avatarLucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她)

Summary

The article emphasizes the significance of personal values and self-validation in the face of systemic discrimination, advocating for self-care and resilience as short-term measures while acknowledging the need for systemic change for true mental health support.

Abstract

The content discusses the cultural expectation in America to seek external validation before feeling self-pride, a practice that can lead to a constant sense of inadequacy, particularly for people of color facing systemic biases. The author, Lucy Dan, highlights the importance of defining personal metrics of success and self-worth, which can provide healing and a sense of accomplishment outside of societal pressures. While personal resilience is important, it is not a panacea for systemic issues. The author argues that self-care must be complemented by community care and systemic changes that address the environmental factors contributing to poor mental health. The article also touches on the inadequacy of mental health solutions that focus solely on individual change without addressing the broader systemic factors.

Opinions

  • External validation should not be the sole determinant of self-worth; individuals should validate themselves based on personal values and metrics.
  • Systemic biases create unequal standards and obstacles, making it crucial for individuals to establish their own definitions of success.
  • Resilience is often recommended as a solution to discrimination, but it does not address the root causes of systemic bias.
  • Organizational mental health initiatives should go beyond promoting gratitude and resilience; they should provide tangible support like a living wage.
  • Self-care is necessary but insufficient without community care and systemic support to improve mental health outcomes.
  • The current approach to mental health often ignores the impact of systemic factors, leading to incomplete solutions.

The Importance of Building Your Own Values and Self-Validation

Short-term self-care for surviving spaces that do not support you

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

American culture encourages you to delay feeling proud of yourself until external validation has been granted. Practice this and you get to the point where you cannot feel proud until that validation materializes. And if it doesn’t, you withhold approval of yourself. Then, because you are always in your own company, you constantly feel like you’re lacking and you get to the point where even external validation cannot land. (Koritha Mitchell)

This article about not waiting until external validation comes to award you and instead of giving yourself the space to reward yourself based on your own metrics rang true for me. In these words, Mitchell elegantly describes how metrics applied to POC are often used as a double standard that does not hold white counterparts the same way.

By default, we often wait for these external metrics to define whether we’ve “succeeded”. E.g., buying a house, publishing papers, earning x amount of money. It often feels like a losing game, when these systems that engender these metrics place more obstacles in front of one but not the other.

In defining my own metrics of success and value, I’ve found healing. I no longer feel less than when embedded in a conversation with other students who boast about how little sleep they get. I value the routine of steady work, steady progress, and a reliable sleep schedule to ensure the longevity of my growth.

An important caveat: This is a short-term solution that’s focused on the self because in the moment of handling discrimination, we all need respite and recuperation. This is one way to build resilience.

Resilience is not the solution to systemic bias. I often find that when I’m speaking up about systemic bias, I get the spiel of “be more resilient”!

I am resilient, and I am growing ever more resilient.

It doesn’t negate that there is discrimination in placing more obstacles in front of one but removing them from another yet telling one “to be more resilient” and congratulate the other as “more successful”.

Imagine where this resilience would have gotten me, us if the odds were equal. Imagine.

Organizational mental health workshops that are just people repeatedly saying “gratitude !!!!!!!!!!!!!!” and “resilience !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” are not the answer. Support your words and pay us a living wage, and then we can talk about gratitude.

Hi, I’m Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) and we need to talk about how self-care (at the personal level) needs to be supplemented with community care (at the environmental level). We do not live in siloed existence, which we very much learned this year during the pandemic. So why are so many mental health solutions focussed on personal change without tackling the systemic factors that contribute to poor mental health?

Hop down the rabbit hole? 🐰🕳

^ by Andrea D. Price

Self Care
Mental Health
Race
Culture
Equality
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