A service user from Bedfordshire CAMHS, Sharmin, has written about her experiences for World Mental Health Day.
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Mental health wasn’t something we talked about in my family. Growing up as both Asian and European, there was always a strong sense of community and forced resilience. But not much room for emotional vulnerability. The focus was survival, hard work, and keeping things going. Emotions, especially sadness or fear, were brushed aside. Mental illness wasn’t just misunderstood. It was seen as weakness, or worse, seen as a choice.
I started experiencing mental health issues early on, but I didn’t have the words for them. I didn’t know what depression or anxiety was until I was 12. I had already been quietly battling with them for years by then. It was at CAMHS that I first heard these words used. Finally, a way to describe what I’d been feeling all along.
But the stigma remained. My family didn’t see mental health struggles as real. My parents' generation had grown up believing that talking about feelings was indulgent, or attention-seeking. To them, “mental health” meant “craziness.” And my autism? That didn’t “disappear,” so it felt to them like the mental health services were failing me.
I was told I was “soft” for having emotions. The boys in my family were told never to cry. The only emotion accepted was anger. Everything else? Suppressed. Invalidated. When I was bullied in school, my pain was brushed off. And when I became suicidal at 12, I didn’t know where to turn.
Medication was strongly discouraged. It was seen as something shameful, something that could end up on the system and affect my future. The idea of being on record for needing help was terrifying for my family. There was fear it could damage our reputation or standing. When I was in an inpatient ward, I was even told I must have been “cursed.” The cultural stigma ran that deep.
Looking back, I now understand that I was never the problem. Ignorance and silence and lack of awareness and education were. If we had been able to talk about neurodivergence and mental health growing up, I genuinely believe my autism wouldn’t have gone undiagnosed for so long.
Reasonable adjustments could have helped. I wouldn’t have felt so alien in my own mind. My parents are now able to have conversations with me about mental health. It’s not always easy..sometimes we take steps backward. But sometimes, there’s progress. That matters.
Another challenge is representation. I rarely saw clinicians from similar cultural backgrounds. That lack of diversity made me feel alienated. Culture and identity shape how we experience mental health, and if professionals don’t understand that or aren’t willing to learn it can make people like me feel invisible. I once told a clinician, “I don’t feel comfortable in my skin colour,” and she brushed it off. Not because she was cruel, but because she didn’t know how to respond. That moment stuck with me. That kind of silence hurts.
Things changed when I found a safe space through a past project by Discovery College and CAMHS. For the first time, I was in a room with people who understood. We talked openly about generational differences, language barriers, and cultural expectations. I felt seen.for both my mental health and my cultural identity. It was healing.
I met a clinician who was my north star before I transitioned out of CAMHS. She made me feel safe. She helped me understand myself better. She helped me believe I could belong to myself and to the world. Now, I use my story to support others in my community. I advocate. I listen. I continue to learn. And I’ve learned that I know myself better than I ever have before.
A message to someone like me
If you’re struggling with your mental health and come from a similar background: please start the conversation, even if no one else has. Tell your clinician, your support worker, or someone you trust that your cultural identity matters in how you experience mental health. Ask for space to talk about it. You might be connected to a community or a space you never knew existed but desperately needed.
I still struggle sometimes. But now I feel more comfortable in who I am. Identity will always play a role in my mental health, and I’m learning to honour that.
I also want to say this: if you’re from an ethnic background and you’re considering working in healthcare or mental health please do it. I’m rooting for you. You could be the person someone like me needed years ago. You could change everything. Take up space. Make those changes. We need you.
