Sisters, How Y'all Feel? Brothers, Y'all Alright?

By: Anisah N. Nu’Man, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Spelman College, @_nudoc_

One day, before the start of my Linear Algebra class, a student asked everyone their thoughts on the following quote:

“You have not lived a full life, if you have not been depressed.”  

Though I was caught off guard by the student’s question, since then, the quote and subsequent class discussion has prompted me to think more about mental health within the Black mathematics community.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) defines a mental illness as a, “condition that affects a person’s thinking, feeling, or mood. Such conditions may affect someone’s ability to relate to others and function each day.”  According to NAMI, each year, 1 in 5 U.S. adults experience mental illness. Within the Black and African American communities, according to Mental Health America, over 6.8 million people who identified as Black or African American had a diagnosable mental illness in the past year.  

An increasing number of studies, op-ed pieces, and blog posts have looked at mental health within academia. Each stage of an academic career presents itself with its own struggles and obstacles. In the Trends in college students’ mental health diagnoses and utilization of services, 2009-2015, a survey of 454,029 undergraduates in the United States, found an increase from 14% in 2009 to 19% in 2015 in the number of students reporting getting professional mental health at their institutions. This trend continues into graduate school. An exhaustive study on the mental health of PhD candidates in 2019, Nature PhD Survey 2019, found that, “36% of respondents have sought help for anxiety or depression caused by PhD studies. One-third of them sought help from places other than their institution, and 18% sought help at their institution but didn’t feel supported.”

As we continue to navigate living in the midst of a global pandemic, now seemed like an appropriate time for this blog to focus on mental health within the Black mathematics community. Notably, the conversation with my students about mental health started in one of my upper-level mathematics courses at Spelman College, a historically Black college for women. As math majors, these students are, in some sense, entering our profession. It feels important to appreciate how their experiences, as young female Black mathematicians, will inform the ways they experience this profession. During the conversation, I recognized that this unique classroom setting allows for discussions on the intersection of mathematics, gender, and race within academia - from the undergraduate experience to that of a tenured professor - and the impact this intersectionality can have on one’s professional and personal life. 

If one is considering the mental health of Black women in mathematics, one must be aware that identity markers, such as “Black” and “women,” add to the conversation of mental health. Intersectionality theory, originally coined by law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, “takes into account people’s overlapping identities and experiences in order to understand the complexity of prejudices they face.” Intersectionality theory provides a useful theoretical framework for reflecting on the experiences of women of color in mathematics. I know from personal experience that having these layered identities, of being a Black woman mathematician, can add stress in what can already be a stressful profession. 

In writing the series of posts for this blog, the NAM Editorial Board to the MAA Math Values Blog has tried to bring awareness to some of the challenges that one might face: maybe you deal with isolation at your institution and have struggled to find community and mentorship; it is possible that your institution lacks a complete commitment to diversity and inclusion; maybe you’re struggling to balance research, teaching, and service during this global pandemic; or perhaps your teachers or colleagues don’t seem to acknowledge your achievements and so you feel the constant need to prove yourself. As Dr. Ebony McGee said in an interview on Black college students and mental health, “we have witnessed black students work themselves to the point of extreme illness in attempting to escape the constant threat of perceived intellectual inferiority.” All of these experiences, and many others, can have a negative impact on one’s mental health. 

Mental illness can happen to anyone but people of color are less likely to receive competent care when they seek it. Specifically, the American Psychiatric Association writes, “rates of mental illnesses in African Americans are similar with those of the general population. However, disparities exist in regard to mental health care services. African Americans often receive poorer quality of care and lack access to culturally competent care.” But when it comes to those who seek help, people of color are less likely to seek professional help. Even more alarming, as Dr. Erica Martin Richards, chair and medical director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Sibley Memorial Hospital, puts it in Mental Health Among African-American Women that, “women are at least twice as likely to experience an episode of major depression as men [...] and compared to their Caucasian counterparts, African-American women are only half as likely to seek help.”

So how do we address issues of mental health within the mathematics community, and in particular, within communities of color? First, we must do a mental health check-in with ourselves. We all recognize that life has its ups and downs, and moments of happiness and sadness. But there is a distinction between sadness and depression. Sadness is a normal human emotion that every single person will experience at stressful or somber times and usually passes with time. If it does not pass, or if you become unable to resume normal function, this could be a sign of depression. Depression is a mental disorder that has an overpowering effect on many parts of a person’s life. To respond to my student’s original quote, in my opinion depression is not a marker of a full life. I believe depression is an indication that you should seek help, and there is no replacement for the help you can get from a mental health professional. 

Your mental health should always be a priority. This involves (1) moving past negative stigmas associated with seeking help and (2) reducing the false narrative that you just have to “stick it out,” “push through it,” or “develop tough skin.” Too often, as a society we value over-working at the expense of our own physical and mental health. In addition to seeking professional help, there are a number of ways you can protect your emotional health through various self-care practices such as: (1) getting good rest, (2) exercising regularly, (3) eating well, (4) staying connecting with your community (5) meditating or praying, and (6) knowing your limits. In addition to the tips listed above, the NAMI provides a number of suggestions for personalized self-care strategies.  For us to do the work that we do and serve our communities we must first take the time needed to care for ourselves.