Carlita Victoria- Making Mental Health Care More Equitable for the BIPOC Community.mp3 – powered by Happy Scribe

Ruthless Compassion is a podcast about people who have turned their emotional shit into fertilizer for success. It’s about seeing our darkest moments and opportunities for growth and transformation. Carlita Victoria is a Raleigh, North Carolina, native based in New York City. She attended the University of North Carolina at Greensborough, receiving a BFA in dance performance and choreography and K to twelve dance education. Carlita is the founder and executive director of Darkness Rising Project, a nonprofit organization. She was inspired by her personal experiences with anxiety, depression and PTSD to create culturally competent mental health resources for the black community.

Carlita is a mentor, activist and mental health advocate and offers presentations on community specific resources, how to find a therapist and more. She is also a licensed Issa personal fitness trainer and nutritionist.

Welcome Carlito Victoria to the Ruthless Compassion podcast.

Well, thank you so much for having me I’m very excited to talk with you.

Well, I’m very excited to talk to you because you seem to have your finger in a lot of different spots, and I’m very curious to know how everything evolves so that you’re doing all the different things that you’re doing. So, I guess first we should start with you introducing yourself as a listener and that listeners and telling them a little bit about yourself.

Sure. I’m Carlito Victoria and I am an actor. I’m a mental health advocate. I am a personal trainer and fitness instructor, a daughter, a sister, human. What I primarily focus my life on is trying to uplift the black community with direct mental health resources that are culturally competent. And I do that through my black mental health non-profit, which is called Darkness Rising, and Darkness Rising was created so that I could pursue that in a way that helps my community and also helps me as well along the journey.

Something just came to mind today, and I don’t know if you’ve been following this, but I just wanted to run this by you because it really struck me. So recently, some big time celebrity has been going on about how they don’t bathe their children very frequently and how they don’t fade themselves very frequently. And, of course, the one thing they have in common is that they’re all white people, right?. And then just I think yesterday I read something by a black cultural commentator who said that there’s privilege in that because they can talk about not want to bathe their kids too much or being themselves too much because they have white privilege about that.

So, again, it always comes back to that difference between having privilege and not having privilege and the things that you can even say in public without even worrying about how people are going to perceive it.

Absolutely. I completely agree. I feel like the way that we are perceived and the way that we would be perceived if we came forward with that type of information would be very different immediately. There would be all kinds of racist commentary about how we’re dirty, as you know, that’s been one of the stereotypes about black people for hundreds of years and so we would not so easily be able to say, oh you know i just do not shower, you know I just don’t bathe when I don’t want to without there being some sort of push-back about it and name calling.

So, there certainly is a privilege in that and even if it were true for us, that’s something that I think in our community, we would not be so vocal about. A big part of that not being vocal about it is that we have been taught, that we have to be clean or a peer clean in the white gaze. And a lot of that is due to the fact that we would receive all kinds of racist comments, which in turn would in back our mental health.

For sure, for sure. Well, we’re off to a ripping start. So, I wanted to kind of maybe backtrack a little bit because, I mean, we can go on and on about this kind of stuff, but I want to backtrack a little bit and talk to you about how you started doing all the things that you are doing. So, you talk about being an actor, I know you are a singer as well. You are a mental health advocate, your are a personal trainer and fitness coach, and you have this incredible non-profit organization Darkness Rising. How did all of these things kind of come about which came first? How did you evolve?

That’s a great question. So I definitely started off with dancing, and I’ve been dancing since I was a child, and I knew that I wanted to pursue dancing as an adult. And so I went to UNCG for dance, performance and choreography as well as a teaching license. After I left college, I went on tour and did a lot of performing. And then in that journey, after moving to New York, I started doing musical theater and performing internationally and nationally on tours and regionally. And I found during that journey that it was really the pressures of the industry.

We’re really starting to impact my mental health in ways that I did not see coming. And I think that a lot of times when we’re in school, we prepare for auditions and we prepare for performances, but we don’t prepare for the impact that the industry can have in our mental health. What it can mean to be told no over and over and over again and to still want to pursue this thing and or to be thriving and feel very successful or appear to be very successful in it, but to feel such a pressure that you can’t enjoy it at all.

And those are some of things that were really impacting my mental health to the point that I had to take a year off, from performing, because I found myself auditioning and I was stalling in the room, as in I sometimes when I would go to seeing nothing would come out, sometimes I would look at the lyrics and still not be able to remember them. Panic attacks in the audition room, and I would have panic attacks before the audition, and I would have panic attacks after the audition.

And I became so depressed that the thing that I loved became the thing that was starting to torture me and I just had to take some time off. But before it even came to that point, I was performing a show and I was having a great time with the cast and the show. But I was really struggling in my personal life emotionally, and I come to the point where I was starting to have these suicidal ideations while I was in the show. I would go to the show and then I would go home. And then I would say, well, I don’t want to be here anymore. So, I’m going to…

When were you at this time?

This was, I think it was 2018, maybe. Or no, sorry. This was 2017. So, I was really struggling and I didn’t tell anyone, I didn’t tell my cast, I didn’t tell any friends, any family. But I did come to a point where I decided that I wanted to reach out for help and that I did decide to live. But the issue became that when I started to reach out for help, I was turned away at every corner.

So, I would tell, I would try to reach out to a therapist or psychiatrist, and I would say, hey, I’m experiencing suicidal ideations and I really need help. And they would say, you are a liability, I cannot help you. It was awful. I was turned away over and over and over again for months at a time. And honestly, I’m surprised that I lived through that. I mean, after being turned away that many times, you just start to give up. But, I did find that one of the things that really helped me during that time is that one of my cast mates had a dog and I would hang out with the dog and it really lifted to my spirits.

And I thought, you know, I should get one. Maybe that would help. I find that it makes me go out of the house, it helps me out of bed, and it really brings me some joy. So, in addition to me wanting to start therapy, I decided, well, as soon as I leave the show, I’m going to also get a dog. So, I finally found a therapist who would see me and started therapy, started anxiety and depression medication. And I got an emotional support animal. And that really just brought me to a place where I could start to see some light again.

There were still definitely and there is still a very long road ahead for me. But, having an emotional support animal, just kind of lifted me to a place where I can start to see the light again. And then during that journey, I realized, well, if I’m struggling like this and I couldn’t find any help, I’m sure someone else is doing the same thing and someone else is suffering in silence and someone else is unable to receive support. And I decided I wanted to do something about it. So, that is why I started Darkness Rising Project non-profit, because I didn’t want anybody else to suffer and not be able to receive assistance.

And I realized as I started to become more public about my particular journey, but I would get a lot of DMs and a lot of emails and just text messages from friends, family members saying, like, hey, thank you so much for sharing. I’m also going through something similar, but I don’t have anybody to talk to about it or like you know it doesn’t really feel like our community ever talks about this. So, I started to see that a lot of these messages of support and reaching out that I was getting there were coming from people from the black community that wanted to reach out but, we’re also scared to. And we talked about so many of those reasons why and I thought, well, if I’m going to start something to help somebody, I’m going to start with my community. I also learned in that journey that one of the things that really helped me was moving my body. So, I became a certified personal trainer and a group fitness instructor, and I kept dancing. And that is another one of things that has helped me a lot. It is certainly not a band aid, you know, it’s not going to fix depression. But, what it does do is it lifts my spirit sometimes long enough to get to the next day or just get to the next thing.

And I think that’s been one of the biggest gifts that I’ve been given is just the gift of being able to move. That’s how those things came to be all mixed together, I guess.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You know It’s interesting, you’re talking about how a lot of people were struggling, but they weren’t seeking help. And lately I’ve been talking to people a lot about obstacles to receiving appropriate mental health care. And I actually just put up a video about shame and embarrassment and how people think that they need to figure it out on their own and are thinking about if you’re from a group that’s already stigmatized, right! If you’re already in a group that is looked down upon, is seen as lesser or not good enough, then imagine the additive effect of having a mental health condition and feeling that much more stigmatized, that much more not good enough. So, it would make sense that if you already have all these layers of societal shame burdening you, that you’re not going to want to acknowledge your own mental health issues.

Absolutely. There’s so much such a stigma of shame behind it and it already takes so much for a person who has mental health challenges, even to just say to themselves, hey, I want to receive help. That is already such a big lift. And then to, you know, reach out for help, that’s a bigger list. And then to be denied services and to have all of these barriers to access it. It just makes it almost so difficult that a lot of people just don’t pursue it at all.

I have done a lot of psychotherapy and group therapy over the years, and I had a very interesting experience a couple of years ago in my psychotherapy group. One of the women who is white was saying that she was going to be away for a couple of weeks because she had a hysterectomy planned because she had Fibroids. And one of the other women in the group who’s black said, oh, how long did it take you to get the surgery booked? And my white patient said, oh, I went to the doctor and then they booked it with knowing three months time.

And my black patient started laughing. But it was not a happy laugh. It was kind of a macabre laugh. And she said, she spent seven years with horrendous, Fibroids, pain, swelling, sorts of incontinence. You name it, all the symptoms before she could get the same operation that the white patient gone in three months. And I have, you know, just a terrible, terrible feeling in the pit of my chest when I recount the story, because, you know, it’s not funny at all. I mean, she was laughing because it was so absurd, really, but really tragic and unconscionable.

But I’m sure from your experiences, that the same applies to mental health care that you’re just a second-class citizen if you’re not a white, middle-class person, right?

Absolutely. And that, you know, the example you just gave of medical racism, that is absolutely what happens as well in the mental health field, we’re turned away so often. I’ve heard so many stories of black people going in to see a doctor and knowing that they’re having a panic attack for being told is not a panic attack. And then there being no follow-up care, no check-ins. It’s been truly difficult to receive the type of care that I need as a black person. And one of the things that I found, especially with one of the resources that we offer, which is to help me find a therapist program that we do with Depressed While Black, another black mental health non-profit.

One of the resources that we offer to help me find a therapist program is to search for black therapist for people in the black community. And one of the most astounding things that I have seen is how difficult it can be to even find a black therapist in certain parts of the country. And so we get requests from all over the country from black people who are looking for a black therapist, it can take us hours, days to dig and dig and dig to find a black therapist that matches insurance or you know, all of these different things that need to be matched up in order for this person to receive therapy.

Meanwhile, if I were to go to that exact same search for that exact same insurance for those exact same requirements. But just for someone who is white, I have a ton of choices. The options are endless. So, there’s just so many barriers to being able to find and receive the type of care we need.

So, it’s that much more important that you have this nonprofit Darkness Rising, because this is probably something that has helped innumerable people in incredibly powerful way.

I am so grateful for it. Honestly, it helped a lot of people, but it also helped me, with that program alone, we have served over 200 people, and we’re still receiving more and more requests, especially due to COVID, our community is in so much need. Because, there’s such a disparity in the type of care again, that we have received during COVID. We’re at significant risk compared to other communities.

Yeah, that was very clear from the beginning of COVID, that people of color were disproportionately becoming more ill from COVID than other groups.

Exactly, and then to watch our community, to watch us just dying from disinformation or misinformation or you know just us not being able to receive the medical care that we need. It’s been difficult to watch that happen to our community, and it does impact your mental health.

Yeah i mean, COVID has been a time of incredible mental health stress for people who who are privileged. So, for example, who are on the opposite end of the spectrum. I’m sure it’s not been very fun at all.

Not at all.

Not all, yeah. So, when you do all this stuff that you do, how do you balance? How do you find balance in your own life? Because you’re dancing, you’re doing training, you’re presumably doing some performing, you’re doing this advocacy work. How do you balance all that stuff for yourself in your life so you don’t get over extended and burnt out?

That’s a great question. I certainly have had periods of burnout, as I’m sure we all have. But, what would be considered a bit of a workaholic, and it’s something that I am always trying to work on to try to balance my life, to try to be a person for myself as well as a person who can help other people. I found often that I work hard to help other people, and I don’t do enough self-care. And that’s something that I’m really working on. But, as far as how I balance my daily life, I really try to choose days like, hey, on this day, this day and this day, I’m going to focus on grants and emails and work for Darkness Rising on this day.

And this day, I’m going to do just my auditions on this day and this day, these are my days where I do my training. And sometimes, those days are combined, unfortunately. But, I do try to give myself some boundaries. And I also have a really great support system of people who remind me that I need to sit down somewhere.

Put your feet up.

And you know people who check in and say, hey, have you done any self-care today? Have you walked away from the computer today? Did you go outside and take a walk today? Have you cared for yourself at all, or are you just working?

Yeah, it can be easy when you love your work to get too wrapped up in it, right?

Oh, absolutely. Because I’m like, oh, just one more, one more thing. Let me just do this one more thing. I’m just so close to being done with this one thing. I just need to finish this grant application. There’s always another thing that needs to be done in our lives, of course, and then especially when you run a very small non-profit that we’re working to grow by trying to share our resources because our resources are free, and so we’re trying to share them with our community as much as possible in the process of us trying to grow and to share this information, a lot of work is required.

For sure. You’re building something from the ground up, it’s a big investment of energy initially.

Absolutely.

When did you start it?

I started Darkness Rising as a project in 2017, and we incorporated into 2018, we started off as honestly, because I love music, because I love singing, and because music has been so healing for me. Initially, we were just going to go into the studio and record one song, and it was just going to be one song that I chose that was really helpful for me in my mental health journey. And I had gathered some of my friends, some of my amazing Broadway singer friends, and they were going to just sing the song for me.

And then along that journey, I decided I wanted to sing more songs, and we ended up recording a a full album, of songs that have helped me through some of the worst nights of my life. Then after that, we decided, well, we spent all this time recording this album, we might as well do a mental health concert. So, we did. We did a mental health concert, and we gave the proceeds to a company called “Black Health” that helps the black community as far as health and also mental health.

And then from there, I decided that I wanted to really dig in and partner with some black mental health professionals, to create direct resources that could help us. So, we started doing that, we started partnering with other non-profits, other therapists, to create as many resources as we could and to keep them free. That’s when we incorporated in 2018, it’s only up from there more and more resources and trying to keep everything free.

Fanstastic. That’s really important. We need this kind of movement everywhere.

Yeah. Honestly, being able to watch people just receive help has helped me. It’s the thing that keeps me going even when I’m at my lowest, because for me, it’s not like I wake up one day and suddenly I’m not depressed anymore. Like, I live with depression every day. I live with anxiety every day. I live with PTSD every day that doesn’t ever go away from me. But, what does help along this healing journey is being able to help other people and know that, hey, at least I’m not in this by myself.

Like, we’re fighting, we’re in this together.

So much of trauma is about feeling out of control and un-empowered, and so when you’re able to be effective and have agency and be able to do positive things, I think it is very healing because you feel empowered, you feel mastery, you feel like you have a voice, and that I think that’s very different than the experience of trauma.

Definitely. Absolutely, just feeling like you’re not alone, feeling like your voice matters. All of those things, I feel like they have significantly given me this power to just be able to continue, you know?

Absolutely. So, I’m going to ask an ignorant question, so please forgive me if I know I’m asking you an ignorant question, but I think it’s an important question. Are there differences in the way that black people might be experiencing mental health issues as opposed to the way that white people might be experiencing that? Like, are there different kinds of issues that are maybe more prevalent for different sort of the types of experiences that are more significant?

Yes. I don’t think that’s an ignorant question at all. I think that’s a very real question. Absolutely, and I’m going to talk a little bit more about them in a second. But, one of the reasons why it’s so important that we have culturally competent resources and culturally competent therapist is for that very reason, because things affect us differently. Our mental health is impacted very differently than, than it is for a white person or a non black person of color. You know, for example, every day that I go to work, not right now I’m working from home, but anytime that I’m walking into work, I am walking into a situation where I’m more than likely I’m going to be faced with microaggressions.

More than likely, someone is going to ask me, is that my real hair or someone is going to talk to me with a black scent. Someone is going to say something that’s offensive that they will laugh off. That will be very hurtful to me. And I’m not even speaking necessarily about my job. But I just mean, over the course of my life as a black person, that’s what I’m almost always walking into. And that could be at a nine to five job or that could be at rehearsal or a show.

It doesn’t matter where I go, what I do. I’m always in a situation where that’s probably going to happen, or someone is going to say, oh, you know, during summertime or I’m almost as dark as you, something will be so hurtful and offensive, and they won’t realize it or care. And they’ll go on about their day, but it will impact my mental health, especially as it continues day by day by day by day, year after year. And in order to keep your job or in order to appear to be happy and not to be called the angry black woman.

We swallow it, we don’t say anything, and then we go on about our day. But it’s something that never goes away. So, to be faced with those constant microaggressions, and sometimes it’s not even a microaggression. It’s just full blown out in your face racism. And to not be able to say anything for fear of losing your job, those are things that sit with us, those are things that don’t go away.

I want to unpack the comment of, oh, look, I’m almost as dark as you because I think for some of the listeners, they might not understand why that’s such an offensive statement. So, I’m going to leave you to explain it, okay? Because, I watched your video on Intersectionality, and you’re a really good explainer. So, I think it bears the unpacking. What is so awful about that statement that people are making without realizing that they’re saying something awful?

Yes. So this is one of those things where when a white or non black person of color says I’m almost as dark as you, what you’re saying is that you feel, you know, you seem to be happy or excited about being almost as dark as me. But you do not live the life that I live, and you’re not faced with the racism that I’m faced with on a daily basis. So, while you may be enjoying the fact that you have a tan, you’ll never be faced with someone who looks at your skin color and is immediately terrified of you, or who looks at your skin color and views you as a threat in a way that means that you could be killed because of your skin color.

That never will never happen to a white person who just has a tan, something that directly affects black people because our skin is viewed as a threat. And so that is honestly is the same thing as as a white person or a non-black person of color, co-opting our culture in other ways. And one thing to love our culture, but to not love us as people. So, co-opting our hair or co-opting our clothing or the way that we speak, and you know you co-opt the way that we speak.

But no one’s ever going to stop you, and you won’t be killed because of the way you speak because of the way you look, because you’re perceived as a threat. But, that’s something that we have to be faced with every day. We have to wonder, am I going to make it home safe tonight, or is someone going to think that I’m a threat because I’m black? And we have to teach our children that we have to teach our children how to be safe in a world that perceives their skin color as a threat?

Yeah, sorry. I’m just extremely overcome with emotion. You really are an excellent explainer, because I’m just feeling like, oh, my God. Agony and yeah, thank you, because I think that was really important to put it out there like why, not just to say it it’s offensive, but to actually explain why it’s so offensive, and I think you did it really brilliantly, because people just, you know if we say don’t do that, it’s offensive, they’ll shrug their shoulders and they won’t get it. So, sometimes, we got to really break it down and go, okay. This is why, guys, this is why you can’t say those kinds of things just like that and think they’re okay.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, getting back to what we’re talking about, so we’re talking at, you know, the differences, you know, the experience of mental health issues when you are black versus non-black. And you taught me about these microaggressions right, and living in a society that you do as a threat that secure you any minute, that you know will deprive you of your privileges and your right and your opportunities for completely arbitrary reason. I can imagine that that will have quite an enormous impact if you already are susceptible to mental health issues.

Again, we are talking about layers, right? Just yet another layer on top of the existing issue.

Exactly, absolutely.

It piles on to you and next thing you know, you’re like, I had no idea that I was even feeling the weight of of all of these things, until you’re in therapy, and suddenly it’s all coming out. And you’re like, I had no idea that I was dealing with the weight of all this, but some of us don’t ever make it to therapy for so many reasons, especially because of the barriers. So, we never get to unpack all that. So, we just walk around with this huge weight on us all the time.

And it’s just being compounded with more and and more and more every day. And we watch on the media as we watch people in our community, people who look like us, who maybe for some of the same crimes as a white person, receive a much longer sentence as a white person who did the same thing or something very similar. And so it has been very difficult to even turn on the news sometimes, to watch black people be defamed for all these for various reasons, to watch case after case after case in the United States, where we feel like black people are being told we just don’t matter that our lives are just not important.

That becomes, and then to have to wake up the next day, go to work with the majority of white people, who, it seems like are very unaware that anything has just happened in the world that impacted us so heavily. And they’re like, hey, How’s it going? It’s not going well. Did you watch the news or that’s just really, very difficult. I’ve had to call out of work sometimes for mental health days because I just could not be in meetings and watch people dying around me just because they’re black. It’s has been a lot, it’s been very difficult.

For sure, that can be that can’t be overstated. I remember a friend of mine, she was telling me that she accompanied a cousin of hers to the plastic surgeon. The cousin was thinking of getting something done and a little tweaking. And they went through this classic surgeon that had been highly recommended in the surgeon handed them a book. And, you know, he was saying, like, okay, here’s all my before and after, so you can look at, like, what, you know, you might look like once you get the work done.

So they open the book and they’re both black women and they were going to the photos and every single person in the photo was white, of course. And so the cousin shut the book and not just my friend and that we’re going and on the way out, they handed the book to the doctor and they said, you know, if I’m not included in this book, if nobody looks like me, then I don’t want to be like, you know, paying for your services. I’m going to find a doctor who you know includes me in their practice.

Absolutely!

And the doctor was just like, like, you know, their eyes were all big and they had no clue their white privilege was so unconscious. They had no clue that they were excluding this whole large percentage of the population simply by not having any people of color whatsoever in their brochure.

Absolutely, there is just such a lack of representation and so many things. And I feel like slowly over time, we’re coming to a place where we’re seeing more and more representation. Even in makeup, we still have a lot of companies that do not have our shades or have, like, a couple of shades for black people. But, you know, black people come in a lot of different shades. And so just not being able to see yourself represented, it’s really hurtful. And we see it in the media.

We see it in different companies, and then to go to the doctor’s office and to not see yourself yet again, it is absolutely outrageous to me. And one of the other things that is so interesting is that when a lot of the times the work that’s being done, a lot of white women are receiving black features in the surgeries that they’re receiving. So, they’re asking for very plump lips. Whereas, you know, years ago, if someone had very, very plump lips, we were called a “Mammy”. And it’s very interesting to me that now our black features, people are wanting to have our black features, big butts very, very curvy.

And it’s really interesting to me because if you had the skin, if you had our skin, plus those features, would you want to be black, or do you just want our features?

It’s like you want everything about being black, the music, the culture, the food, the language, the features. You just don’t want the black skin.

Exactly!

It is really crazy how it is kind of like this fetishism out of racism, right. Like racism, turns into fetishes.

Absolutely!

So, all these things are fetishized about the black culture. Well, at the same time, black people are continuing to be reviled and killed.

Exactly, and I’m like, you can’t have every part of us. You can’t no, we’re out here fighting for our lives. So, no you cannot have every part of us. I feel like one of the one of the more recent things that have happened that I found so interesting was there was this TikTok break. I guess I shouldn’t call it a break. A lot of the creators on TikTok, especially the dancers and the choreographers, are black. And so with a lot of the songs that come out, the black choreographers and creators, they were choreographed of the song, and then everyone will follow suit, learn the choreography and post it.

Well, a lot of times what was happening is that there would be these white creators that were getting credit for the black creators work. And if you were to search a certain dance on TikTok, the first account that will come up will be a white person’s account instead of the black person’s account who actually created it. And with this constant action happening over and over again, a lot of black creators came together and they said, we’re just not going to do it for a while, we’re going to stop.

And we’re going to see what happens and see if white creators create on their own instead of copying our work. And I feel like that is just yet another example of us feeling like they want every part of us, except for it, to actually be black. And we so rarely get credit for the work that we do, and that impacts mental health. Their TikTok creators, they get partnerships from TikTok. That’s what they do for a living. That is their job. So, then to not be able to get those partnerships because a white creator is getting the partnerships and a white creators getting credit, that can really have an impact on you.

So, disenfranchise, lack of representation, you know, being seen as less than and being constantly under threat of death. Yeah, I can imagine how that might have a little bit of an impact on ones that all health, perhaps.

Absolutely!

Being really sarcastic.

I know.

When you’re a white person with so much privilege, you don’t even think of these things, like it’s just that’s how much privilege you have. It’s like you don’t even recognize that this whole world of pain exists right next to you because you’re just walking around in your blissful state of ignorance, right?

Everything is fine. You know, until you actually listen to somebody who sets you straight.

Exactly, exactly. And sometimes it goes well, and sometimes it doesn’t go well. But, you know, all we can do is try.

And that’s why it’s important to have people like you on the podcast here, so that your voice can be heard and you can tell the truth about what’s really going on and how it’s just systemic racism and all the things attendant to it aren’t just bad in all those ways that they’re bad, but they’re also bad in terms of mental health for people.

Absolutely, and I think that sometimes what we forget is that it’s not just oh, that’s racism. It’s like, hey, yes. That’s racism that’s impacting someone’s mental health on a daily basis. And there are so many people that say, oh, it’s not always all about race. Oh, it usually actually is, and it impacts us on a daily basis and has been for hundreds and hundreds of years. And we are expected to just be strong to just be able to handle it. And it’s not a one and done thing. It’s not that easy.

And then when you go to get mental health services, you’re turned away, which is like insult to injury.

Exactly, and we need culturally competent, direct care, and we need access to that care.

Absolutely. Well, there has to be more, you know, more programs that welcome people of color, black people into the program, some action to increase the rates of admission of black people so that there is more availability in the community.

Exactly, and there has to be a way it has to be created in a space where black people feel safe enough to be there.

Right with you there, I’m going to ask you another funny question. Okay? So you talked earlier about going to auditions and having to face rejection after rejection after rejection. In your journey, have you learned anything about how to confront rejection in a way that doesn’t tear you into pieces?

Another great question I can say is that I have been able to find a way to walk into audition rooms and learn how to enjoy the ride. I feel like every rejection is still a rejection, so it still hurts. There’s not been a time, I think, where I really wanted something and I didn’t get it. And then I said, oh, well, this doesn’t hurt. It definitely hurts, every single time. But what I have been able to do for myself is not even for myself, but I’ve been able to work with my therapist on being able to use the tools that we’re working on in therapy to not react in the same way that I used to.

And I don’t always win at it. I don’t always succeed every time. But, I do feel like over time I am developing these tools. I’m sharpening these tools, and I’m using them more and more and more before the audition, during the audition, and after the audition, no matter what happens so that I can keep going and not give up. Being an artist is difficult. There’s no two ways around it, it’s hard. It is especially hard when you are in a field where you have to walk into a room and there are adjudicators.

What I have been focusing on is that I’m walking into the room to share, and I’m not walking into the room for someone else to tell me yes or no. So, I’m walking into the room to share my art, to share the thing that I love so much, to share my song, to share, my dancing, to share my acting that day, I’m going in the room to share, and that’s it. No matter if I book the show, if I don’t book the show, I’m going to leave, and I’m going to be proud of myself because I went in with the full intention of sharing, and that has helped me a lot.

I think that in in getting so many no’s, the pain is always still there, especially the closer you get. I’ve been so close to some of the biggest things in my life, some things that could have changed my entire life, and I’ve not gotten them, and it is very difficult every single time, but I allow myself to feel it. I let myself grieve it. I let myself grieve the show that I didn’t get grieve that booking that I did not get, I give myself time to grieve it, because if I don’t, and if I just say, well, onto the next one, then, and that pain will come up again at that next audition, and I don’t want that, I have to give myself time to grieve.

I like that a lot, yeah. I think that you’ve got a good approach to that.

So it is always hard, but I keep going.

No, but I like the grieving, because you’re right. If you agree that you can finally work your way through it, if you don’t grieve at it is tested, and it comes out elsewhere. So, yeah.

So, what’s your next sort of thing on the horizon? Like what’s coming up for you?Project wise?

Well, with Darkness Rising, we just had our biggest event of the year. We just had our Broadway block party, and that was a really, really great time where we had a big part of the black Broadway community there to perform inspirational songs. And we also had our guest speakers, which were black mental health providers. We passed out resources, and we got real about mental health. So, that was our biggest event of the year, and we are currently recuperating from that. But, monthly on Wednesdays. Once a month we have have our “Wellness Wednesday” workshop series and those events are always free, and they are currently still virtual.

They can be found on our website at Darkness Rising Project.Org and also on our Instagram at “Darkness Rising Project”. So, we will continue to do those every Wednesday. And then our next big thing will be in the fall. One of the big things that we are doing is we are the Broadway company of Company called “Company on Broadway”. They are producing a benefit concert on our behalf on September 20, and we’ll be performing there with the Broadway cast of Company. And in addition to that this fall, we will be working with the Harriet Tubman Effect and Edify on some of our music and mental health videos.

We have a music and mental health video series where we perform songs about mental health. They’re not always hopeful or inspirational songs. Sometimes there’s just songs about what it’s like to be going through it. And we perform those. And we also have choreography that is within those videos. And so we’re going to be working with Edify and then inherits have an effect to create to produce more of those videos. So, that’s our next big launch.

You’re not that busy is what you’re telling me.

This is supposed to be our downtime, but it’s really kind of not.

What did you say? A workaholic? A little bit. A little bit.

Well, wow.

It’s been like super, super fun. And edifying talking with you today for sure. I always like to wrap up with a call to action, and I’m sure you definitely peppered our conversation with many of them. But is there one specific thing you want to leave the listeners with before we go?

My call to action to anyone just listening would be to say no when you need to say no and say yes when it’s time to say yes. So, make sure those boundaries are very clear. Trust yourself, trust your gut. You know when it’s time to say no. Don’t ever apologize for saying no, don’t ever apologize for calling out of work for a mental health day. Don’t ever apologize for not being on camera during Zoom. Do what you have to do. Take care of yourself, say no when you need to, and say yes when you need to, and make your boundaries your boundaries.

Nice, I like that. Well, Carlita Victoria, it’s really been a pleasure talking with you today and lots of food for thought for the listener. And just remind us of where they can find you before we go.

Sure. Darkness Rising Project can be found at Darkness Rising Project.org and on Instagram and Facebook at Darkness Rising Project, on Twitter at Dark Rise Project and I am at Carlita Victoria.Com and my instant is it’s Carlita V.

Wonderful? Well, all the best. Carly Victoria, it’s been really great possible with you today.

Thank you so much. It’s been great to talk to you too. This is fun.

That was the fabulous Carlita Victoria, and I’m Dr Marcia Sirota. If you like this podcast, please review it wherever you listen.

And you can sign up for my free biweekly wellness newsletter at Marcia Sirota MD.Com, where you’ll learn about my new online courses and my YouTube video series.