CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A therapist, lawmaker and advocate are coming together to push for more mental health services in minority communities.
Barjohn Amos tries to walk outside a few days a week. She loves the sounds of nature and how it makes her feel.
“I spent a lot of time in my head and in my own mind,” Amos said. “Coming out in nature gives me a chance to just breathe and really get tuned in with the sounds of nature.”
Spending time in nature also helps ease her symptoms of bipolar disorder, which is a mental condition that causes shifts in mood and energy and can lead to manic depression. Amos says she started noticing symptoms when she was 14.
“I would be tearful and stand in my closet in the morning,” Amos said. “I couldn’t find anything to wear, yet I had a lot of clothes. There were times I didn't want to brush my hair or brush my teeth.”
Amos says that as a child there wasn’t a lot of understanding in her community surrounding diagnosis and treatment of mental health issues.
“I took time to talk to my mom, brother, counselors and teachers, but no one took the pain I was feeling very seriously,” Amos said.
In 2018, her bipolar disorder caused suicidal thoughts.
“Sometimes when you have suicidal thoughts or attempts, it is not necessarily that you want to die, but you want the pain to end,” Amos said. “You want those thoughts in your head to go away.”
But the support of another person saved her life. Amos said she was planning on taking pills to try to commit suicide. But she decided to reach out to someone before she did.
“I prayed to God and said, ‘If it is meant for me to live another day, please send someone to help me.’” Amos said. “Within a matter of two minutes my phone rang and the person on the other line said, ‘Hey, I was just calling to check on you.’ That was the greatest feeling I ever had in my entire life.”
Justin Perry is a licensed clinical social worker who helped Amos during this dark period. He had his own struggle with depression when he was a teenager.
“Some people didn’t realize how much I was struggling,” Perry said. “And because of how resilient I was in the past, I didn’t realize how much I was struggling.”
He says during his youth emotions were not something often discussed in his family.
“The idea of counseling and therapy was not something that we did in the Black community,” Perry said. “We prayed about it and you worked through it.”
He finally received help through therapy, and it’s what inspired him to pursue it as a career. He believes a lot more people in the Black or minority communities could benefit from mental health services.
“My hope is to increase awareness, increase access and to normalize healing from mental health challenges,” Perry said.
Perry is raising money through sales of T-shirts to help people pay for therapy and counseling services.
Amos recently started a nonprofit called Solid She. It’s a place where people can meet and become educated about mental health. She wants people to realize it’s OK to be vulnerable and become educated.
“We all need someone to talk to and a listening ear,” Amos said. “We all need a place where we can talk openingly about what we are dealing with.”
Rep. Terry Brown, whose district includes southwest Mecklenburg County, has proposed a few bills to provide funding for mental health services in minority communities. To find out more, watch the video above or click here.