Re-evaluating my experience with therapy
Therapy was unknown to 16-year-old boys in traditional Caribbean houses like my own. To ask my mother, a traditional Caribbean woman, to talk to someone other than members of my immediate family about my personal issues or mental health status, was just unheard of. Like many other Caribbean children, I had an understanding early on that therapy was not an option for me. For me, it never hurt to try and bring the idea of therapy up, but for many of my friends, this was not even an option due to the intense panic the idea of therapy catalyzed for BIPOC parents. This pushed me to deal with my problems on my own for the majority of my teenage years.