Merit in struggles — Women’s Center members speak on the stigma of mental health and gender roles

Vandals joined together in the Idaho Commons Wednesday for the Mental Health and Gender Talk, which addressed the struggles of mental health and the standard of stereotypes.

Speakers Beatrice Santiago and Angel Davila shared their background on the challenges of dealing with depression and gender roles.

“I suffer from anxiety,” Santiago said. “It’s a very personal issue I want to talk about.”

Davila and Santiago work for the University of Idaho Women’s Center, where they were encouraged to bring awareness to important topics from their experiences. Santiago said they teamed up for their first project that eventually formed this event.

“I want to add gender to (the topic),” Davila said.

Social parameters have been set on men and women, he said, which causes people to leave their natural identity behind.

“Having to live up to that … it’s an unhealthy lifestyle,” Davila said. “I want to bring awareness and hopefully change it.”

Davila and Santiago shared memories of anxiety and heartache and how they draw from these experiences to help others.

Santiago said mental health is a stigmatized topic often shut out from conversations. She said her parents did not understand her battle with depression and anxiety, believing it was only a phase.

“We come from a culture where anxiety isn’t really a term,” Santiago said. “(My parents) thought it would go away within a day. Daily tasks were really hard. I didn’t know what was going on, so I thought in my head, ‘Why am I feeling this way?’”

Santiago said she was unaware of her anxiety issues until a counselor told her about the merit of her struggles.

“I think the main thing was being able to seek help,” Santiago said. “It’s hard for people to accept the fact that they need help.”

Asking for help became a challenge, Davila said, when his girlfriend broke up with him. He said he became reclusive, losing himself and drinking heavily on weekends.

“I don’t even like alcohol,” Davila said.

He said men are expected not to ask for help and show no emotion when it came to struggling — an expectation he didn’t want to embrace.

“The main thing I want … is just get out of that mentality,” Davila said. “You don’t have to meet those standards. No one has to.”

He said he was losing his identity in this gender norm, so he wrote “The Man’s Code,” which removed layers of his self-doubt. Davila said he hopes people step out of the vicious gender norm cycle.

“No good comes from (these stereotypes),” Davila said.

He said the Counseling and Testing Center helps students and employees struggling with their mental or physical health.

Santiago and Davila said they encourage individuals to stop by the Women’s Center as well to talk or for help.

Catherine Keenan can be reached at [email protected]