BlackDoctor.org: What’s your personal connection to a Black male mental health?
Dayna Lynn: My personal connection to Black male mental health is two-fold. Primarily, I am a Black mother raising a Black boy who, God willing, will eventually become a Black man. He’s 4 years old. Daily, I fight back against the brand of masculinity that says that boys don’t cry or express any feelings other than anger or aggression or sarcasm. I’m responsible for helping shape his capacity for emotional resilience in the face of life’s inevitable challenges, especially those challenges tailored just for Black men. And it starts this early, empowering him to honor his emotions, name his feelings, and develop relationships with other men that are safe spaces for vulnerability. I’m countering the toxic masculinity that feeds and disguises depression by making sure he witnesses empowered men living emotionally intelligent lives.
Secondarily, I am Black woman who is a lover of Black men. My survival, safety, and wellbeing is often predicated upon the ability of the Black men in my life to mentally and emotionally cope in healthy ways. When I was pregnant, and even after my son was born, I watched my son’s father cycle in and out of depressive episodes that manifested in him punching walls, self medicating with weed and alcohol, isolating himself, and being completely emotionally unavailable. It was devastating for me.
More recently, I have been having conversations with a Black man very close to me. We’ve been discussing the trauma and abuse he experienced as a child and the effects that it has had on his life and relationships as an adult. He has never gotten professional help even though those experiences have negatively affected his ability to cope as an adult.
BlackDoctor.org: What prompted you to start the dialogue on Twitter that night? It seems based on the retweets and stuff you were posting around that time, something was bubbling inside of you.
Dayna Lynn: This has always been a subject near and dear to my heart. But as I mentioned before, I had just been having conversations about mental health with a close friend. Just the mention of the word mental health, or depression or anxiety, sends many Black men into a tailspin. And so, to see Kid Cudi use those words and name his demons, it triggered what I knew deep down: Black men must give themselves permission to speak honestly about their emotional experiences with no fear of judgement. They possess the power to destroy the social contracts that bind them to limited and repressive modes of emotional expression.