Learning about one's own mental health conditions is empowering and helps reduce the burden of secrecy.

“And when you have a relationship with depression as opposed to you know, allowing it to keep sinking in and inside of you, it's it's a little bit more freeing. I think to understand yourself better.”

Therapy and personal self-care are essential tools that individuals should utilize to achieve personal balance and mental wellness.

“i go to a therapist i see a therapist i i utilize the tools that she gives me to do the best that i can to better myself so that i can be a better me first and foremost for me and love myself and be nicer to myself and kinder to myself because i'm very hard on myself”

Gucci Mane emphasizes that prioritizing and taking responsibility for one's mental health is the most important step for recovery.

“I think I had when I had an episode in like 2019 or 20 >> around co and that was just like like after that I was like man I got to really just hold myself accountable and take care of my health.”

Trisha believes that seeking professional help is a powerful and necessary step for managing mental health conditions, and she advocates for breaking the stigma around therapy.

“When you can get help, your whole life will change. Trust me. I still go to therapy. I'm still doing therapy. I don't talk about it a lot cuz I don't, you know, I don't know. I should I should talk about it more cuz I think there is a stigma.”

He emphasizes that professional sports served as a therapeutic outlet for his childhood trauma and emotional struggles.

“I had a lot of buildup anger but scorz was my getaway that was my therapy”

The cultural stigma and upbringing in some communities often discourage people from openly discussing or seeking help for mental health issues.

“Like we've talked about it before where like in in a in a I'll say in a black household as a kid, you don't talk about you're depressed. Yeah. Can't afford that. Go to bed.”

Mental health stigma persists because psychiatric disorders are subjective and invisible, unlike physical injuries, but they should be viewed as physical brain dysfunctions.

“So it's all subjective, and because of that subjectivity, people have questioned the validity of it because you can't take a microscope and see it. So now, as a cognitive neuroscientist who works in psychiatry, part of what we do is to say look, these psychiatric illnesses, this is the underlying br”

Improving mental health within the black community requires proactive education, reducing stigmas, and providing accessible tools that account for cultural context.

“We start by providing education, skills, and tools for us to better understand like what mental health means and how can I be proactive on an individual basis.”