On Friday, October 8th I was one of three panelists speaking about our experiences with mental health treatment at the Italian American Mental Health Conference. It was hosted at the Calandra Institute-the Italian American studies and counseling arm of Queens College, the City University of New York. Our talk neatly occurred during Mental Illness Awareness Week held in the first week of October every year.
As well as presenting in the morning, I attended an enlightening session in the afternoon. I wanted to give you a take away from the event and wrap up with the talk I gave. I was the woman in the pink shirt.
One panelist spoke about how Italian men weren't supposed to express their feelings and he recounted the help he sought from a therapist after his wife divorced him.
I'm interested in this concept of ethnotherapy and would love to hear from you about how your ethnic identity played a part in your recovery or got in the way of your seeking help.
In the afternoon a therapist who had practiced in Italy talked about esaurimento nervoso: loosely translated as exhausted nerves. Mental illness carries such a great stigma in that country that therapists have a back door for patients to exit from so that the next patient coming in the front does not see you leave.
The diagnosis of esaurimento nervoso won't be found anywhere in the DSM or other diagnostic bibles yet it is routinely given to Italians to assuage their fear of being labeled crazy. In one way this catch-all term makes it easier for them to accept that they might need treatment; on the other hand it perpetuates the stigma because no one involved directly confronts the problem and speaks about it.
I fancy myself esaurita at times. I went to a psychic and without providing her any information she told me: "Sometimes your nerves are on edge."
It is telling to me that the stigma is universal: cuts across all cultures.
I told the audience that the number-one reason I recovered as fully as I have is that my mother drove me to the hospital within 24 hours of my breakdown. She knew something was wrong and didn't care how it looked so took immediate action.
Her one courageous act made all the difference in my life.
Once I returned home from the hospital she paid for me to see a therapist privately who was also Italian American. During the Q&A, I commented on how the therapist was Italian yet that was only a coincidence and my heritage wasn't talked about during our sessions.
My parents came to visit me every day in the hospital. My brother visited me once and my twin aunts showed up at visiting hour too. The first Christmas Eve after I got out was celebrated liked it was every year since I was a kid: owing to my maternal grandmother's Neapolitan roots we feasted on fish. Hence the tradition is called in Italian families The Night of the Seven Fishes. We are lucky we can afford the lobster that is the entrée.
Nobody in the room that night talked about my breakdown. I could only wonder what my mother told my cousins and the others when I did not attend my Grandpa's funeral because I was in the hospital. He was in a coma, hooked up to the respirator in the intensive care unit when I had my breakdown.
