Peace & Prosperity Podcast

The Untold Truth About Black Men and Depression - Episode #86

• Jason Phillips

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​The Peace & Prosperity Podcast is a bi-weekly conversation with Jason Phillips, LCSW, licensed therapist and confidence expert in Raleigh, NC, discussing all things related to self-love and self-confidence, and how we can improve ourselves personally and professionally.

Depression doesn’t always look like sadness—especially for Black men. It can show up as overworking, material success, or serial relationships, and often gets mistaken for strength. As a licensed therapist and Black man who's been there, Jason breaks down how these patterns mask real pain. This episode sheds light on what depression really looks like for for Black men—and why getting help might be the most powerful move you make. 

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Speaker 1:

All right, y'all welcome to another episode of the Peace and Prosperity Podcast. I'm your host, jason Phillips, licensed therapist, confidence expert, and we're back, but now, as you can see, we're on YouTube, so we have the visual platform to go ahead and match the audio platform. So today we're going to be talking about a very important and necessary topic, which is depression in Black men. Now, I caught a little bit of slack over this on Instagram because I was talking about depression in Black men, and this is not to say that some of these signs and symptoms don't apply to other races and ethnicities as well. Throughout my career, I'm going to get into it, but we're going to talk about my experiences with depression in men in general. I'm going to share my own experiences with depression, and then we're going to talk about how do we manage depression and how do we best treat depression in our men. Now I'm going to start off by saying that if you are familiar with depression, or maybe you've had your own depressed episode, you may have noticed a couple of things. One is changes in your behavior, so changes in your sleep pattern. Maybe you're sleeping more or sleeping less, so you're not waking up feeling really rested. It's almost like you can't get enough sleep or you can't fall asleep. That's one sign. Another sign is changes in your eating patterns. So when I say that you may not have an appetite at all, like your favorite foods just don't taste as good, or, on the flip side, you're eating a lot to overcompensate for what you're feeling. So those are a couple of changes in your patterns. Also, you may start to avoid and when I say avoid, you're avoiding your best friends, you're avoiding going out, you're not being as social because you're not comfortable. You don't want anybody to recognize or to say oh wait, hold up, jason. You you're looking a little different or you don't seem as bubbly or just like yourself. And you know if anybody can tell if you've been depressed or if you're going through something, it's going to be the people that are closest to you. So pay attention to when people start to isolate and not show up to events, not come around for even holidays or celebrate their own birthday because they're going through their own depressive episode. Other changes to look for or signs would be just low mood, so you're feeling really lethargic, like you don't have any energy, and this is across the board, the stuff that you used to want to get into like things that were of interest to you, they no longer interest you anymore. So again, I wanted to start out with just going by, what are some of the general signs of depression?

Speaker 1:

Now, in my career I've had the privilege of working with men in different sectors. So I started my career working at the VA so I worked with veterans, mostly older white men. I was in Ann Arbor, michigan, so that population was particularly around 40 to 60, sometimes 65, 70 years old. What I noticed with this population they had not talked about what they've been through. For a lot of the veterans this was their first time actually seeking care, or if they were seeking care, it was because maybe their spouse had told them to do it or their primary care doctor had referred them to our mental health clinic.

Speaker 1:

Then I started working in hospice. So I worked in grief and loss. So I was doing a lot of grief counseling here. Mostly this was working with men or women who had lost a partner, who had lost a mom or dad, and even in this population I did a lot of group work. And even in this population I did a lot of group work and most of the groups if there were 15, 20 people in a group. You probably had about two or three men, just give or take. And then when I was working with them on an individual basis, most of my clients were still older white women. So you're talking about anywhere from ages 50 to, let's say, 65, just depending upon what they were going through and if they had lost a partner or if they lost a parent who they were likely the caregiver for. So men across the board were still not showing up. Now, when I worked in hospice and this was free services so anybody could come for any limited period of time I can definitely count, on one hand, the number of Black men that I had in my office during that tenure and this was over about a five-year period we just were not seeking the help or seeking the care, even if it was available to us.

Speaker 1:

Then I worked in community mental health. Now, in the community you did have more men seeking care, whether it was mandated, whether their parents brought them in or sometimes it could have been a community referral. But I did see more males. Typically they were kind of coerced into getting treatment. Like, I'm being honest, it wasn't not. They weren't just saying, hey, I want to go talk to a therapist. Something was going on in their life that brought them into the therapeutic setting From community mental health. I worked in the college campus. I can still count on one hand the amount of black males that were seeking care. So I could go on and on across different sectors and areas that I've worked in. Where I'm getting at here y'all is.

Speaker 1:

The reason why I made this post was because we have to start looking for signs of depression in our black men differently. It's not going to always present as the person who's sleep deprived or sleeping too much, not eating enough or eating too much, the person who is very withdrawn and not hanging out with their peers. It shows up vastly differently. So what does it look like? I'm going to say this In my experience it looks like overdoing, and the first sign of overdoing is overworking, throwing yourself into work, because work is something that looks really plausible in our society. It's something that people can give you kudos for. It's like oh, you're pulling extra shifts, great job. Or you're starting a business on top of the work you're already doing. Man, you're so dope, so you get a lot of praise.

Speaker 1:

But men are doing this because they don't want to talk about what they have going on, whether that's trauma from a relationship that didn't go well, whether that's trauma from a relationship that didn't go well, whether that's trauma from losing a parent or losing a loved one, whether that's feeling inadequate about where they are in life, financially or in the relationship. Professionally, it's like let me throw myself into work, because that's a good way for me to hide out and I will say when I'm going through stuff, it is much easier for me to do the same thing, so I can work, work, work, work and be productive and not address what I'm feeling. So I'm being very open and transparent on this because I want you all to know. If you have black men in your life, if you are a therapist and you work with a lot of black men, I want you to be more aware of some of these signs so that you can explore it and have a conversation about what's the true meaning behind this behavior. Are you doing this because you want to, or are you piling more things on your plate because it's good to just keep you busy and avoid what's really going on inside?

Speaker 1:

The other sign of overdoing is overspending, so you're now overcompensating because of the things that you didn't get. This is something that you may have experienced, where they seem to want to buy every single pair of Jordans, air Maxes could be Gucci loafers I'm from Detroit, so that was a thing back then Like, whatever it is, they just they're fixated on it and you're like, well, how come you say this is your goal, but I'm noticing you're. You're spending a lot of time, energy on these materialistic things, and sometimes this could also be materialistic things. So when I say that is, the Jordans, the Air Maxes, the clothes, the trips, you're doing all of this thing. You're spending all of this money to feel good or look good, but what's really going on inside? So I want you to have conversations with yourself and ask yourself am I doing this because I truly want to, or am I attempting to cover up with what I'm feeling internally by making myself look really good externally? So that way, if I look good, people will think I feel good and they won't ask me how am I really doing? You know, that's what you got to do.

Speaker 1:

When you want somebody to tell you how they're doing, you got to ask them twice, sometimes even three times, because if you only ask them once, they're going to give you the oh man, I'm good bro, or I'm good sis, I'm hanging in there and that's going to give you the oh man, I'm good bro, or I'm good sis, I'm hanging in there and that's going to be their escape. To just go to a different subject, all right. And then the last over is being over sexual or hypersexual. And this is because, especially with men, if I say man, look, I just I'm messing with her, I'm dating this person, I just got it in with this person, it's like, oh dude, tell me a secret, tell me more.

Speaker 1:

Or you're getting a lot of kudos and praise from your boys, but that's a lot of times. That's because you don't want to feel the real pain or address some of those old wounds. Maybe you grew up with pain, a mom or dad who wasn't there, so it's hard for you to get close to somebody. So what you do is you'll be close to them physically, but there's no real emotional connection. So on the outside it looks like again, you have the best women, you're always on dates, you're always on trips, you keep them going right, you got the little. Your conveyor belt is they rolling in, rolling out. But truly, you're not happy with that. You're not pleased with that behavior or that person in your life. They're not happy with how they're showing up. So these are some of the signs that I want you to look for, because depression can show up differently in black men.

Speaker 1:

Now let me go to some of the research, too, before I talk about my own experiences With Black men. We are less likely to receive treatment. We're less likely to open up when we are in treatment because of the mistrust that we have with a lot of our medical providers, and then we're less likely to remain in treatment. So we may show up once or twice, but when it comes to staying for long periods of time where you can actually say, yes, I had a counselor and it was great, or I've met with my psychiatrist and I'm feeling much better, it just depends, and this is why we want to be informed about how can we better approach these conversations, because the majority of men will not seek out traditional professional mental health services. So if you are a brother, a sister, an auntie, an uncle, you can still provide a lot of great peer support or support being their loved one by just asking questions around these I won't even say difficult conversations, but around these subjects that a lot of times are taboo. I'll say for myself, kind of switching gears. I said I wanted to share my own experience with depression.

Speaker 1:

I remember vividly when I was working at a job where I just literally hated that job. And for me, work is a part of my identity, it just is. I love what I do. I've always enjoyed the work that I've done, but I was working at a place that just the morale was low. I had made a move from a different place and I was thinking that this was going to be great. And it wasn't. It was absolutely horrible. But I didn't want everybody to know that. So the treatment I was getting there was bad. I was not happy. And it wasn't, it was absolutely horrible. But I didn't want everybody to know that. So the treatment I was getting there was bad. I was not happy and I remember just feeling like man, what have I just done? Is this going to work out for me?

Speaker 1:

Waking up like I really got to go in, I just felt like a dark cloud was over me for long periods of time. Y'all know I love to work out. It's just been a part of my lifestyle, but during that time I had no energy to go to the gym. I had no desire to go to the gym. So I would come home from work, sometimes I would eat, sometimes I wouldn't Go to sleep, get up, do it all over the next day. I just dreaded my life at that time. So, thankfully, I was not in that situation for a long period of time. I wasn't there long enough to be burnt out, but just my life. There was feelings of hopelessness, isolation, avoidance, a lot of telltale signs that, again, if you didn't really know me, I could definitely I'm good. You and you will just leave me be.

Speaker 1:

Other times where I experienced depression, where I knew like, okay, hold up, I'm starting to wake up feeling just like numb. I'm not feeling like I want to engage with people. I'm going to work, but I'm just going through the motions. I knew okay, I felt this back in. I think it was like 2014 or 13. So I knew to get myself into a good therapist.

Speaker 1:

So I wanted to share that with you, because sometimes you won't know what somebody's going through. So I want you to ask them, have the time to have the conversation, make sure you ask them a couple of different ways. Maybe them a couple of different ways, maybe even a couple of different times, because you want them to give you a real, genuine, authentic answer. And then, lastly, if this is you, if you're noticing, wait, hold on, jason, I feel like you're talking to me. Don't wait to seek out the care. Too many times we're waiting for the ideal situation. I want you to get the help now. I'll list some resources in the show notes and in the description, but I'll say them a couple now. You can look at psychologytodaycom, therapyforblackgirlscom, therapyforblackmenorg, safehavenorg, and find you a great therapist for yourself.

Speaker 1:

All right, y'all, we have wrapped up another dynamic episode and, as always, listen to another one, but I want you to, for real, for real, be blessed Peace. Thank you all for listening to another episode of the Peace and Prosperity podcast. Again, if you are feeling like, hey, I'm experiencing high functioning anxiety, don't beat yourself up about it. It is OK. We all experience anxiety from time to time and I gave you a couple of things that you can do on your own, but don't hesitate to reach out to a professional to better manage what you're going through. Okay, and lastly, make sure, if you have not like share, subscribe to the podcast and send this out to a friend. And if you want to hear certain episodes or have certain conversations, let me know. You can shoot me a DM or just leave a review and I will definitely follow up. All right, y'all be blessed, peace.