17 Feb Cassandra James Weathersby, Champion for Mental Wellness

Cassandra James Weathersby, Champion for Mental Wellness

I suffered in silence for so many years due to stigma and cultural biases within my communities regarding mental health care and treatment.

I was faithful in my church, yet there was no help. I was dying on the inside, barely getting through each day. After almost losing it, I went to counseling and found peer support. God blessed me to use both to start healing and turn my life around.

Along the way, so many other black and brown women I talked to shared how they felt the overwhelming weight of stigma regarding getting mental health help. Local support groups were dominated by individuals that did not look like us. Self-care was not an option and the trauma continued as we passed the toxicity down to our children. My birth mother, Elizabeth Miller, for example, lived a hard, painful, traumatic life that led to only an unmarked pauper’s grave. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a space to heal. Instead, she had punitive consequences that cost her, her children and eventually, her life.

Our community needed a safer space to put down the ‘strong black woman cape,’ break the cycles of toxicity and support each other in our healing. God blessed me in 2019 with the inspiration to create Black Women DO Heal. Through this organization, I facilitate meaningful conversations to promote healing from mental illness and trauma and bring together other ‘survivors turned thrivers’ to encourage one another and break the barrier of silence that has kept so many of us trapped.

About Cassandra: Founder and President of Black Women DO Heal, Cassandra has more than 30 years of lived experience in mental health, more than four years of experience as a Recovery Coach Professional, Certified Peer Support Specialist, and Certified WRAP Facilitator. She is currently pursuing her degree in Social Science. She is also editor-in-chief at Melanated Queen Magazine.

Cassandra currently resides in New Orleans, LA and is the Mother of three grown rugrats and GiGi of one granddaughter and one new grandson.