In her multigenerational Cuban-American household Yasmin is expected to be the main caretaker and problem-solver for her family, and the toxic dynamics are taking a toll on her confidence, spiking her stress levels and worsening her mental health. And Raquel Carrasquillo, a therapist and life coach who works primarily with Latino clients, shows us how to put our own needs first when looking after others.
Featured Expert:
Raquel Carrasquillo provides psychotherapy and coaching services aimed at restoring balance, creating happiness and purpose in her client’s lives. She focuses on her client’s cultural lens and values to promote growth and healing, a practice that is rooted in her approach as a mental health professional. In her private practice, she primarily works with individuals of color and Latinx clients. Her specialties involve helping them create a healthy mind-body connection, improve self-worth, embark on a journey of personal development, and reduce anxiety/stress and depressive symptoms. Raquel has been a speaker for Twitter and Poderistas panels. She was also named a top Latinx Mental Health Professional fighting stigma by Pop Sugar, and featured in articles by Hip Latina and Alma’s Mental Health services. Learn more about her work and private practice here.
Raquel recommends these two books, and two cool meditation apps.
If you loved this episode, be sure to listen to When Familism Hurts and Mom Has to Teach Grandparents to Accept Her Son's Difference .
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Juleyka Lantigua:
Hi, everybody. Today, we welcome Yasmin. Yasmin moved back home with her mother and grandparents right before the pandemic. As the oldest granddaughter in a Cuban-American family, she has become their go-to person whenever they need any help. She feels overwhelmed by this role and by the toxic family dynamics it creates. Let's get into it.
Yasmin: My name is Yasmin and I am a content creator, and in my family, we call mamí and papí “vieja y viejo.”. I would like to call myself the holy trinity of Cuban children. I am the oldest granddaughter by, I think, 16 years. My mom has mental health issues and I only recently found out I want to say maybe like 5, 6, 7 years ago. She's a paranoid schizophrenic. She was there, but she wasn't the type of mom that you would expect her to. So growing up, I was raised by grandparents. So I feel a million times indebted to them. I first moved out in 2017 and then I moved back right before COVID in the middle of 2019. I would never really say that I was forced into the position. I feel like I placed myself in the position because I saw that my mom never really helped. My aunt and uncle are always busy. They have their own lives and of course, I'm the granddaughter who lives with them who didn't have a boyfriend at the time, who wasn't married, didn't have kids. I was going to school. I guess they thought, "Wow, she has nothing going for her. Let's just bother her all the time."
Call me selfish, but there are times when I don't want to help my family out because everyone's so ungrateful. As much as I try, running a business during COVID working from home meant every waking hour, my grandparents would knock on the door, "Hey, can you call these doctors? Hey, can you drop me off here?" And then it got to the point where they just asked more and more and more and then they wanted me to give up time during the time that I had my own things to do, to help them with X, Y, Z.
Old school generations are very like, "Oh, we need to do this and we need you this now. I don't care what time it is. I don't care what you're doing or whatever."
Yasmin: I felt so guilty leaving to go to my boyfriend's house, and then I'd be terrified because I knew that my grandfather would call me and say, "Where'd you go? Are you coming home?" It was never an understanding of, "Oh, well, you're out there living your life and that's okay, because we'll be here doing our own stuff."
So in the case of my mental health, I saw it declining when my grandfather would just call me names. My grandmother would call me names when I got my first boyfriend at the age of 22, might I add and I would sleep over his house. My grandmother would call me puta, she'd call me a slut, every nasty word and to this day at the ripe age of 29, God forbid, I stay an extra day at my boyfriend's house and I walk in the door and my grandfather slow claps. And it is just when I say it is the most demeaning thing ever. I don't deserve that and truthfully, no one deserves that.
Something happened to my grandmother last year. Nothing terrible, just a hospital scare. I told my family, my aunts and uncles. I said, "This is so much responsibility for me. I'm the granddaughter. Something's got to give. I can't be here 24/7." They were like, "Then move out, leave." And I'm like, "I have no funds. I have no means right now. That's what I'm trying to do when I'm trying to say is if I can't do something, you guys need to step up and they have." They have in the past couple of months, but it's still hard to tell them “no”, but it got to a point where my mental health was severely taking a toll because I just felt so worthless. I felt like I couldn't do anything. I felt like I had kids and I don't have kids. It got to the point where I disassociated so much. Two years went by. I stayed in this state of paralysis. I just felt so less than that I had to take something for depression and I never had my whole life.
Last week, something happened and I will leave it at that, but I left and now I'm staying at my boyfriend's house. And the only time I will go back is if they apologize. I am trying my hardest to stay out because I don't want to repeat the pattern because at a certain point you need to shut it down.
I think one of the hardest things in life when you come from a Hispanic household is the decision of choosing yourself and I feel like millennials are like in the middle. We want to, but we feel guilty. I feel like gen Z has more of a, "No, screw you. I don't want to. I don't have to. Why should I?" I'm the same way, but then I'm like, "Who's going to take him to the doctor?" Grandpa has bad eyesight. "Who's going to charge his tablet for him. He doesn't know. He's going to keep putting it in the freaking like headphones jack. He doesn't know crap! This poor man." And it's funny because my grandfather used to always say like, "Oh, I need you and you need me," but I would say, "I don't need you anymore, grandpa. I'm a grown woman. I need you for the wisdom that you gave me, but I don't need you for the negativity that you throw in my life."
Juleyka: As a first gen and oldest daughter, I saw a lot of myself in Yasmin. It can be really easy to take on all the responsibilities of caring for our family, especially when we're living with them. The role of caretaker can feel so normal we don't even question it even when it becomes dysfunctional. So what can first gens do to look after those in our family who need our help while also taking care of ourselves and our needs? I think we need some help figuring this one out. So I called in an expert.
Raquel Carrasquillo:
I am Raquel Carrasquillo and I have a private practice as a licensed therapist and life coach.
Juleyka: As you listen to Yasmin's story, what did you hear?
Carrasquillo: I really wanted to point out that I heard someone that was very strong. She's really made it a point to say, "This is unhealthy and I have to take care of myself." She talked about her mental health. She talked about trying to prioritize herself, and she talked about the struggle of doing all of that. I really heard a strong woman and I heard what I think is very helpful for anyone who's in a similar situation to hear that you can feel like Yasmin, you can feel like you're tired. You can feel like you're over these generational cycles and this toxic, and I would add abusive environment.
Juleyka: I want to pick up on that because you are one of the rare people who actually has named it as abuse. So can you talk to me about the qualities of the situation and the behavior that make it abusive?
Carrasquillo: Yeah. I think that sometimes we think that abuse is specific to romantic relationships, but abuse is really about... She's talking about living in her grandparents' home and them berating her, name-calling her, putting her down. These are signs of emotional abuse, her being left to feel inferior, them gaslighting her, or her questioning herself constantly doubting, "Am I wrong here? Am I doing something that's inappropriate?" So a lot of very similar behaviors that you could see in a couple dynamic, but playing out with grandparents or it could also happen with parents and adult child.
Juleyka: How does one address those?
Carrasquillo: Those are tough. I think the issue that Yasmin has run into and probably anyone that's in a similar situation as Yasmin runs into is that setting boundaries with people in the generation of her grandparents, let's say, is going to be seen as offensive, insulting. They're not going to see her setting a limit as something that is like, "Okay, we get it. You're allowed to come home at whatever time you want, because you're an adult." Absolutely not. It's going to be met with resistance. So I think what actually Yasmin played out, she did set a boundary. It doesn't look as pretty as I think we want a boundary to look, right? I think many of us think like, "I'm going to have a conversation and it's going to go well and maybe I'll have to remind my grandparents a couple times and then things are going to be good."
Carrasquillo: In this case, she had to leave. And she actually said, which I thought was very empowering, up from a place of empowerment, "I'm not planning on going back until I receive some acknowledgement." That was the boundary that had to be placed because I don't think that there was room for Yasmin to communicate and say, "Hey, guys." Sometimes there is. Sometimes there is an opportunity, but in this case, she had to really place that hard boundary.
Juleyka: All right. So to me, there's almost an outward-facing part of this and an inward-facing part of it. And one is addressed with the boundaries. That's definitely the way to go for the outward-facing part. But the level of responsibility and guilt that she carries around feels very much like it's an inward-facing thing that only she can address. So what are the steps? What's the advice? How do someone like Yasmin begin to identify and correct for that tremendous amount of responsibility and guilt that weighs her down?
Carrasquillo: Mm-hmm. Right. Okay. So I think what you're touching on is her mental health, right? Which one piece that I heard, and I know that this is also hard is particularly in Latino culture is the idea of she got on antidepressants. So I think a piece of that was her really analyzing and looking at how the guilt, the shame, the toxicity in this household was showing up in her life and affecting her mental health, and just not recognizing herself in many ways. So I think part of it is doing a check-in, like an assessment. "I'm not operating at my normal self. My mood is completely shifted or my self-esteem is in the dumps." Right? So I think again, assessing a little bit of a check-in, and sometimes that requires medication. Sometimes it could be saying, "You know what? Maybe I need to speak to someone, a professional," because really what we're talking about here is someone else, a neutral observer coming in and discussing with her, "These are not healthy expectations of you." In many ways, some of this is dysfunctional. Yes, in Latino culture, absolutely, there is this expectation and for many of us, we carry this desire to take care of our elders, but where is the line? Can I take care of them, but also have a life? And in this case, can Yasmin also have a boyfriend? Can she also have a social life and a career and fulfillments and joy? I mean, those, I think, are the areas that need to be assessed. Just doing a self check-in, but also seeking out, I think, professional help if needed, seeking out other people as well.
Juleyka: Yasmin also lives with her grandparents. And this is something that comes up a lot, especially for our Latinos on the show because we tend to live in multi-generational households. And even when we are working, even when we are in grad school, even when we have very full, very demanding lives, there are so many expectations placed upon us because we are living in these multi-generational homes. In your practice, what are some of the things that you suggest or that you have seen your patients successfully do to alleviate some of those pressures and to better, I don't know, differentiate between the living together versus that, "I also have a life outside of this house," thing?
Carrasquillo: Mm-hmm. It can be very difficult in cases like that I've had to discuss with clients the reality of is it healthy? Is it conducive to a healthy work environment/family relationships to be in the same place working and spending time with your family? And for some people, it's not. So they decide, "I need to have a different workspace." Whether it's a different part of the house or whether it's actually going into an office, right? Going into a place where you rent a space, sometimes the physical distance is needed.
I think the other piece is communicating. Right? One of the things that I heard in Yasmin's story was that she felt this sense of obligation and responsibility, and I don't think she felt there was space to share, "I need some help. I need somebody to come in here and help me out." She never mentioned the help until the last straw happened. There was almost a sense of, "I have to do this by myself." So if you're living in a home and you're taking care of parents or grandparents and children, and I think it's fair to say, "Maybe I can help you with taking you to appointments these days of the week. Right? Maybe we can make sure that actually Thursdays afternoons are pretty light for me. Maybe those are the days that we schedule all the appointments for, or this day of the week, I can get on the phone for an hour, one hour. Right? That's what I have. I could do that. I promise I can help you with that, but if there's more than that, who else can we get involved here to assist?"
Carrasquillo: Because, again, there's a sense of obligation and these expectations. A lot of it, we can get in our heads a lot and we can think, "There's absolutely no way that I can tell my mother that I can't schedule her appointments. So I just have to carry this." And we carry it and we're resentful and we're angry and it eats away at us. Versus, "Could I sit down and could I talk to my mom? How about if my sister helps?" Sometimes I think it's just evaluating. "Have I asked for help? What would that look like?" Sometimes it's almost a little bit of a trial and error, right? You try the conversation, that doesn't go well. "Okay. What can I do now? Is there a different angle that I could have this conversation with?"
Juleyka: Besides removing yourself physically from the space, how can someone show up their own mental health and their own psychological wellbeing if they cannot move out and if they cannot for a while create that physical distance that would be ideal to have?
Carrasquillo: Mm-hmm. A couple of things that came up for me was self-care. Again, do a check-in. "What are some of the things that I need?" Sometimes connecting with our five senses, it's something that grounds us is something that brings us to the present. Taking walks. I tell my clients if you have five minutes in the day and you can go outside and you can find five things you can see, right? Four things that you can touch, three things that you can hear, two things that you can smell, right? One thing that you taste. If you can connect with your five senses, you can get back to here, to the present moment. You're absolutely right. A lot of the times, we can't physically get up and leave and go disappear for hours. It's not possible, but you can do grounding exercises.
Carrasquillo: You can do meditative exercises. Meditations are wonderful. There's a lot of guided meditations out there. It can be something you can sit down for five minutes. Diaphragmatic breathing, right? Using the breath to bring us back to the present. It literally sends signals to the brain that we're safe. Often when we're having anxious, irrational beliefs and we're catastrophizing and thinking of the worst case scenario, the way to really shut that down the most natural way is to use the breath. It's helpful to also to just know that there's other people out there going through similar situations, because many times, we are told these are family things. We don't air this out. We don't talk about this. So hearing it and knowing like, "Oh, I'm not the only person who's struggling through this and suffering through this," can be very powerful and can be very therapeutic. It can be very helpful. There's groups, there's mental health groups. There's support groups. There are a lot of things that we can try to do and little routines that we can create in our daily life. So these are a few ideas.
Juleyka: Thank you so much, Raquel.
Carrasquillo: Thank you for having me.
Juleyka: All right. Here's what we learned from Raquel today.
Expect messy interactions. Your family members may feel insulted or hurt by you setting boundaries. Their reaction may not be pretty. Be ready to set hard boundaries when you need to and act on them.
Evaluate and communicate. Think back, have you actually asked for help, or are you skipping a whole step and just assuming that no one will help? Sometimes it's a matter of asking explicitly, asking different people, asking at different times, or simply imagining a new way to improve a situation.
And remember, when you're stressed, focus on your five senses, take a moment to be on your own and just pay attention to what you can see, what you can hear, what you can feel, what you can smell, and what you can taste. This will help you disconnect from family drama and reconnect with yourself.
Juleyka: You can find a list of resources Raquel recommended in our episode notes. Thank you for listening and thank you sharing us. How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] about Anything is an original production of LWC Studios. Virginia Lora is the show's producer, Kojin Tashiro is our mixer, Manuela Bedoya is our marketing lead. I'm the creator, Juleyka Lantigua. On Twitter and Instagram, we're @TalkToMamiPapi. Bye, everybody. Same place next week.
CITATION:
Lantigua, Juleyka, host. “Oldest Daughter Is Tired of Being Everyone's Go-to”
How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] about Anything,
LWC Studios., May 2, 2022. TalkToMamiPapi.com.