The Pasupu is back after a short, needed break! We are excited to share new projects with our followers! Meet The Pasupu's 2nd Therapist: Mrudula Josyula. Mrudula focuses on immigrant therapy.
Introduce yourself!
My name is Mrudula! I am an immigrant myself, and I moved to the US about 10-11 years ago. I graduated my masters about 1 month ago, so I’ve been practicing for about 1.5 years. But, I’ve been doing a lot of “unofficial practice,” such as running groups. Now I’m going back to school to get my PhD! I focus a lot on immigrant populations, and trying to work with people having identity crises. Currently, I’m working with two organizations, and they are catered more towards victims of racism and POCs. I’ve been doing a lot of solution focused therapy, and I am really interested and passionate about using psychoanalysis in my therapy.
What inspired you to become a therapist?
To be honest, I was really undecided when it came to my undergrad. I changed my major 4 times, and truly didn’t know what I wanted to do in my life. I lost one of close friends to suicide; she moved from India to the US to do her Masters Program. He was going through a lot, but there was a lot of taboo about mental health, and he didn’t talk to anyone or even know where to get help. I think this event opened my eyes, as well as depression and identity crisis that I have faced in my life. I went to the University of Cincinnati, and we have a huge population of international students. I realized that the mindset towards mental health in the immigrant community needs to change. I was passionate about the topic, and I had the opportunity to learn about it, so here I am!
Why do you believe that so many South Asian parents are in denial that mental health conditions exist? (anxiety, depression etc.)
There is not a lot of awareness of such things back home. Back home, parents want their kids to be perfect. They want their kids to be high achievers, get 100% on exams, and have the first rank in their class. I think it's very difficult to accept that there is something wrong with their child, and second to accept that it is mental health. It’s because that never really existed back where we are from.
Back home, we aren’t allowed to even feel anything.
One of the examples I have is my mom. She had anxiety and panic disorder since I was 4 or 5 years old, but no one in the family knew about it. No family member ever accepted that there was anything wrong with her. Maybe it was the fear of judgement, which is huge in our society. We tend to care a lot about what others think about us. We don’t care about what we want, and how we want to live. When I became a counselor, people back home would say that I failed to become a doctor, which is why I studied to become a counselor. I don’t think awareness is prevalent, there is always judgement, and we simply care too much about what others think.
Do you think South Asian Parents feel like they can ask for help in regards to mental health issues without feeling judged?
No. I don’t think so. I also think that thanks to COVID-19, people have realized that social isolation is a thing. People are realizing that depression is a thing. It’s always reaching out to adults, which has been a barrier that has stopped parents from admitting that it’s okay for them to ask for help. I feel like another taboo that coexists is physical affection.
A lot of South Asian parents don’t hug or kiss their kids, or even say I love you.
I believe that these pre-existing conditions prevent parents from accepting their problems, but I’m hoping that someday they will come to terms.
How can we get our parents to be more open to a conversation about mental health rather than them just saying we’re being “over dramatic?”
I think before we even get to mental health, I think parents should be able to have a conversation with their kids about anything and everything. They should try to find that common ground between both of them. Obviously the parents have to initiate these conversations because it’s awkward to go up to your parents and talk about things like dating or sex. Even worse, it’s more difficult to talk about your own issues or problems you face with your parents. Once the parents and child have a good relationship where they can talk about anything, the topic of mental health is much easier to bring up. When I was going through depression, I could never go up and tell my parents how I was feeling because in their eyes, I was a failure.
Being completely open, honest, and telling the kids that it’s okay to not be perfect are the ways parents can start having conversations about mental health.
From your experience, do you believe that there are readily available mental health resources in South Asian countries?
No, I don’t think so. And I say this because firstly, there are no counselors back home, there are just psychologists back home. Most of them are usually doctors and they’re psychiatrists, not even psychologists. I think that having counselors and having specific designation to have therapists is something that we are still in the making of. I don’t think it’s completely done. It’s probably much more normalized in the north than in the south because a lot of actors are trying to set up organizations to promote the importance of mental health. It’s ridiculously expensive to get counseling because it’s considered “a cool thing”. I was watching something yesterday and it said, “Each session is 5,000 rupees($80).” That’s ridiculous, nobody’s going to pay for that. How are we going to make it more accessible and affordable? That’ll happen only if we have more counselors. Also unfortunately in India, there’s a lot of reliance on medication. They say “Just take this and you’ll be good.”
I think we need to normalize that getting therapy is okay and being a therapist is even more okay.
I do think people are being more accepting of the counselor profession. For example, I have a lot of friends back home who say “Oh you’re doing counseling, that's so cool!” Whereas before when I told them they would say “What is that? What do you do with that?” Thanks to COVID, people have been reaching out to me to take care of their mental health and have been more open to the idea of it all. Another thing I should mention is , after 12th grade in India there are several entrance exams to get into medicine and people try it once or twice and if they fail that’s when they choose fields like psychology or physical therapy. I don’t think people just choose it out of the gate. There are a lot less people who go into these fields with a passion in India.
How often do you see South Asians develop mental health disorders due to immigration?
I think it’s pretty common but it’s just not diagnosed. I think everybody has it but it’s also something that isn’t talked about. I was never officially diagnosed with depression but now that I’m learning about it, I’m like “Oh I was depressed back then.” But I just never knew it was happening to me. For the immigrant population or people like me who stayed in other countries for half of their life and moved to the U.S. for half of their life, this turns into a crisis. And for people like you guys(Gen Z) who live here and were brought up here but your parents came here with a different country and culture, you face your own set of challenges. Trying to find that balance between the double life like, “Should I be this person at home or should I be this person at school,” can be very difficult. There is a lot of conflict there and it’s confusing for a 12 or 13 year old. For example, my parents don’t want me to wear shorts but everyone at school is wearing shorts. Should I wear them? Should I not wear them? Should I lie to my parents? There’s so much conflict about every single decision you’re making. As young adults you’re trying to figure out what you’re trying to be and on top of all of that there is this immigration stuff. I hope people go get the help they need or send their kids to get help. But right now I think it’s pretty common but I don’t think it’s getting diagnosed.
Where does identity crisis in immigrants stem from and does the lack of awareness about mental health disorders contribute to it?
When I’m thinking about where identity crisis comes from I think it’s just natural that it comes to us. I would be surprised if it did not come to us. We’re coming from two different complicated yet strong cultures. India is a strong country with a strong culture and ethnic background and so is the U.S. I think that’s why it’s so difficult and that’s why identity crisis happens. We’re fighting between these two cultures and nobody is telling us to be who we want to be, because everybody wants us to fit in in some way or another. If you don't fit in in school, you’re gonna get bullied and face discrimination or racism. If you're that way at school, you’re not allowed to be that way at home because people will say, “Oh you’re losing your culture. You’re losing your values and you can’t do that.” So for a child as young as 10 years old, their parents want to send them to Telugu classes, classical dance and Carnatic music because they want them to learn about their culture. Then at school they want you to learn Spanish and choir and all of this stuff. Just imagine what’s going on in that kid’s head with all this pressure to be perfect.
Trying to fight these cultures is where the identity crisis comes from, because the child forgets who he is and what he wants.
He’s constantly trying to please the parents, the school and society. Lack of awareness is obviously a big deal too because parents are not aware that this is happening and they have to parent their kids in a completely different way than what their parents did.
How can South Asian kids help their parents & immigrant relatives cope and find the appropriate resources to properly take care of their mental health?
My future goal with my PhD is an immigrant counselor term. I want to create immigrant counselors in this country. It’s not just for Indians. A lot of other cultures need an immigrant counselor and I’m hoping that this is something we can normalize. It should be as easy as going to an immigrant lawyer for help. “I’m going to a lawyer because I have some questions and I need some help.” It should be just as normal, “I’m going to a counselor because I have some questions and I need some help.” I think right now kids and parents have to work on it together. I don’t think either of them would do without each other.
Something that I learned was that I was not honest with my parents nor with myself. I was very afraid of what they would think or if they would judge me. But I failed to realize that they would still be my parents and they would still love me no matter what. My sister was able to realize that and she was blunt and honest with them all the time. That made them realize that she’s not afraid to have these conversations. It took me a couple of years to tell my parents that I’m dating somebody but for my sister it’ll hardly take her five minutes because she doesn’t think she’s doing something wrong. She doesn't feel guilty or anxious about her feelings. I think once we own up to our feelings it’ll make it easier to have a conversation with our parents. It’ll help them realize that our mental health concerns are coming from honesty and not being overdramatic.
What are important resources that you believe our followers and their parents/relatives should have access to?
I think southasiantherapists.org is an amazing resource. I also think for parents, doing some reading on immigrants’ children and their lifestyles is beneficial. There are a lot of articles that talk about depression and anxiety specifically in the immigrant population. Again, I feel like open conversation is the main thing here. I also feel like I can’t pinpoint a specific resource because unfortunately we don’t have that yet. But figuring out what works best for your family is what will work at the end of the day. Trying to normalize mental health issues as easily as possible I think is a place to start. I hope in the future I can hand you a packet of information full of resources specific to immigrant mental health.
We would once again like to thank Mrudula for giving our audience insight on this topic and ways to combat the stigmas of mental health! See you next week!