they would talk freely about it. One woman even said she sometimes chose to 'shock people' by telling them about mental illness in her family.
Last reviewed September 2018.
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