Being the First in My Latinx Family to Heal Wasn’t Easy But Worth It

It took till my 30s for me to realize there’s no shame in therapy. Growing up in a Puerto Rican family, we kept our emotions close to our chest. Joys you could freely celebrate; especially if they had to do with getting married, having kids, or furthering your education. But heartache, sorrows, and aches within your very soul that marred the way that you look at the world or how you felt about yourself, those were kept hidden. Encouraged to be hidden, in fact. That’s what it was like to grow up as the eldest daughter of five girls in a Latinx family.

As the eldest daughter, there were the natural pressures of setting an example. I couldn’t mess up. I couldn’t fumble. I was expected to follow in the footsteps of the women that came before me by graduating high school, possibly going to college, but eventually marrying and having children that could continue our line. Problem is, I wasn’t given a guidebook. I was told that these were the expectations of me and that I would find my way because I was a woman. And this is what women do. We marry, have children, and take care of our grandchildren. No deviation, no rebellion, no questions. And mental health problems were seen as a weakness that could deviate from the pressure of this grand plan. 

If I’m being honest, I’ve always known that I needed help when it came to my mental health. I couldn’t handle the never-ending pressure of setting an example for my younger siblings or following in my mother’s footsteps. I felt myself choke up and freeze when people would question me about what I was going to do in college, when I already knew that the endgame for my life was marriage and kids. And there was even more pressure added when the traditional concept of marriage for my family was to a man and my eyes wandered to women as well. This led me to feel like the world was constantly washing over me and drowning me to the point where I couldn’t see the light anymore or feel anything. But because you weren’t supposed to talk about these things, because they made you and your family look weak, I held on. In the dark. In the deep. And I said nothing until I cracked. 

There is no one singular moment that I decided to go and get therapy. It was small little wins over the years. Confiding in a friend that school was a little bit overwhelming, talking with my school counselor when I was having difficulties at home, and eventually reaching a point where I would walk past a therapist’s office on purpose everyday on my way to work, hoping that one day I would have the courage to go in. Because yes, I thought my path was set in front of me and that I knew who I was supposed to be. But if what my family told me was true, if I was the one to set an example for my younger siblings, what if they were feeling the same way I was? What if they were drowning in unfamiliar pain or sorrow they couldn’t name? Would I tell them that it was weak and they should bury it? No, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.

So I went to therapy.

Therapy isn’t a quick fix-it-all. But it gave me direction, was an outlet, and gave me the tools to understand what the fire in my mind was and what I can do to keep myself afloat and not just drown in the darkness alone. And with every little bit of progress that I made in therapy, every bit of generational trauma that I carved out, explored, and decided wasn’t for me, my family noticed. And they pulled rank the moment my siblings let it slip that I was going to therapy. I was told it was foolish to share with others the problems we had at home and, that my therapist was an “idiot” because if I had any problems I could talk to her about them. Little did she know, she was part of the problem.

I wish I could say that going to therapy had a happy ending and that it healed the bonds of my family and led to a stronger union. It didn’t. Therapy made me realize I had to let go and that I couldn’t save anyone else if they weren’t willing to try or if they were willing to drown me to keep what they believed in alive. I especially couldn’t help them when my mother and family realized I wasn’t backing down and cut me off from everything; family gatherings, day to day communications, and even just watching my sisters like I had done for years. And it left me on the outside looking into a world, community, and family that I used to be tied down to. But like the saying says, nevertheless she persisted. And I did. I pushed myself, cried through it, was angry through it, and almost destroyed myself all over again by the time I ended up settling somewhere new. 

Then the most curious thing happened. As I was settling into my new life, as I was working on living with the little monsters that live in my brain and the anxieties that I hold close everyday and give comfort to, my siblings admitted that they had gone to therapy. Furthermore, my mother had gone with them. There are no words to properly express the shock and sorrow at knowing that it took me being pushed out, for them to see that there’s nothing wrong with getting help when you need it. That it’s not weakness but strength. Even now, I struggle to write these words down because I think of the “what if” of it all. What if they had gone to therapy with me? What if I was still there? What if we still talked even after I left? But most importantly, what if I never got help for myself in the first place?

The answer is simple in the grand scheme of things. If I never got therapy, I would be fulfilling the life’s prophecy my mother and her mother laid out in front of me. I would be married with kids, every little step of my life planned. But I would be miserable and continue the cycle of joys being celebrated as long as we kept our heartache and sorrows hidden. And I think it’s about time we break those generational curses and start something new to make it so the next girls, teens, and women in our line know they don’t have to live with the expectations or restrictions of what came before. They can do better. And if I have to sacrifice a little bit of myself to set them up for a better future, then it was all worth it, and I would do it all again.