What Does True Patriotism Look Like?

This July 4th, we celebrate freedom.

But not all of us grew up free.

For many, freedom was something we had to fight for — in our homes, in our streets, and inside our own minds.

The mental health systems of the past weren’t built for healing.

They were built for control.

Mental illness was criminalized.

People were locked away in asylums.

Forced hospitalizations were weaponized.

Sterilizations were justified through eugenics.

Culture and race were pathologized.

For entire communities — especially Indigenous, Black, and poor folks — mental health institutions became sites of trauma, not relief.

Even now, veterans like myself are often left to manage our mental health in silence.

Support is too often inaccessible, stigmatized, or steeped in systems that feel more like punishment than care.

But that story is changing.

Patriots like Dr. Eduardo Duran and Dr. Jennifer Mullan are fighting to reclaim what healing really means.

Dr. Eduardo Duran (Apache/Tewa) coined the term “soul wound”.

He challenges Western psychology’s obsession with diagnosis, blending Native spiritual practices with therapy.

His work reframes trauma as collective, ancestral, and sacred.

Dr. Jennifer Mullan, author of Decolonizing Therapy, gives us language for how colonization, racism, and generational trauma live in our bodies.

She calls out the legacy of white supremacy in clinical spaces and gives people permission to reclaim grief, rage, and ancestral wisdom as part of healing.

These are the patriots holding the torch.

We’re not broken — we’re carrying pain no one else acknowledged.

You don’t have to heal the way they told you to.

You just have to know you’re allowed to heal.

If you’ve ever felt like therapy wasn’t made for people like you — you’re not wrong.

But that doesn’t mean healing isn’t for you.