Different Cultures In Family & Mental Illness

i just wanted to say something...

as some or maybe all of you know im half black and half hispanic.
well i tried to bring up my schizophrenia with both side of family before but both want to keep it extremely hush hush. but the different cultures of my family have different opinions from each other. the black side of my family seems a little more sensitive to it. i went to a family reunion and learned once that my cousin was once dxd as bipolar and has a brother with Sz supposedly although she thinks its really ptsd. and i saw a little girl at the family reunion with autism. also learned a few months ago my cousin is on disability for seizures.

the hispanic side of my family seems more scared of me. when my mom once told them last year i was on haldol injections for my dx my aunt asked if i was gonna hurt anyone. BUT my cousin and i had a long talk about her being in a mental hospital once or twice and her being diagnosed as bipolar. but we both agreed that theres a few black sheeps in the family that the family wants to keep pushed out of sight OR keep the secrets hidden. and just make it looks like the family is perfect.

idk how to deal with this. i wish my family was more open to my i guess mental illness

"We're all born to broken people on their most honest day of living"

The Dopamine Flux
www.thedopamineflux.com

Youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/MozePrayIII

i grew up in an environment where my family didnt talk about emotions or anything. even after my dad died...it was taboo to talk about him and what happened. i was taught to hide my emotions and deal with them when i was alone. i would cry in the shower or after everyone went to bed. i was basically emotionally neglected all my childhood. my dad died right after my 10th birthday and i didnt know all the details about what happened to him until i was 16 and my mom wrote me a letter about it.

it took me a really really long time to be able to talk about how i was feeling. it just felt so wrong to me. it has gotten a LOT easier though through much work in therapy.

so anyway yeah, i hid my mental illness because i thought thats what i was supposed to do. even though there were clear indicators that something was not right with me in my early teenage years no one said anything about it and if they did it was hurtful. they didnt understand. it was only after i ran away when i was 16 that my mom took me to be psychiatrically evaluated.

im not really sure how many people in my family know about what happened with my former therapist. i know my mom and sister know. i suspect my grandmother knows. they might all know. the thing with my family is they talk about things involving someone to each other and not to the person it happened to.

My mother disowned me. My best friend no longer speaks to me. I'm on my own. Good luck.

thanks junk. thats hard to hear. why do you live where you live now? is it a residential treatment facility?

"We're all born to broken people on their most honest day of living"

The Dopamine Flux
www.thedopamineflux.com

Youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/MozePrayIII

i came to this facility in march 2010 . i came here straight from inpatient. i told my pdoc abt what was going on with my former T and me. he suggested this place to me and actually paid the first 2 months for me to come here. it saved my life. i came here bc of what happened with my former T. but there were also a lot of unresolved issues from other traumas like my dad and the abusive facility i was forced to go to when i was 16. it is a residential treatment facility but it has 4 levels. i am on level 4 which means i do not live on campus. i live in my own apartment and pay my own rent etc. but i have a therapist, recovery coach, and nurse from the program that work with me. they are my team.

i am working on transitioning out of this program. my regular T left the program in august. so iwill continue to see him when i leave.

i almost had to goto one of those types of places back in 2008. when i was 18. on the other side of the state i live in. texas. houston texas. but anyway my whole family drove me down to the facility and they interviewed me. i screamed and made a big fit. they finally had a private meeting with my family and in private probably said if i didnt want to be there i shoudlnt. so my screaming and fit got out of it. im glad i didnt go there really. i wouldve been there for 4-5 years and i couldnt imagine being there. it was a residential treatment facility too. it had levels too where youd live on the campus and then live in your own apartment after youd reach a certain level like yours.

"We're all born to broken people on their most honest day of living"

The Dopamine Flux
www.thedopamineflux.com

Youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/MozePrayIII

I can relate to this somewhat. My family isn't one for saying things like "I love you" or talking about our feelings. My Mum just takes a business-like approach to things like anxiety & my illness, just trying to understand them herself rather than about how it affects me & how I feel.

My Dad just doesn't understand it at all & doesn't ask about it at all. It wouldn't be a problem but it's just like he denies it really. I think it's just a coping mechanism for him.

As for my Sister... I barely talk to her. We used to be quite close but then she moved away & everything became about her. She never talks to me unless she wants something. Also, now she has her own family & I think the time has passed to get back to the way things were before now I am ill. She just doesn't know what to say to me ever. I'm not sure if that's because we never talk, or because of my illness but I suspect a bit of both.

I was really open with the one serious girlfriend I had though... I think in some ways I see the misgivings of our family way & don't want the same for myself in the future. I still find it hard to express emotions though, certainly not helped by the cognitive effects I have at the moment.

Our family is caucasian middle class if that gives any bearing to the thread topic. I think it's more to do with having two working parents, one of whom was away quite a bit whilst I was younger that had more of an impact on that side of things.

I can totally relate to the cultural thing with mental illness.

I come from a multiethnic family that includes Black, Jewish and Japanese and when I talked to my dad about my issues, he got really angry with me. Like it was my fault. He is very hush-hush about it and doesn't want to me to talk to him about it at all.

My mom's side of the family is mostly Creole and when I talked to her about it, she was also hush-hush at first, then eventually learned to understand better. But it was the same conversation with her, except she believed that I was possessed by evil spirits and that I needed to do some sort of ritual or something to get the spirit to leave my body. Something like that, I don't quite remember that was a long time ago. The thing is, my mom studied psychology in college and even majored in Child Psychology, yet she was really ashamed of me having a "mental illness".

But yeah, I noticed with people in the schizophrenia group that I used to go to, the people were pretty much all white and they all told all of their family members about their schizophrenia and there was no problems at all for them. It was like their family just accepted it and didn't care so much about what other people would say.

i also have a feeling white families accept the schizophrenia better but idk...

"We're all born to broken people on their most honest day of living"

The Dopamine Flux
www.thedopamineflux.com

Youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/MozePrayIII

My family is white... it wasn't so much as hush hush... it was more of my mom complaining on how taking me to these appointments was an inconveniences to her. She basically said one day that if anyone needed to go to counseling it is her.

Then there's my ex boyfriends family who is Hispanic. They were more accepting of my mental illness and did stuff to help me get the help that I needed. Then again my ex boyfriend suffers from depression and anxiety and his father basically said, "what do you got to be depressed and anxious about?"

my moms hispanic and says "what do you have to be depressed/stressed about?" too

"We're all born to broken people on their most honest day of living"

The Dopamine Flux
www.thedopamineflux.com

Youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/MozePrayIII

my dad is black and personally has become more understanding of my schizophrenia because he has seen me get paranoid and picked up by the police many times. and sent to the hospital and heard of the things ive done. but hes the only one really. hes the one i always talk to you guys about on here

"We're all born to broken people on their most honest day of living"

The Dopamine Flux
www.thedopamineflux.com

Youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/MozePrayIII

My family has a long history of mental illness, so the topic is talked about openly.

Hmm maybe it's because parents don't want to feel like they failed at raising their children. My exs mom is more understanding seeing that my ex is morbidly obese and that can be a cause of his depression (though I think it's more of a symptom).

I think this is more of an age thing than a race thing....it's like you don't have to work, you don't have to worry about feeding your family etc...so compared to them they think you have no worries but of course dealing with a chronic MI create its own stress that can easily be be beyond work....next time ask if they would like to trade see if they pick their supposedly more stressful life or yours...if they say yes, hand them a haldol...(not really since that's against the law but seriously wouldn't you want to.....I know I would)

^ That totally makes more sense then what I said.