(RNS and NPR) — Sabrina Ali grew up in a South Asian home in Canton, a multicultural suburb of Detroit, and said she learned from a young age that she couldn’t talk about her mental health struggles with her immigrant parents.
“It was like they just came from a totally different world … and for them it was like, ‘Well, what do you have to be depressed about? Like, you’re 13, you have a good home, you have a good family, like, you have food on the table,’” said Ali, now a stay-at-home mother and former teacher.
She said her parents meant well and suggested she pray more to resolve her internal struggles, “to be more religious, essentially, quote, unquote, whatever that meant to them.”
But in college, when she began struggling with recurring nightmares, Ali knew she needed outside help. She began attending therapy through the Counseling and Psychological Services or CAPS program, a free counseling program for full-time students. CAPS, which is offered on college campuses around the country, offered Ali a private entryway to seek counseling services without having to tell her parents.
“Maybe God is testing me, but even my decision, the path towards making the decision to seek professional help, I think, in a way, was al …