HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — Undiagnosed and untreated depression and mental illness take a toll on African American men.
Duane LaRue’s daily struggles dealing with childhood trauma led him to seek mental health services as an adult. He now aims to stop other black men from suffering in silence.
“My mother used drugs from a young age, and I was the eldest, so I had a lot of responsibility,” LaRue said. “She was leaving the house every few weeks and drug dealers were coming to her house.”
Raised in Chicago, LaRue spent her entire childhood surrounded by poverty and drug abuse, which she says affected her mental health but helped her detach from the suffering.
“I felt like my childhood was taken away from me. This is all because of the trauma I had growing up, the PTSD,” he said.
LaRue did not seek psychological support services until she was an adult. His struggle also shines a light on mental health issues among black men that often go unnoticed and unaddressed.
“LaRue comes from a genuine place,” explains Kenesha Fudge, a clinical chaplain at Helping No Decrepancy (HAND), a nonprofit organization that supports people receiving mental health services. “LaRue is dealing with the trauma and has actually been in counseling, but many of us are still scared.”
There is a sense of urgency to address childhood mental health concerns among Black men in the United States. According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, suicide among black children between the ages of 5 and 12 has increased 60 percent over 20 years.
“If I’m going through trauma and you’re going through trauma and we’re standing next to each other, I’m going to assume that because there’s nothing wrong with me, there’s nothing wrong with you.” ” said Tawheed Spence, Executive Director of HAND. Now we’re both in this traumatic situation and we can’t get out of it because we don’t think there’s a problem. ”
LaRue, who is now a crisis prevention specialist at Alabama A&M University, told News 19 that she is using her story to share the struggles of mental health with young people of color.
“It’s good to hear others going through what you’re going through, but the only way that can happen is if we show up and join each other” LaRue said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 50,000 people died by suicide last year. Regardless of race, men are four times more likely to commit suicide than women.
You can contact HAND through this website.
