“The Sun and the Moon,” a woodcut from “Genesis” by Paul Nash (1924). Public domain image.
I believe the answer to this question is that mental health can be both. Health is a Venn diagram that encompasses our physical, mental, environmental, spiritual and social health. For example, if our mental health isn’t good, it will affect other parts of our health. A study from the American Heart Association showed that stress can increase your risk factors for heart disease.
But let’s define “rights” and “privileges.” Dr. Chris Drew’s, founder of the higher education website Helpful Professor, defines a right as a “legal or moral” entitlement that cannot be taken away. He defines privileges as “special advantages or opportunities granted by power, authority, or circumstance”.
The United States is a developed nation with severe social disparities. Right now it has been more difficult for people to seek quality mental health services, due to factors like the high cost of therapy, lack of insurance, stigma from people, and bad experience with professional mental health services. Additionally, there are not enough mental health providers. The lack of funding is leaving many counselors, social workers, and therapists overwhelmed with high case loads, while not being compensated fairly for the amount of work they have to put up with.
For plenty of Asians and Asian Americans, there are barriers to seeking professional mental health. For example we might hear stigma that comes from immediate family members that asking for help is a sign of weakness, not resilience. Money is a big barrier as well even when mental health services are covered with insurance. Long wait lines to therapists and appointments is also what makes it hard to seek help. Those who have tried therapy or seeing a specialist may have lukewarm or bad experiences, thus they don’t want to be put through more trouble. Why can’t we do the same. Here’s my story:
I went to school counseling starting when I was 9. I don’t exactly remember why I was talking to my school counselor, but it probably has something to do with issues at home. When I got off from school, I told my mom about my day including me going to counseling. I thought I was being helpful; nobody in my family had ever explained about mental health to me. My mother yelled at me, saying that family matters should stay inside the family. I didn’t listen. I continued to go to counseling throughout the years for various issues: social anxiety, family issues, and wanting to feel less lonely at lunch.
Almost all of the therapists I had over the years were Asian women who had similar experiences to me growing up. I felt like I was an easy client to work with, and I felt fortunate that I had access to these resources. I felt like I had a good head over my shoulder. Even when my mental health worsened over the years, therapy made me more resilient.
For many years, I’ve wondered if my own experiences are the result of privilege. I was lucky that I never had to worry about poverty. I never had to worry about paying for therapy for most of my life. There was barely a time where I had to skip meals to save money. I wonder how good and perfectly cookie-cutter my experiences with professional mental health services are, and how I still struggle with procrastination, and complex trauma. Even with my passion for learning about mental health, I wonder why I didn’t turn out as a perfectly functioning young adult for society and my community.
I felt like my experience was shaped by the opportunities around me. I remember in my high school college prep class, my teacher talked to us about an important concept for first generation college students. It’s called community cultural wealth. Community cultural wealth is the knowledge, skills, and aspirations passed to people in marginalized communities in order for us to move up in society. Community Cultural Wealth is gained in six different ways: aspirational (hopes and dreams), familial (history and roots), linguistics (language and style), navigational (movement between places), social (networking and connections) and resistance (resilience) capital. My parent’s generation never learned what anxiety and depression meant, or whether they had them. Some languages and cultures don’t have a direct translation for Western therapy.
