Dear Diary: A Latina Therapist's Reflection on Minority Mental Health
By Victoria Valdez, LMFT
Dear Diary,
I’m Victoria Valdez — a Mexican-American, Spanish-speaking, licensed marriage and family therapist. I’m a mother of three. A wife. And so much more.
This July, for National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, I want to offer something a little different — not a list of facts or statistics, but a piece of my heart. A reflection. A diary entry. An offering.
Because I’ve lived the silence, the stigma, the struggle.
Because I’ve also lived the healing.
And maybe if I share what I’ve seen — and what I’ve survived — someone else out there will feel seen too.
Small Town Living
From age two to twelve, I grew up in a very small town (population 2000) in Texas — the kind where everyone knows your name, and your name tells them you don’t belong.
As a Mexican-American kid in a predominantly white community, I was often treated like a walking inconvenience. We weren’t celebrated for being bicultural. We were barely tolerated. My siblings and I were racially bullied, harassed, and repeatedly discriminated against — not just by students, but by teachers and police.
I’ll never forget the time a high school junior on the bus grabbed me and tried to forcibly shut my window because he said it "bothered" him, and I hadn’t obeyed him fast enough. He was at the back of the bus, and I was sitting in the middle of it, on a hot May day. All the windows on the bus were down, and he singled me out. This was not his first "go at me" when my brothers were not around. That day, he physically restrained me. I resisted. He hit me. I punched back. The bus was full of witnesses (classmates, teens, and the substitute bus driver). And no one offered to help. I was the one suspended.
My brothers were stuffed in lockers, had paintballs fired at them as they ran home from basketball, and were chased down by local teens in trucks. My father reported it. The police laughed it off. "Just kids being kids," they said.
My mother didn’t speak English at the time. She was learning. She didn’t drive. She didn’t go to school events. I now realize how isolated she must have felt. I watched her shrink herself in school spaces, afraid to be seen, scared to be judged.
We loved our home. We lived by a river. There was a forest to explore — a refuge for a sensory, curious child like me.
But school and my small town community? Not safe for people like me and my family.
Trauma, ADHD, Racism
I was labeled from the beginning — the girl who couldn’t sit still, couldn’t focus, couldn’t follow directions. I was constantly in trouble. Moved to the front. Sent to the hallway. Kicked off the bus. Again.
By early elementary school, I was placed in special education. Not because someone truly understood what I needed. But because no one asked the right questions.
The special ed classrooms weren’t equipped for nuance. They lumped kids together — those with profound communication needs, those with behavioral labels, and kids like me, who were overwhelmed, misunderstood, and emotionally unmoored.
I didn’t feel “smart enough” for general ed. I didn’t feel “struggling enough” for special ed. I felt broken.
It took nearly three decades for me to learn I wasn’t.
They tested me for dyslexia because I struggled with reading, writing, and math. They assessed me for learning disabilities but never truly accounted for the trauma, racism, and fear I experienced daily. No one saw the impact of a nervous system in a constant state of fight-or-flight.
Not once did anyone say "ADHD."
No one understood — or even considered — that a child could have both ADHD and PTSD. That the layers of trauma, discrimination, and neurodivergence were shaping every part of my life. Left untreated, my ADHD and unprocessed trauma became a storm that followed me through childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.
My father showed up to every meeting. My mom — limited by language, education, and trauma — couldn’t attend. Everything school and medical-wise fell on my father’s shoulders. He was a fire protection engineer, skilled and hardworking, but treated as if he didn’t belong. He fought for us anyway. Over and over.
He thought a small town would save us from the violence of the big city. But it became our own quiet hell.
Looking Back
When I look back at my parents now — not just as their daughter, but as a licensed therapist — I see so much more.
I see two Mexican American parents who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, at the height of the civil rights movement, and were raised by Mexican American parents who survived the Great Depression, the Mexican Repatriation, and Operation Wetback where over an estimate 1.3 million Mexican were deported and approximently 60% were American citizens.
I see trauma in so many forms
I see broken hearts and hardship
I see two parents paralyzed by depression, anxiety, PTSD, ADHD, and systemic discrimination.
I see a powerful, silent resilience.
I see two people trying to protect their kids with dignity in systems designed to erase them.
My Passion Birthed
My diagnosis of ADHD at nearly 30 unraveled years of shame. It didn’t erase the harm, but it helped me understand myself. It helped me begin to heal.
The pivotal moment came when I began working in a residential treatment center in San Antonio — with kids removed from their families due to abuse and neglect. So many of them were Black and Brown. Many were in foster care. Many were already on probation.
And for the first time, I saw myself in them.
I saw the shutdown. The rage. The brilliance. The pain.
Many of the therapists there were well-meaning, but they didn’t understand the lived experiences of the youth they served. They tried, but they couldn’t connect — not at the soul level these kids needed. They had lived lives of safety, comfort, and privilege. I had not. These kids felt seen, heard, and safe with me — because I was them once. I spoke their unspoken language. I recognized their fire and fear. I validated their survival.
They cleaved to me — Ms. VV — because I looked like their tias, their cousins, their sisters. I became their co-regulation, their safety, their mirror. They watched me pursue college while they wrestled with hopelessness. I told them: Si se puede. You can rise from the ashes. Your scars don’t define you.
That’s when I knew: This is what I was meant to do.
I serve BIPOC youth and families because I was that child. I saw that family. I carry that pain.
I see the mothers — anxious and stretched thin — like my own.
I see the fathers — frustrated and dismissed — like mine.
I see the girls who feel invisible and the boys who aren’t allowed to cry.
I’ve helped minority mothers heal from the mother wounds passed down through generations. I’ve sat with fathers who, for the first time in their lives, named their PTSD, their childhood trauma, and whispered their stories out loud — to me, their very first listener. I’ve walked beside families as they grieve the weight of racial trauma and take their first steps toward collective healing.
I've sat across from tweens and teens bullied for being Mexican. Classmates mocked them. Saying the president would deport their family. And I — decades removed from my school trauma — held them through anxiety, depression, and trauma, empowered their family, and knew: We are still here. Still fighting.
I’ve helped Black teens name depression when no one believed them.
I’ve helped whole families understand that anxiety isn’t weakness — it’s humanity.
I've helped immigrant families build bridges of understanding between the children and the adults.
This is sacred work. And I will never stop.
Thirty years later, and the stories haven’t changed enough.
Our kids are still being punished before being misunderstood.
Our families are still being dismissed instead of supported.
Our mothers and fathers are still being silenced and still fighting
But we are still here.
And healing is possible.
Here are five truths I’ve learned as a therapist, a mother, a proud Mexican-American woman whose ancestral roots have been in Texas since before 1846, and a witness to generations of strength and struggle:
1. Mental health is not a luxury. It’s a necessity.
Healing isn’t extra. It’s essential. We deserve to grieve. To rest. To receive support — without shame.
2. Behavior is communication — especially in kids.
We must stop asking “What’s wrong with them?” and start asking “What happened to them?”
3. Representation isn’t a bonus. It’s a necessary bridge.
When BIPOC youth see providers who understand them, they heal in deeper ways. We need more of us in this field.
4. Intergenerational trauma is real. So is intergenerational healing.
Healing ourselves is a sacred act. Our ancestors survived so we could rest. We rest so our children can thrive.
5. You are not broken. You are becoming.
You are not “too much.” You are navigating a world not built for your nervous system — and still showing up. You are worthy now.
Dear Diary,
I am Victoria Valdez.
A Mexican-American, Spanish-speaking licensed marriage and family therapist.
A mama of three. A wife. A healer. A fire-hearted fighter.
My family has lived on this land for generations — long before borders, policies, or school districts tried to define our worth.
And I’m here to tell you:
You are not alone in this.
We rise — and we rise together.
Work With Victoria Valdez, LMFT
Therapy, coaching, neurofeedback, and intensive anxiety support for adults, children, and families in Tennessee & virtually.
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