If you were raised by African parents, you need therapy
Everyone needs to do inner work, but there is a special place in the house of healing for all raised by African parents because of certain practices and norms that make up the fabric of many African cultures:
(1) Comparing to others
The same people who say “Comparison is the thief of joy,” will use siblings, family friends, and strangers on YouTube to assess you.
“Ose got into Harvard.”
“All your sisters have gotten married.”
“What have I done to anger God?” Your parents ask out loud (not really posing the question but imposing shame. You’re an outward manifestation of their hopes and dreams. When you fail, it’s personal.
How do you live your life without feeling like you’ve disappointed them? #therapy
(2) Perfection & People-Pleasing
Be “good”; get good grades, and don’t talk back at your elders. Neurodivergence and mental illness do not exist; they are simply excuses. “With hard work (and prayer) you can overcome everything.”
On the rare occasion, you get a compliment, you clamp on to it, leveraging it to shape your entire identity.
“This child is good at Chemistry,” they bragged to a neighbor when you were 14. From then on, it was the stencil with which you shaped your world; you got into the best schools, with the best Chemistry programs, and landed the internships they could boast to their friends about. If you were to fail at everything in this life, it will not be Chemistry; even when Chemistry was sucking your soul.
Some African parents only value you based on what you achieve and not your totality as a person. Maybe you eventually became the doctor that your creative heart never cared to be. Then something happens that chips at your perfection — let’s say you get pregnant “out of wedlock” — the image of the perfect daughter is now dismantled. You crumble.
Does any identity outside of perfection cause you anxiety? #therapy
(3) “Sorry” is a flaw
Because “a parent never apologizes to a child,” you might have heard:
“Eat this food” // “Come and give me a hug.” // “You’re OK, you hear?”
“Sorry” is a crack in the mirror of perfection; admitting fault brings the entire facade crumbling.
How do you relinquish your ego to admit you were wrong and validate another person’s feelings? #therapy
(4) Judgment & Criticism
Colored hair, piercings, and tattoos are for delinquents. Those people are “bad”, just as homosexuality and any other concept that is unfamiliar or not understood.
Your body and your wardrobe are judged — typically passive-aggressively and under the guise of Christianity. Ironically, “strict” homes only encourage us to live a double life as long as our parents never know…
How do you live the life you desire and get support for that lifestyle and the challenges and uncertainties it presents? #therapy
(5) Abandonment & Separation
Whether dad left home to work a well-paying job, or you and/or your siblings left for boarding school, it’s normal for the psych of a growing child to have feelings of abandonment or separation.
Just because it wasn’t dramatic doesn’t mean it wasn’t traumatic.
It’s not like dad went to “buy milk” and never came back. You know it was not ill-intended, but it happened, that’s how you felt. There could be a part of you that has not told your inner child that though it was a form of separation, it was not abandonment.
Have you developed an Avoidant attachment style to brace yourself for people walking out of your life? Or an Anxious one, grasping at straws to get them to stay? #therapy
(6) Therapy is a joke
The idea of talking to a stranger about your life and your problems is ironic in a culture that does not discuss what is happening at home. We fear talking about these parts of our culture because we don’t want outsiders to think we are “barbaric” or to focus on the negative when we are grateful for the efforts of our hardworking parents who did the best, they could based on what they knew.
“Why pay a stranger to talk about my life?” // Pray about it, there’s nothing greater than God.
Therapy is undermined and mocked.
When I told my mom I had started seeing a therapist, my dad who had stayed silent in the background ended the call by shouting out, “say hi to doctor Phil”. (Can’t even lie, I had to laugh at his joke). Loving your parents and acknowledging where you could’ve used something different can coexist.
Therapy is not cheap; we can all think of other ways to spend ~$200/ hour. GOOD NEWS! Therapy is not the only way to do the necessary inner work. Here are some alternatives for when therapy isn’t an option.
Before you vex that I’ve put the culture on blast remember:
Stories have the power to empower and transform.
It should go without saying, but of course, this is not the reality for every African household, Africa is not a country, blah, blah, blah.
Perhaps things were “not that bad” for you, or now you have friends with whom you joke about these issues, or in hindsight, they are no longer a big deal. If none of these points resonate with you, come and be going. There is a younger version of you going through such challenges, searching for answers to make sense of their reality. This is for them to know they are not alone. This is also for the adults who want to be honest with themselves about who they are, and potentially why.
The objective is never to point fingers but to make sense and find peace.
Thank you for reading! If you’re wondering why I’ve been publishing less frequently, here’s why. Want to gift me, but not sure what I might like? Your subscription, readership + comments! Use my referral link to join Medium today to get full access to every story on Medium and read every story from me (and thousands of other writers).
More from Joyce about the Culture:
