Desi Mental Health Resource Guide
I want to acknowledge the pioneers of mental health in the New Jersey Desi community, including Subha Bolisetty and her team at SAMHAJ (South Asian Mental Health Awareness program under NAMI NJ); Aruna Rao, the founder of Desi Rainbow, who was instrumental in starting SAMHAJ and Dr. Vasudev Makhija who founded SAMHIN (South Asian Mental Health Initiative and Network).
In this guide, I share some essential information about mental health resources available to our community and how to access them. I address the below topics:
Desi mental health helpline and other resources
Support Groups
SAMHAJ offers free, virtual family and peer support groups on the first Thursday of the month from 7 to 8:30 p.m. They also offer phone support at (732) 940-0991 x 112 or you can email your name, phone number and the reason you are contacting SAMHAJ to samhaj@naminj.org or samhaj_support@naminj.org.
One big challenge SAMHAJ faces is that most people prefer 1:1 phone support rather than coming to group sessions, because of stigma and the fear of seeing someone they know. Phone support is provided by volunteers and caregivers. If you would like to support SAMHAJ, donate here and specify SAMHAJ so that your donation will go to SAMHAJ.
SAMHIN also offers virtual groups: Global Gratitude Group AA meetings, Janani Suicide Loss Support Group, Desi Divorced Women’s Support Group, and Mental Wellness Support Group for South Asians between 18 and 30.
Another resource to explore is NAMI Chai and Chat.
Mental Health Helpline & other resources
SAMHIN offers a HelpLine (732) 902-2561 between 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily where you will speak with a trained staff member or a mental health clinician. SAMHIN will help you get support, guidance, information and, if needed, a referral to a culturally-competent mental health clinician in your area. Calls to SAMHIN HelpLine are confidential.
You can also write to info@samhin.org (please include your phone number in the email). Please note that SAMHIN’s Helpline is not a crisis hotline.
For a mental health crisis, you can call Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 or the Caring Contact hotline at (908) 232-2880. (800) 273-TALK is also available 24/7 for immediate help.
SAMHIN also conducts free mental health screenings and in-person and virtual psychoeducation workshops, and you can learn more about their past events.
SAMHIN received the 2023 APA Foundation Award for Advancing Minority Mental Health. Here is the link to donate to SAMHIN.
I highly recommend the book But What Will People Say: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love and Family Between Cultures by Sahaj Kaur Kohli, MAEd, LGPC, Founder of Brown Girl Therapy and author of newsletter Culturally Enough.
Yellow Chair Collective has a wonderful AAPI Mental Health book club.
Here are some general NAMI NJ resources and principles of support. NAMI also has a YouTube channel with various webinars. McLean Hospital has an excellent library of mental health webinars you can watch on demand as well.
How do you find a therapist?
Psychology Today has a filter so you can find therapists and psychiatric providers who take your insurance. You can even sort by cultural background if you want a therapist of a similar cultural background. You can also check SAMHIN, southasiantherapists.org, We Rise Therapy, MannMukti, Yellow Chair Collective, Mango Tree Counseling and Consulting, Asians for Mental Health, Asian Mental Health Collective and Progressive Asian American Christian therapists
You can watch this AAPI New Jersey workshop on Finding a Mental Health Provider with Sweta Kansagra, LCSW, of Therapy Story in which “she discusses the challenges and benefits of accessing mental health care for the Asian American community. She shares knowledge about how to find and what to look for in a provider, the different kinds of therapy available, how to think through your goals for therapy, and practical concerns from session frequency and duration to insurance coverage.”
If you do not have health insurance, you could try Open Path Collective which hosts therapists who want to help people who cannot afford full price for therapy. You need to pay a one time membership fee of $65, but it allows you to connect with a therapist who will give you a discounted rate. Individual sessions cost $40-$70 per session, while couples/family therapy cost $40-$80 per session. Student interns may also be available in your area for a flat rate of $30 per session.
If it’s hard to carve out the time in your schedule, you could do telehealth sessions to save on driving time. I encourage you to give therapy a try and see how it goes.
I appreciate the saying "What is broken in a relationship needs to be healed in a relationship." It means a relationship serves an essential function in healing. If you did not get your childhood needs met, for example, reading a self help book or listening to a talk will likely not be sufficient to heal. Being in a healing relationship in which you feel seen, heard and valued is more likely to be healing than listening to a talk or reading a book.
Benefits of Neurodiversity
As a psychiatrist, I see that neurodiversity carries gifts. There is a reason why these genes persist in the population. Per Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison, individuals with bipolar disorder are often very creative, have higher verbal fluency (e.g., able to produce more synonyms more quickly) and are more likely to be poets than the average person. Individuals with ADHD can think big picture and out of the box more easily and also do well in high adrenaline situations (e.g., ER physicians/crisis responders). Individuals with anxiety are often more detail oriented and conscientious.
Domestic Violence
“Domestic Violence is a pattern of physical, emotional, verbal, and sexual abuse, which includes, but is not limited to, threats, intimidation, isolation, and/or financial control. Domestic Violence can continue over a long period of time and becomes more frequent and more severe over time.” NJ Office of the Attorney General
If you are experiencing domestic violence, you can reach out to Manavi 24/7 on their multilingual hotline 732-435-1414, and here are some other resources.
Jahajee Sisters is a gender justice organization that activates Indo-Caribbeans to put an end to intimate partner, family and sexual violence.
Steps to Becoming Fine: As Lived by My Mother by Raksha Vasudevan. This poignant piece shares the author’s mother’s journey to freeing herself from domestic violence.
“One of My Own” by Saumya Arya Haas. This wonderful piece shares what we do when a loved one is found to be abusing someone else.
LGBTQIA+ Support
If you are LGBTQIA+ or have a loved one who is LGBTQIA+, you can reach out to Desi Rainbow, who offers group and 1:1 support.
Coming out is a very sensitive, private and individual process. It takes time to come to terms with one’s identity for oneself, much less telling others in one’s community about one’s identity. Youth should be able to tell others about their sexual and gender identity on their own timeline, not anyone else’s.
I treat trans individuals, and most of them have had unsupportive family members and some of them have even become homeless after telling their families. Unfortunately, our culture needs a lot of education about LGBTQIA+ identities.
According to the Trevor Project’s report on The Mental Health and Well-Being of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) LGBTQ Youth, only 15% of Indian LGBTQ youth report access to affirming spaces in their homes. Only 10% of Indian LGBTQ youth report access to affirming spaces in their communities. This is a really vulnerable population. 39% of Indian LGBTQ youth seriously considered suicide in the past year and 20% of trans Indian LGBTQ youth attempted suicide in the past year. 50% of Indian LGBTQ youth self harmed in the past year. These behaviors are highly correlated to lack of acceptance from their family, friends and community.
If you need help navigating your or your loved one’s LGBTQIA+ identity, I highly encourage you to reach out to Desi Rainbow.
Here is a wonderful interview with Aruna Rao, the founder of Desi Rainbow.
Here is a touching interview with Sindhu Xirasagar of Desi Antiracism Group and Not In Our Town Princeton and Aries Liao of QWave and Asian Pride Project
As Asian Pride Project shares “Families go through a coming out process, too. You can hear stories of lesbian, gay, transgender and queer triumphs and struggles in our Asian and Pacific Islander (API) communities through the eyes of parents, elders and family.”
Alcohol and substance abuse
The high pressures of the model minority myth, colonization, colonialism, and migrational trauma have taken a toll on our community and some choose to self-medicate their psychological wounds. This has a negative impact on mental health, both for the one who abuses substances and for their loved ones.
You can attend free meetings virtually and/or in person at Alcoholics Anonymous AA or Narcotics Anonymous NA. As mentioned earlier, there is a Desi specific AA group: Global Gratitude Group AA meetings. Here are some other potential options: https://moderation.org, https://recoverydharma.org and https://smartrecovery.org
If you have a loved one who abuses substances, you can attend AlAnon or NarAnon. If you are a child of an alcoholic or of a dysfunctional family, you can attend free meetings at Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families ACA.
There are so many resources available these days. Many of my patients say these groups have enriched their health and social lives.
Many know that tobacco and obesity increase the risk of cancer, but most people don’t know that alcohol is the third most frequent preventable cause of cancer. Alcohol increases the risk of seven types of cancer, according to the US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, who has advised, “The more alcohol consumed, the greater the risk of cancer. For certain cancers, like breast, mouth, and throat cancers, evidence shows that this risk may start to increase around one or fewer drinks per day.”
Youth Mental Health
If your children would benefit from mental health support, I encourage you to send them to therapy. It is a wonderful resource for a child to have a trusted adult who is not their parents, with whom they can share their concerns.
Sometimes children want to protect their parents from their worries, prefer to process things on their own before sharing them with their parents, or are worried about being judged and/or their friends being judged by their parents. It’s helpful for them to have another trusted adult in these cases. TAAF recently released a AAPI Youth Mental Health Study. You can read the full report here.
Dr. Prerna Arora and Dr. Olivia Khoo did a qualitative study on Asian American youth to understand why, despite the high prevalence of mental health concerns, there are low levels of mental health service use. Some of the highlights from the study are “parental pressure to succeed was the most frequently endorsed stressor. Parents are important gatekeepers to Asian American youth’s access to mental health services. Themes relating to barriers to mental health service use included (a) parental reactions, (b) concerns with mental health treatment, (c) stigma against mental health services, (d) mental health literacy, and (e) pragmatic or logistical reasons.”
Here are some of the quotes from the Asian-American youth who participated in the study:
“My parents see me as an average girl and say I don't know why you want to see a counselor, you've done nothing wrong.”
“ Your parents may think you're hiding something from them that you're not willing to share with them.”
“I think mental health is less obvious than physical health and parents would think that you would be best if you just figure it out.”
Chanika Svetvilas, a Thai American artist and advocate, whose interdisciplinary practice focuses on the diversity of the lived experience of mental health difference, and the impact of the stigma and inequity of access to care did an incredible set of interviews of Asian American youth sharing about navigating the world with their mental health challenges.
At Asian Parenting, you can watch a great seminar on Academics and Mental Health that addresses AAPI youth mental health issues.
In addition to sending your children to therapy, it might be helpful to get therapy for yourselves so you can best support them. As Desi mental health advocate Pooja Mehta says “Having South Asian parents, I will tell you they can be some of the most kind, the most caring people in the entire world. And they will do anything for their children, and sometimes that means … that getting your child the help that they need is getting help for yourself, so that you can be a better parent [who] is doing the best for them.”
As parents, we are guaranteed to make mistakes. One of the most meaningful things you can do as a parent is learn to apologize. As a psychiatrist and as a parent, I see how reparative it is for a relationship to acknowledge harm, take responsibility for your actions, admit you made a mistake, acknowledge the adverse impact your actions may have had on others, apologize for having caused pain or damage, repair the damage and state your future intentions and your plan for corrective action.
Please don’t ruin the apology by making excuses or trying to cast blame. If you are able to give sincere apologies and take corrective action, you can build a loving and trusting relationship with your child.
In the transition from childhood to the young adult years, learning how to shift from being a manager to a consultant is very helpful.
Autism
Autism Parent Workshop Video Archive
Postpartum Depression
Please check out this wonderful pamphlet/artpiece on postpartum depression by Audrey Wu Clark, Pooja Makhijani, Sharline Chiang and Mimi Khúc.
Postpartum Depression: On Motherhood, Academia, and Mental Health (A Guest Post) by Mimi Khúc
Here's Why Postpartum Depression Is Even Harder When You're Not White by Pooja Makhijani
Intergenerational Trauma
I highly recommend Stephanie Foo’s book What My Bones Know to learn more about intergenerational trauma. If you process that intergenerational trauma, you help heal and reduce the impact of that intergenerational trauma for future generations.
Disability Awareness
Asian Americans with Disabilities Initiative (AADI) is a youth led nonprofit organization aiming to uplift Asian American voices. They published the Asian Americans with Disabilities Resource Guide.
I highly recommend this wonderful interview of BBC’s Johny Cassidy by Shruti Pushkarna:
"Disabled people are creative thinkers and natural problem solvers. We have to be. In a world that doesn’t work properly for us we’ve had to learn to adapt. That’s the value we bring."
"Not being disabled is a temporary thing. As we get older, all of us will inherit some sort of condition or impairment that limits how we interact with the world. If designers understand this then we’ll all have systems that work for us."
"I’m also really passionate about coincidental representation. If we had experts in news stories who were disabled talking about non-disabled things that’s a great way to “normalise” disability. An expert in immigration law who’s a wheelchair user or a climate change scientist using sign language all help to break down the stereotypes that disabled people can’t do certain things. Lots of scripted dramas are already doing this. We need to see it adopted more though in general news stories. There’s no doubt we’re making great progress in reshaping the narrative around disability. If we keep going like this then one day disability will simply be considered as part of the human condition and not something to be inspirational or pitied."
I also highly recommend this excellent book Dear Elia: Letters from the Asian American Abyss by Mimi Khúc.
Grief
Here are some grief poems and resources that I appreciate:
Talking to Grief by Denise Levertov
Grief over the loss of a father “Shifting the Sun” by Diana Der-Hovanessian
For the Sake of One We Love and Are Losing by Phyllis Cole-Dai
Why Grief Is A Series of Contractions and Expansions by Joanne Cacciatore
Grief over a suicide A Letter to My Sister by Lisa Park
Signs of death when someone is terminally ill by Lydia Hales
Grief over the loss of a pet Even Knowing How It Will End, We Choose This Love by Saumya Arya Haas
Here is a compassionate dialogue between a son and his mother, who is considering suicide due to her psychological pain from a divorce
Here are some support groups that might be helpful
Janani Suicide Loss Support Group
Decolonizing Mental Health
I am also fascinated by community approaches to healing and wanted to share a few resources. I love community resources because you are with your therapist and psychiatrist only an hour or less at a time, but you are with your community for a potentially much greater period of time. Cultivating healthy communities can have a huge impact on our collective mental health.
I was really moved by this incredible conference, "Decolonize Mental Health for AAPI Youth & Families Symposium." Dr. Sahnah Lim of NYU School of Medicine spoke about “colonialism’s impact on mental health: creating intergenerational trauma, the rejection of our ancestral healing practices and wisdom, which generates and perpetuates a lot of shame and stigma, and then the Eurocentric approaches to a current understanding and treatment of mental health that continues to be upheld by systemic privilege centered on individualism and divorced from family and community.”
I feel that the conference Steering Committee achieved their stated goals “ to create a space to grieve what we have lost, to revitalize ourselves, celebrate resilience and explore new ways of wellness and and humility and for our youth, in particular, provide the connections, mentorship and community they need during a time when so many are struggling.”
Open in Emergency: A Special Issue on Asian American Mental Health is an arts and humanities intervention to decolonize mental health, a community effort, led by Mimi Khúc, to collectively ask what Asian American unwellness looks like and how to tend to that unwellness. The Asian American Literary Review (AALR), a Washington, DC-based arts nonprofit, provided a space for artists, scholars, organizers, and community to explore structures of care that we have already been building—and to dream into being new structures, new tools, to better care for our collective needs. This special issue is a dynamic mix of writing, visual art, and interactive mini-projects, including: an original deck of Asian American tarot cards, a “hacked” mock DSM: Asian American Edition, a “treated” pamphlet on postpartum depression, a foldout testimonial tapestry-poster, and handwritten daughter-to-mother letters. Everything is available free and open access here.
I also recommend this NAMI NJ seminar: Lived Experience of Racial Trauma in the AANHPI Community and What is Radical Healing and the sessions on Asian Parenting.
There are a lot of Desi cultural resources that are helpful for mental health. I recommend yoga and meditation to my patients, particularly those with anxiety. I love kirtan and find it helpful and soothing.
Self Care
I appreciate this quote from Dr. Devika Bhushan, “Real self care involves the hard work of setting boundaries, cultivating our muscles of self-compassion, and getting clear on the values that determine how we want to live — not just on our goals themselves. This allows ‘our insides to match our outsides.’”
Setting Boundaries
I mentioned how boundaries differ in Desi families in my previous column. Desi culture is more communal vs. individualistic and that can make it more difficult to have boundaries with one’s family members. Desis are very concerned with family honor and use shame, guilt, ostracization and silence as powerful tools to enforce compliance, particularly for women.
As Dr. Aries Liao said, “Women are taught to give all the good away and that suffering is honorable. A woman’s value is the service she provides. Women are faced with the enormous responsibilities of maintaining their figure, avoiding academic and career failures, keeping up with expectations, and maintaining performance of upholding her cultural self and her duties towards her family and cultural tribe. Many women do not learn to love themselves beyond fulfilling filial duties and make a blanket sacrifice of selfhood.”
I remember reading my cousin’s Indian schoolbook and there was a story about a mother’s birthday. To celebrate the mother’s birthday, the kids decided to have a picnic. The mother packed and prepared all the kids’ favorite foods and when it was time to go, when they packed up the car, there wasn’t room for everyone. The mother chose to stay behind because her joy was her family’s joy. I remember being shocked and angry that this is a message that young kids were reading — that this is what it means to be a good mother.
Are you happy with the boundaries you have? Do you wish they were different? If so, how?
Self Compassion
“Suffering in silence is an axiom of model minority citizenship.” David L. Eng
I encourage you to take advantage of the resources available and stop suffering in silence. You are not alone. I encourage you to be kind to yourself and, when you are suffering, do the most loving and kind thing you can for yourself. If you are open to therapy, I really encourage you to give it a try.
I am a big fan of Tara Brach. She is a psychologist and meditation teacher. I listen to her when I go for walks so I am simultaneously getting exercise and a psychological and spiritual massage. She often shares entertaining stories in her talks. Here is an adapted version.
There was a man at a grocery store and he saw a grandma with her grandchild. The grandchild was throwing a tantrum and the grandma would say very calmly and soothingly, "It's ok, Kala. Don't worry. Everything is ok. We'll be home soon." He saw them at the checkout line and again the child was flailing around and loudly misbehaving and the grandma said, "We're almost there, Kala. Everything is ok. We'll be in the car soon." He came up to her at the parking lot and said, "You are a really amazing grandmother. I am so impressed by your patience and kindness. Your grandchild is so lucky to have a grandmother like you." The grandma answered, "I'm Kala. This little terror is Latha."
I am often surprised by the lack of self-compassion in many of my Desi patients. I believe that all people have inherent value and so do many of the patients I see, but despite believing that, they somehow feel that their personal value hinges on their achievements, the quality of their work products and others’ opinions of them. Many are encouraged to hide their vulnerability for fear of not being good enough, which makes them feel like frauds and inadequate since they need to put on a front in order to be accepted. Have you heard of impostor syndrome? I like the saying, “You shouldn’t compare your insides to other people’s outsides. It’s not a fair comparison,” and, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”
Our culture makes many of us feel unworthy. Being human is acceptable and valuable. Our limitations help us have compassion and understanding for others. Accepting your vulnerability will allow you to manifest even more of your strengths. I recommend that you watch this TED talk by Brene Brown and read her book The Gifts of Imperfection. Here are some great self compassion exercises from Dr. Kristin Neff.
As Carol Tracy, a wise, retired NJ therapist, said, “By sharing our own struggles, by being open to our own humanity and vulnerability, we can connect with the pain and conflicts of others, in ways that let them know we do understand and they are not alone. And in the end, I do believe that what unites us is the deep wish to be known and understood by another. I tell my clients that when they are (hopefully) 90 years old and on their deathbed, they are not going to be thinking about that ‘B’ they got in college, or how much they weighed when they were 23 or any of the other things we criticize ourselves about, but rather, who and how did I love, and did I let them know.”
Values
Are you living according to your values? What are your values? Helen Zia said, “Racism begins with the idea that some people are less human than others.” One of my values is to see and embrace others’ full humanity regardless of our differences of race, religion, caste, social class, gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.
In Pooja Mehta’s interview with Dr. Bhushan, Pooja reveals she is a suicide loss survivor. I am touched by what she does in her brother’s memory. Pooja shares “After Raj died… every year on his birthday since I can't celebrate with him, I choose to do a day of good in his name and in his memory. Last year, I formally invited people to join in and… people that told me how good it made them feel to put that good energy into the world to be a little bit more intentional about being kind… and more connected to someone through an act of kindness.… I truly believe that that can be the start of a much bigger network of understanding kindness that we can all use to make a better world in the future.”
Dr. Kani Ilangovan is a child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist, mother, writer and activist. She is a board member of The E Pluribus Unum Project and works for pluralistic curriculum advocacy.
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