My mom in Tacoma eventually sought mental health support. Too many Latinos do not

It has been a year since my mother had her first psychotic break. It was the middle of June, and I was looking forward to the summer quarter.

However, I soon became concerned for my mother’s mental health because she fully believed people were coming into our backyard at night. She thought that a man dressed in a costume hid behind scraps of metal in front of our neighbor’s garage.

This belief led us to buy a pair of cameras, which probably wasn’t the best idea because it made my mother constantly check the feed on her phone, to the point where she was checking it all night and not getting any sleep.

Additionally, my mom thought these people in the backyard somehow managed to come inside the house and leave drawings on our clothes.

There were a few instances where I would walk into her room, she would hand me one of her sweaters and asked if I could see the tiny figures on it. When I told her that it’s just an old sweater and that I don’t see anything on it, she would get aggressive and accused me of calling her crazy.

Whenever my sisters and I would suggest she go see a doctor, she would get hostile and storm off, saying, “I know what I saw, and if you don’t believe me, then I won’t tell you anything else.”

Fortunately, after we built up courage to sit down with my mother and talk through the situation, she decided to seek help.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen often enough in our country.

Only 33% of Latinos with a mental illness receive treatment, according to a 2020 report by Cardinal Innovations Healthcare. Furthermore, only 20% of Latinos who experience a mental health disorder discuss their symptoms with a doctor, 10% reach out to a mental health professional and 19% have no form of health insurance.

Latino adolescents experience similar rates and have an increased risk of depression and suicide when compared to other ethnic groups. They are less than half as likely as European Americans to have received a diagnosis of depression or evidence-based treatment and are more likely to withdraw from depression treatment prematurely, research shows.

The Latino community faces several factors preventing them from seeking treatment, such as stigma, access to care and language barriers.

One of the biggest obstacles, stigma, is the reason why only approximately 1 in 10 Latinos with a mental illness utilizes services from a general health care provider. Only 1 in 20 receive such services from a mental health specialist.

Latinos value self-reliance more so than American culture. It speaks to the strength and resilience of our community, but it can also discourage people from talking about their symptoms for fear of being a burden to others.

It was this stigma in Latino culture that made my mother hesitant to seek help at first.

My mother had a substance-induced psychosis; she did not fully understand health and well-being due to a stigma and a lack of information.

However, once she ought out assistance through therapy, she developed a more potent mental health literacy, which allowed her to have a more positive outlook on mental health. It reduced stigma and paved the way for overdue conversations.

We can no longer view mental health as just nervios and continue to sweep this issue under the proverbial tapete. It’s a quality-of-life issue. If your mental health is not where it should be, there is an increased risk for other facets of life to suffer.

We must change our perspective by seeking help and look at therapy as a preventative, not prescriptive, measure. It’s a tool that helps develop the language to have difficult conversations with others and yourself.

There is nothing crazy about this.

Luis Lopez is a third-year student studying public health at the University of Washington. He’s a lifelong Tacoma resident and graduate of Bellarmine Preparatory School.