Don’t brush off feelings of sadness (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

It’s nice that these days we no longer see a lot of thrillers where the plot twist is that the ‘bad guy’ is actually on medication for schizophrenia, or is a runaway from a local asylum.

We’ve come a long way in mental health representation in the media. It’s great to see more realistic depictions of mental illness, rather than filmmakers and showrunners correlating mental illness with evil.

This is because audiences today are more inclined to call out bad depictions of mental health when they see them. When 13 Reasons Why first aired in 2017, mental health and suicide prevention advocates were not having it. Their pressure eventually pushed creators to erase an unnecessarily graphic scene of the main character killing herself in season one.



In 2016, when slasher flick The Forest came out, I was glad that it got the bad ratings it received – 10 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes – because consumers were angry about how exploitative it is to turn something as serious as Japan’s Suicide Forest into a horror film with a lot of white people.


But as film and TV gets better at depicting mental health stories, many filmmakers and showrunners need to consider the stories that are still often left behind: those of Black women.

As a Black woman who struggles with my mental health – I have major depressive disorder, anxiety, and a skin picking disorder related to my anxiety called dermatillomania – I’m happy to see more stories about the issue in the media, but I know they aren’t enough.

A lot of the best depictions of mental illness in recent years have centred on white women. The award winning show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015-2019) and the Bo Burnham-directed movie Eighth Grade (2018) had us rooting for Rachel Bloom’s and Elsie Fisher’s characters respectively coming to terms with their mental health.

If a Black woman was able to be open about her mental health to the same extent as Rachel Bloom has been, a lot of us would say, ‘finally!’ (Picture: The CW)

There has been the occasional chance to see men of colour be open about their mental health issues on screen such Sterling K. Brown’s character in This is Us (2016-present) and Romany Malco’s in A Million Little things. The third leading cause of death for young black men is suicide, so it has been a long time coming to see this narrative onscreen.

There have also been a couple of notable stories about non-Black women of colour battling mental health issues. In One Day at a Time (2017-present), a sitcom about a Cuban American family living their daily lives, Justina Machado gave a heart-wrenching performance showing the necessity of medication when struggling with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Yet Black women get the short end of the stick of effective representation about mental health.

In Tyler Perry’s Acrimony (2018), Taraji P. Henson’s character is on a revenge trip of sorts after feeling mistreated by her ex-husband. Right after her court-appointed therapist asks her, ‘Have you ever heard of borderline personality disorder?’, Henson storms off to attempt to kill her ex-husband.

US sitcom Black-ish was great in shedding a light on post-partum depression, but the story was presented as a one-off episode.



Even in A Million Little Things, Christina Moses plays the supportive wife as her husband battles depression, but surprisingly, we don’t see how trauma in her life intersects with her own mental health.

Why does all of this matter? Because Black women are not as likely to seek help for their mental health as white women, despite being at higher risk.

Better representation would be beneficial to my own recovery, as it would normalise the process of seeking help and talking about mental health. This could support me and fellow Black women in getting the help we need.

Black-ish was great in shedding a light on post-partum depression, but the story was presented as a one-off episode (Picture: Eric McCandless/ABC via Getty Images)

In the documentary Laughing Matters, which is all about comedians who tackle mental health issues, Rachel Bloom shares her story about making the award-winning Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. The response she saw was enormous – to the point where people would show up to her stand-up gigs, and ask her to sign their prescription bottles for their medication.

Where is that warm outpouring of relatability for Black women? If a Black woman was able to be open about her mental health to the same extent as Rachel Bloom has been, a lot of us would say, ‘finally!’, and cheer her on in the same way. Unfortunately, as racially diverse as the comics in that documentary were, I saw no Black women present.

For those looking for positive representations of Black women coping with mental health issues, online campaigners Depressed While Black and Melanin and Mental Health use social media to highlight under-the-radar stories about Black mental health. They also recommend guided meditations led by Black women, and share their own backgrounds in mental health.


Wonderful books I appreciate are Chanequa Walker Barnes’ Too Heavy a Yoke: Black Women and the Burden of Strength, and Morgan Parker’s young adult novel Who Put this Song On?

Actress Jenifer Lewis’s and singer Michelle Williams’s interviews are also great to watch when it comes to Black women in entertainment who are candid about their own struggles with mental wellness.

I want to enjoy TV and movies just as much as the next person. But television and films as art forms are not supposed to solely be for a majority’s enjoyment.

I want to see Black women sing about going to therapy proudly, and young Black girls finding a definition of anxiety that works for them.

Black women need to see more fully fleshed-out characters that reflect their realities – because I believe those characters could inspire real, systemic change.

MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK During Mental Awareness Health Week (18-24 May 2020), we are sharing personal experience stories from people living with mental health conditions on how to cope during difficult times. For more information about this year’s theme – kindness – visit the Mental Health Foundation. If you are struggling and need help, you can call the Samaritans 24-hour helpline on 116 123, email jo@samaritans.org or go to the Samaritans website.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing rosy.edwards@metro.co.uk

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