Understanding the impacts of colonialism and ongoing violence against Native communities-which impacts stigma for speaking out, access to culturally relevant services and more-is essential when discussing contemporary mental health. It is a story of how Mailhot’s mental illness disrupted her relationships a reckoning with childhood trauma and abuse and an introspective and purposeful push back against the notion of being unmanageable and “too much.” American Indians face higher rates of mental illness than white Americans, and PTSD in particular is strikingly high in American Indian communities. Terese Mailhot’s debut memoir, Heart Berries, is a book for women who are learning to navigate anger. “Focused with precision it can become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change.” She argued that only by naming and writing our emotions into being can we truly challenge white supremacist and capitalist norms. “Every woman has a well-stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against those oppressions, personal and institutional, which brought that anger into being,” she wrote. In “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism,” scholar and poet Audre Lorde observed the suppression of emotion, particularly anger, as an act of white supremacy. Women of color are often considered to be too much. “I don’t think I can forgive myself for my compassion.” - Terese Marie Mailhot, Heart Berries
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