In South Asian communities, conversations about mental health have long been met with stigma, often shut down by some version of “What will people say?” It’s a sentiment uttered by many immigrant parents, aunties or uncles who think that admitting struggles is something shameful.
Indian American therapist and writer Sahaj Kohli, best known for her viral Instagram page “Brown Girl Therapy,” has made it her life’s work to challenge that notion. She launched the account in 2019 as a way of opening up conversations about mental health in the diaspora. And this week, she published her first book, “But What Will People Say?”, which aims to once again speak directly to immigrant families.
“When I was struggling with my mental health and I was living at home in my 20s, my parents actually said, ‘What will people say about this?’ They didn’t mean it to be hurtful, but they were genuinely concerned about how my own struggles reflected on them as parents,” Kohli told NBC News. “We’re just so concerned about what other people are gonna think or say about us, so we start to develop these performative behaviors and identities.”
Source: ‘Brown Girl Therapy’ founder tackles South Asian mental health stigma in new book