It’s 4:38 a.m. One to three times a week, I am awakened by a man yelling outside my window. While my first reaction is to yell back, “Please be quiet!” I stop myself. Why does he yell in the middle of the night? As I listen more closely, I can hear him say, “Leave me alone, you are not real.” This time, I really stop and think. This could be my brother.
I am not a medical professional, but several things are clear to me about the man who yells outside my window. He is a man of color, a senior citizen, experiencing homelessness and combating mental illness. Two things this man has in common with my brother is that they are both men of color living with mental illness.
In 2016, the National Institute of Mental Health reported that one in six adults in the United States lives with a mental illness. In comparison to their White counterparts, communities of color have less access to mental health services, and when they do receive care, the quality is poorer.
In academic settings, I am guilty of people assuming I am an only child because it is rare that I discuss having a brother or his condition. My brother lives with bipolar disorder, which is a mood disorder that causes an individual to experience extreme changes in emotion from mania to depression, which can result in debilitation or death. These are the difficult topics we choose not to reveal as academics as we sit with half-cracked smiles, meeting with students and having conversations with colleagues. We go through the motions as if nothing is wrong, but in reality, we are hurting inside.
A week before my dissertation proposal defense at UCLA, my brother’s illness hit an all-time high in which we almost lost him forever. It was probably the most difficult time my family and I had experienced with my brother.
During this time, I met with one of my committee members to discuss my situation. He asked me, “Do you love your brother?” I responded, “Of course!” Then he asked, “How much do you love yourself?” To that, I had no response. He told me, “You cannot compromise yourself or your health.”
It was time for self-reflection.
