Black Girl Anxiety

Join Ednesha, Marquia, and Kim as they talk about anxiety!

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health disorder in the United States. Data show that for Black women, anxiety is more chronic and the symptoms more intense than their White counterparts. A couple of factors are: The strong Black woman trope forces Black women into caregiver roles where we shoulder the burdens of others but rarely share our own.

Black women are generally not “allowed” by society to be vulnerable or display too much emotion; when we do let our feelings show, it’s often regarded as a threat—which is where the angry black women trope comes from. Anger and/or aggression feel like safer emotions to portray. (The angry Black woman is familiar, while the anxious, depressed, or traumatized Black woman is unknown and scary.) Therefore, it’s common for Black women and girls to act out anxiety in the form of aggression or anger, emotions that are socially expected and in many cases acceptable to the mainstream.

Are we really out here showing anger or aggression instead of showing anxiety? Or, do we see anxiety as a weakness so that’s why we dont show it?

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