Rapper Megan Thee Stallion recently launched a new website that focuses on providing her audience with mental health resources.
Named after a line from her 2022 single “Anxiety,” the website, “Bad Bitches Have Bad Days Too,” features a comprehensive list of potential therapy and mental health platforms that are available for use. The sites listed include the “National Crisis Text Line,” the “Center for Interactive Mental Health Solutions,” the “National Alliance on Mental Illness” and the “Suicide & Crisis Lifeline” amongst others.
On the new website, special focus is particularly put on providing members of marginalized communities with mental health resources. Divided into sections titled “Resource Directories” and the “LGBTQIA+ Community Helpline,” links to sites, such as “Melanin and Mental Health,” “Black Mental Wellness” and the “Dear Black Women Project,” are offered to members of the Black and Latino communities.
Support for the LGBTIA+ community also includes multiple links to hotlines and text lines as well as links for members of the LBTQIA+ community to find psychotherapists of color to speak to.
Last year, the rapper opened up about her own mental health and going to get therapy following her mother’s death in an episode of Taraji P. Hewson’s Peace of Mind with Taraji Facebook series. In the show, Megan Thee Stallion spoke in length about stereotypes surrounding mental health that often prevent members of the Black community from receiving therapeutic help.
“As a Black person, when you think of therapy, you think, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m weak.’ You think of medication, and you just think the worst,” she said in the episode. “That’s kind of what you see on TV too. Therapy wasn’t even presented in the media as something that was good. Now it’s becoming safe to say, ‘All right now, it’s a little too much going on, somebody help me.’”
While many communities in the U.S. struggle with their mental health, Black adults specifically have recorded particularly high rates with longer-lasting effects. According to a report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Black adults in the U.S. experience higher rates of sadness and sentiments of feeling as if everything is an effort. Compared to the 2.6% of white participants that participated in the 2021 CDC survey, 4.2% of Black adults reported feeling something akin to depression.
As for increased effort needed to do everyday activities, Black adults reported feeling this way at a rate that’s almost double that of the rate reported by white adults, comprising 11% of the percentage of the population sharing this sentiment.
Despite these higher rates, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reports that only one in three Black Americans go to get therapeutic help.
