Fighting mental health stigma, a pastor in Harlem shares his own struggles : Shots

If you or someone you love is experiencing a crisis, call, text or chat 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

It was his own mental health crisis that helped Michael A. Walrond, Jr. to understand and embrace mental health care. “Out of nowhere, I had a suicidal ideation,” Walrond recalls. He was in his late 30s at the time, already busy building a life and expanding his congregation at First Corinthian Baptist in Harlem, New York.

His Masters of Divinity degree hadn’t involved much training in clinical mental health care, and the subject was not a part of his family life growing up in New York City. “I grew up in a traditional West Indian Caribbean household,” he says. “It definitely wasn’t talked about.”

Suicidal ideation — thoughts of dying by suicide — can be a sign of serious mental illness, and Walrond had not realized at the time that he was dealing with depression and anxiety. Research shows clergy suffer from high rates of burnout and often struggle with thoughts of suicide and self-harm. After his own suicidal ideation, Walrond immediately pursued mental health care.

He now credits therapy with saving his life.

Walrond wondered how many others in his community were suffering in silence. “ I think in the African American community, historically, there’s been the normalization of trauma,” he says. “You don’t really see the mental health impact.”

Today, Walrond is battling stigma around mental health in his profession, his community and his congregation — and leading by example.

Bringing mental health care into the church

At first, Walrond hired one, part-time therapist to work at First Corinthian. He stands in the church — which he has built over 20 years into a congregation of thousands — and gestures at the small office where his first therapist worked, “she was in this office.” He hired her on a hunch that people would use her services, but he hadn’t anticipated just how much demand there would be. He recalls her telling him, “Pastor — a lot of people are coming.”

Walrond noticed something else — that people were often sheepishly making their way to the therapist’s office, embarrassed to admit their purpose. He decided he needed to expand to a place where people felt comfortable coming.

Today, the church runs a separate nonprofit, called H.O.P.E. Center, funded through grants and congregation donations. Lena Green, the executive director of the center, opens the door to the clinic, in a separate building around the corner from the church. “We currently have seven clinicians on staff: three doctors, one psychiatrist, three social workers, one psychologist,” explains Green, who has a doctorate in social work.

Green says they’ve made progress in the years since they’ve grown this mental health hub, but there is still widespread stigma in the community. In recent years, Black teens and adolescents especially have seen an increase in mental health crises, including suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. Approaching this subject can be difficult.

For a lot of families, there’s sort of what I like to call the conspiracy of silence,” says Green. “Like we know this thing happened, but we shouldn’t be talking about it publicly. But we know we need to get help.”

Green and Walrond say they saw a unique opportunity in folding clinical health services into church. It is already a place where people feel they can bring their mental suffering.

But they are still constantly battling stigma around the idea of pursuing mental health treatment. Walrond says he tries to disabuse people of the idea that asking God for help is the only way to pursue mental well-being. “You can trust God and go see a doctor to get medication for high blood pressure,” he says. “When it comes to mental health issues, all of a sudden there’s a problem with that.”

“ My generation, you know, my parents’ generation — if you are talking to a therapist, if you’re getting help, you are broken,” says Marchelle Green-Dorvil, a congregant at First Corinthian. Green-Dorvil’s son, Gabriel, participates in a youth group for teens at the church aimed at reducing suicide risk. She credits the group with helping their whole family through a difficult time. But she says some still assume that people who are pursuing treatment are weak. “There’s something wrong, right?”

And yet, she says, church has always been held as sacred ground for revealing vulnerabilities. The message from the previous generation, she says, is that “If there’s any sharing, it should be done only in a church setting.” The work at First Corinthian Baptist is to show people that therapeutic spaces are also safe.

Bringing suicide into the open

One of Walrond’s strategies is to talk openly about suicide and mental health, and to dare others to do the same. That includes his services. In a video from a service a few years ago, he says to the congregation, “ I’ve known of moments when there were people who went to church, left church and then experienced death by suicide.”

People are swaying and crying, holding each other. Walrond encourages congregation members to do something courageous — to stand up to come to the front of the sanctuary — if they could relate. “Those who are tired of life, and you’re at that point where you’re almost ready to give up today — I want you to come,” he says to them. “I want you to make your way today.”

Remarkably, people made their way to the front.

In preparing services like these, Walrond says he looks to scripture, among other places, for guidance. “You have several people in scripture who wanted to die because of the weight of the responsibility and the expectations. No different,” he explains. “Elijah — who was a prophet — he asked God to take his life.  It was Moses who asked God to kill him.”

He believes that there’s no difference between spiritual needs and physical needs, including mental health. “Part of the responsibility,” says Walrond “is to treat the needs of the people as holy.”

If you or someone you know may be considering suicide or is in crisis, call or text 9-8-8 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.