The Silence Around Mental Health in Immigrant Households

Growing up, I never heard the words “mental health” used seriously. If someone was sad, they were told to pray. If someone was angry, they were told to be grateful. It was as if no one had the language to talk about what was actually going on, and even if they did, they didn’t use it. 

I still remember the first time I saw someone cry in public, and I remember how intently I’d stared. Not out of judgment, but out of curiosity. In my world, pain was something ornamental, hidden in folds of politeness, tucked beneath gold-threaded rituals and the sharp scent of turmeric. In my world, heavy emotions do not speak – they simmered. 

There’s a silence in immigrant communities; a heavy, ancestral hush. Not the peaceful kind, but rather the kind that smothers, the kind that painfully curls under the tongue like a word you’re not allowed to say. In most immigrant households, mental health is treated as a Western invention. It is framed as a weakness, or drama, or the kind of problem only people with “too much time” have. 

We do not talk about anxiety unless it’s about school; we don’t talk about depression unless it’s framed as laziness, and we definitely do not talk about trauma unless it’s someone else’s and happened decades ago. 

I found it strange, the way that silence became normal. We learn to hold things in not because we are strong, but because we are never given another option, and that silence gets passed down. The generation before us didn’t talk about it, so we don’t either. The language to describe what we’re going through simply does not exist in the spaces that we are raised in. 

While the silence may eradicate uncomfortable conversations, it doesn’t erase the underlying root causes. Arguably, one of the most prominent impacts of this generational silence is the feeling of isolation it evokes. It makes it incredibly easy to think that something is wrong with you, that you’re broken and that everyone else is handling life fine while you’re falling apart. That’s exactly why it’s so important to break it. 

Below are pieces I’ve pulled from everywhere – notes app entries, old documents, half-finished thoughts typed at midnight – reformatted to sound coherent. Together, they became a kind of lifeline for me. Maybe it’ll mean something to you, too. 

• Start naming things, even just to yourself. “I feel off,” “I feel numb.” Naming things gives them shape, and once something has a distinct shape, it becomes less scary. 

• Open up to someone. Not necessarily a therapist right away; even a friend. Your notes app. Silence thrives in isolation, so it’s best to undo it however you can. 

• Don’t romanticize healing because it's not necessarily a poetic process. It’s slow, it’s repetitive. Some days feel like nothing’s changed. But over time, you learn to carry it differently. 

• Write things down, even if the words don't necessarily make sense. Sometimes the act of putting pen to paper will make the heaviness move a little. 

• Pay attention to the things that soften you. Always search for escapes from performative rigidness; maybe it’s music that makes you cry, or perhaps standing in the sunlight for a few minutes. The point is to make a mental shelf of the things that soothe you. 

• Feelings aren’t facts, but they are very real. Remind yourself that just because a thought is loud doesn’t mean it’s true, but also remind yourself that just because it may not be true doesn’t mean it’s not valid. Nothing is black and white, and that’s okay. 

Perhaps the biggest thing: you’re allowed to be both grateful for your culture and critical of the ways it hurts you. Honoring culture and unlearning its harms can exist side by side; both can be true. 

Thank you so much for reading <3