Health
-
Fear, Medication and Black Mental Health: A Physician’s View From the Front Lines
Since becoming a primary care physician over 20 years ago, I made the conscious choice to cement my career treating black and minority patients, primarily in underserved and indigent communities. This career arc spans from rural clinics treating migrant farm workers to predominately black, inner-city hospitals. And while the reports of the overmedication of America…
-
Bilateral Stimulation While Black: How EMDR Transformed the Way I Processed My Childhood Trauma
I have tiny eyes. I’ve been playfully teased about them in a myriad of ways since I was a kid — from my big sister swearing I was dropped off by an Asian family (Whew, chillay, the problematic jokes of youth. And note, her nickname was “Chyna Doll” soooo … ) to people constantly asking…
-
Transgender Patients Could be Stripped of Healthcare Protections by the Trump Administration
Over the course of his two-and-half-year tenure, our alleged President Donald Trump has either enacted or enforced policies that make no secret as to where he stands on transgender and LGBTQ issues. Barely a month after taking office, his administration rescinded guidelines that protected transgender students under federal Title IX law. In 2017, the Department…
-
Taraji P. Henson to Testify Before Congressional Committee on Black Youth Suicide
On the day that her “Can We Talk” Mental Health Conference weekend (June 7-9) is set to kick off in Washington, D.C., actress Taraji P. Henson will testify before the newly formed Congressional Black Caucus Taskforce on Black Youth Suicide. Henson, who has proven herself a fierce mental health advocate, will address the group at…
-
Kamala Harris Reintroduces Bill Addressing the Black Maternal Healthcare Crisis
U.S. Senator Kamala Harris reintroduced the Maternal Care Access and Reducing Emergencies (Maternal CARE) Act on Wednesday, her 2018 bill that seeks to address the ongoing black maternal health crisis. “Black mothers across the country are facing a health crisis that is driven in part by implicit bias in our health care system. We must…
-
What Lies Beneath: Hypnotherapy Is Helping Me Get to the Bottom of My Depression
I’m afraid I’m going to fart in front of my therapist. Specifically, I’m afraid I’m going to fall asleep during therapy, and fart in my sleep (and don’t act like you never fart in your sleep, because you do). For all I know, I already have at some point during the past 10 months I’ve…
-
Milwaukee County Declares Racism a Public Health Crisis. Will More Cities Follow Suit?
In what’s being touted as an important first step in addressing decades of race-based inequality, Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele signed a resolution Monday declaring racism a public health crisis. “Everybody has been reading and hearing about the same set of statistics in Milwaukee for decades,” Abele said at yesterday’s signing, according to the Milwaukee…
-
Get Your Mind Right: A Guide to ‘New Age’ Therapies for Mental Wellness
There are a million ways for a girl to get her mind right. Some nights she might permit her waist to recklessly abandon it all on a dance floor. Some days it requires a flight to blue skies and even bluer waters (funds permitting). Many times, though, it happens in someone’s chair. A therapist’s. A…
-
When Mental Illness Is Your Family Heirloom
You know that scene in My Cousin Vinny where Vinny’s girlfriend, Mona Lisa Vito, played by Marissa Tomei, testifies in court as an “expert witness” on cars? When opposing counsel condescendingly asks how a sweet little lady like herself—a hairdresser, even—could be an authority on automobiles, she replies, “My father was a mechanic. His father…
-
Being Bipolar Means Always Having to Say, ‘Um…What’s Your Name Again?’
Charlie Sheen, who at one time was definitely a terrible person who also happens to struggle with mental illness and addiction, once said (and I paraphrase) that most people wouldn’t last very long in his head. While during the very manic time when he said these “tiger blood”-related things, Sheen was, again, a chaotic, awful…