The Leonard Washington Blues: A Black Man’s Battle with Mental Health
By Justin B. Jones
Dave Chappelle can be a pretty polarizing figure these days. He, like many turn of the century comedians, has picked up this belief that comedy, as an institution, is under attack by the snowflakes and politically correct millennials who just can’t take a joke. It's not like audiences’ tastes have changed with an increasingly turbulent society or comedy should be about empathy or anything like that. This new perspective has led to a real mean streak in Chappelle’s comedy and a lot of jokes aimed at communities that don’t deserve that kind of discouragement. All of this to say, I still believe that there are some merits to Chappelle’s comedy and that he’s really at his best when he’s talking about what he knows: Black guy stuff.
One of my all time favorite Chappelle Show characters was Leonard Washington. Leonard was never a huge part of the show but he would appear in the backgrounds of other sketches, usually somewhere near Ashy Larry. His only starring sketch was “Trading Spouses,” In it Leonard finds himself living with a white family and trying out therapy for the first time, much to his chagrin. Once alone with the therapist she assures him that they are in a safe space and that their conversation is confidential. Leonard responds by confessing that he is crazy and then threatens to kill her. Seeing it summed up and typed out like that it sounds scary as hell but the humor came from the connection that a lot of people, particularly Black men, to those conflicted feelings about therapy.
I’ve seen a lot of talk online about therapy in communities of color and I in no way want to downplay the importance of proper mental health. Whatever your race, gender, socio-economic status, along the way to where you are in life you’ve probably picked up some problematic lessons that need to be unlearned if you want to stop hurting others and yourself.
Self reflection is as much a part of being a responsible adult as money management and knowing how to feed yourself. Like most adult things, though, it kind of sucks to do.
Over the last year and a half I’ve been making a good faith effort to seek out a good therapist. Even before the pandemic my anxiety had reached heights where I was worrying myself and some people that cared about me. I have been blessed with many gifts in my life but the patience for understanding bureaucracy is not one of them. The systems are stressful and discouraging. Finding a therapist through my insurance took hours of waiting on the phone just to have one email sent. The only therapists my insurance would cover were all older Russian women in the darkest depths of Queens that I had to take no less than 3 transfers to reach. Looking for a therapist closer to my age and experiences quickly proved to be more and more costly. I even asked my friends for help and recommendations and it all got so messy that I ended up taking a medical leave from work.
The first time I saw a psychiatrist as an adult I was almost committed. Fifteen minutes into our first session she asked if I had had any suicidal thoughts, and I responded that I had, and she immediately started talking about the police and hospitalization. She looked me in the eye and told me that legally she couldn’t let me leave if I was suicidal. So I lied to her to go home.I understand that she was doing what she was trained to do and acting from a place of concern but I felt betrayed. Where I’m from in Baltimore the police are always the last resort and I am far from the only person I know who’s had some suicidal thoughts. Black, Brown, or otherwise if you’re even seeking mental health assistance chances are you have had some suicidal ideas in your life. Ideas that need to be taken seriously but how people respond to your darker thoughts can quickly become a trigger.
The fear I felt sitting in that old Russian doctor’s office was the exact same fear that I feel when I hear police sirens behind me on the street. It’s the fear I have when I’m walking up a Manhattan street and I start seeing fewer and fewer non-white faces. It's that anxiety that comes from knowing that I may not leave this place of my own free will and I may not understand why. A lot of the Black men that need the most therapy have histories with the criminal justice system. Once you’ve had a warrant for your arrest that attention from the courts doesn’t just go away, even if the case is thrown out. The fear of suddenly losing your freedom has deep roots in the diasporic community, particularly in the US. In her 2018 article “Blacks Were Enslaved Well into the 1960s,” Antoinette Harrell spoke with a group of people who had been forced to be sharecroppers until about 1963. After interviewing them Harrell said, “Most shocking of all was their fear...They believed that they might somehow get sent back to a plantation that wasn’t even operating anymore.” I know it can seem melodramatic or exaggerated comparing the experiences of actual slaves to my own but that’s part of the issue.
Being misunderstood isn’t a delusional anxiety of Black men. It's a fact.
Black men deal with some fairly unique problems. The United States has been gaslighting African descendants for almost half a millennium. There is a rich history of using black bodies as medical research in this country. Sexually transmitted diseases, our understanding of DNA, the entire field of gynecology, all fields of study enhanced by the intentional deception and disrespect of Black people. Lots of Blacks have been hurt by people claiming to help. As a child in Baltimore I used to joke with my friends that you could get kidnapped if you went to Johns Hopkins hospital at night. In the 90s we believed that there was some boogeyman that would snatch you off the streets and experiment on you like a crack-era Dr. Frankenstein. When I learned that Johns Hopkins had actually been experimenting on the children of Baltimore in their own homes (no kidnapping necessary) I was already a scholarship student at Johns Hopkins University and I felt complicit and dirty. Survivor’s guilt has become a cornerstone of Black life in America and it's really the cherry on top of a pretty depressing sundae.
Last week I left my 4th therapist. I’d been determined to stick it out with this one for at least a month of remote sessions and push myself to build a relationship. Like Leonard Washington, I’m not prone to sharing my feelings with strangers and can become quite defensive when that vulnerability doesn’t feel reciprocated or respected. My last therapist seemed to just want me to open up. I say “seem” because she didn’t ask many questions at all. By week four we both agreed that the relationship wasn’t working out. I’m on the hunt again.
Anything worth doing is going to be hard and improving my mental health is most certainly worth it. I’ve seen the women around me improve their quality of life by seeking help and I envy them and their growth. I’ve accepted that this is going to be a lifelong pursuit for wellness and serenity and I’m okay with that. I write all of this to say the next time you see a brother wildin and you think he needs therapy, ask him if he’s trying.