Welcome to "Wellness in Color", a podcast series that explores perspectives on mental health to reshape the cultural language of mental illness.

Interview Guest: Aneela Kumar

Interviewer: Maritza Steele

Hosted by: Caroline Ludy

Produced by: NAMI Minnesota (namimn.org)

Guest Bio: Born and raised in New York to parents from India, Aneela Kumar shares her story on growing up with anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder and trichotillomania (an impulse control disorder in which individuals have the compulsive urge to pull out their own hair). Currently a mental health advocate, Aneela talks to Wellness in Color about her struggles with identity, race and religion and how her path to recovery began with the words “shy”, “weird” and “wrong” but continue with “love” and “awareness.”

Resources mentioned in this episode:

The TLC Foundation for Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors https://www.bfrb.org/

Free video series "The Noise in Your Head" https://noiseinyourhead.com/free-video-series/

HabitAware Keen device https://habitaware.com/

This episode was recorded on 01/23/2019 in St. Paul, MN.

For more information and resources on mental illness, education and legislative advocacy please visit the NAMI Minnesota website at namimn.org

These efforts were supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health Award Number UL1TR002494. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.