🔊 Community Reporting and Diversity in Journalism with Joanne Griffith
by Sandra Hannebohm
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Didi Hairston discusses her mental health blog and podcast, facing resistance from friends, family, and trolls, and the significance of mental health in communities. We also explore the news' impact on mental health, coping strategies, and the importance of informative storytelling over clickbait.
I met Didi at a virtual workshop for Black women in podcasting. We immediately hit it off in our breakout group, and when I told her about mindful journalism I could tell from the glint in her eye (and her words, of course) that she wanted to know more about how to engage with the news, but not burn out. You can find my earlier conversation with her on her podcast, Breaking the Mask of Depression.
I have a platform called Diva with Depression. It started out as a blog because I was living in New Jersey, and I moved there from North Carolina. I had to find a care team, a psychologist, and a psychiatrist. I could not find any psychiatrist or psychologist of colour; there was one that was about 40 minutes away from me. After I got frustrated with the search and everything, I decided that I was going to start writing about it. I was in a women's group on Facebook, and the subject came up about mental illness. People were inboxing me; they didn't know whether they had a mental illness, what the symptoms were, and different things like that. I was encouraged by my friends and family to start the blog, and that's what I did.
“I was a news fanatic. My grandfather passed on his habit to us, so we watched the news, or read the news throughout the day. Once I had my breakdown, it became difficult to retain information.”
When I first started the blog, I had a lot of pushback because people would message me and say that I was racist because I would just be talking about mental health care for Black people. I've had people make appointments with me to be on their show, and then when they found out that I was Black, they never replied or answered. I do get the pushback because I don't think people understand how difficult it is to, number one, function in Black and brown communities, and number two, to be sick in Black and brown communities and try to find healthcare and just try to find people that are going through the same thing as you, especially when it comes to mental health. But that's about it. Everybody else has been very positive. Especially when I started getting that type of feedback, I let people know that my information is for everybody. Everybody, anybody that needs help, can come to me, contact me, or anything. But I want to also let the world know that I am trying to save people in my community because we need it.
I will say that I am probably the wrong person to talk to when it comes to taking care of their mental health because I am ashamed to say—and not ashamed to say—that I don't have any set way that I try to make myself feel better. I am horrible at it. If I'm out in public and I have an anxiety attack or if I feel one coming on or if I get anxious, I take a shoe off. So I'm barefoot on the ground because that's a way to ground yourself. If people look down, they're going to see me with one shoe off. I've done it in the supermarket; if it gets too crowded or too hectic and I'm standing in line, I will take one shoe off to ground myself. No really, I swear to you, it really works! I've gone out on my patio and stood barefoot; anything to ground you, even the cold coming from the concrete or the floor, it sort of balances you out. I guess it's like splashing cold water on your face.
I was a news fanatic. My grandfather passed on his habit to us, so we watched the news or read it throughout the day. Then, once I had my breakdown, it became difficult to retain information, and I think initially, that's what it was. I stopped watching the news. I couldn't really read, so I did it for that reason. But once I became aware of how the news affects us mentally, I had to make a conscious effort to stop. I will listen, read some bullets on the phone, or get bits and pieces here and there because—perfect example, the professor that took her life a couple of weeks ago in Missouri. That's what my topic was for my podcast last week. When it initially happened, I saw her face, but I purposely did not read what was going on because I knew that it was going to trigger me. So I waited until I was preparing for my episode, and I read it, and I got so angry. I mean, I could not turn it off. I could not turn it off. First of all, her story is my story because I had my breakdown at work. I was bullied at work. So her story mimicked my story, but I got so angry because we're in the year 2024, and we're still being bullied because we're Black. We're still being bullied because people are afraid that we're going to be better than them or on the same level as them.
Archuleta Chisolm
When it comes to certain things, I have to back off and try to find the balance between staying aware of what's going on in the world and retaining my peace. So, the news, I cannot watch it. I just can't do it because it makes you sad, mad, glad... If the news is on for 30 minutes, that's a lot of emotions to go through in 30 minutes!
It's tough, especially when it comes to my people, not to be able to absorb the information and learn about what's going on in the world. But when I just saw her face and I saw the headline, I knew that day I couldn't do it. Honestly, I've been in a downward spiral for close to a year.
“If I had not been sick since 2005, I wouldn't have known that I had to process it at a later date. I would have just kept taking it in, and kept taking it in. I would have read everything that was out there, every article that was out there, everything that her friend said, everything that her family said… I would have been knee-deep in it.”
And so I know that it takes— it could take a crumb, a fine line between me not being good and being good. So I knew that day that I could not process what I was going to read about her. I went online that day, I posted what I needed to post, and read what I needed to read, as far as my business was concerned, but I did not dig too deep into the story until I knew that I was ready to accept what happened to her and accept that I, and her, were two of millions that are struggling and losing our lives because of these things that are going on. But once I got to the point where I was determined to tell her story, then I knew that I was going to be able to read it because I was doing it for her. I took myself out of it when it was time to prepare, and I was doing it for her. I had to get her story out there.
We're doing these things publicly. We're sharing the information publicly, and so that's what we have to do, but not everybody is equipped to do that.
If I had not been sick since 2005, I wouldn't have known that I had to process it at a later date. I would have just kept taking it in, and kept taking it in. I would have read everything that was out there, every article that was out there, everything that her friend said, everything that her family said; like I would have been knee-deep in it.
It has taken me years to get here, to be able to do that—to recognize it.
