Taraji P. Henson’s recent interview with Self Magazine is refreshingly raw, open and honest.
She bares it all in this interview: From her battle with depression, to going through menopause, learning how to be a good partner and also the struggles of living up to the expectations of being a “strong black woman”. She raised some very deep issues in this feature that help to teach a lot of life lessons. It is not often that you see a black woman be so open and honest about what they are feeling and their struggles.
One of the most compelling aspects of the interview is when she talks about “the culture of silence” in the black community, and how this culture is killing us all slowly. I say “us” because although Taraji is African American, and I’m African – specifically – Nigerian, I feel like it’s something that we can relate to as well.
Taraji mentioned that in the Black Community, people tend to talk freely about anything from thyroids, to cancer, to wife beaters, robberies, murders and gang violence, but when it comes to actually talking about how these challenges make them feel or the emotions they stir up people, or how such trauma has impacted them, most people just shut down and just sweep it under the rug. She says:
“We have to break this cycle of keeping quiet…when you’re quiet, things aren’t fixed. They get worse.”
Amongst our people, there is so much pressure to keep things bottled up and just push things down. Ignore the pain, just work through it, be strong, don’t let it keep you down, you don’t need to talk about it, it’s over; these are some of the statements that are used to encourage people to keep their emotions bottled up.
I know firsthand, how overwhelming it can be to keep feelings of discomfort bottled up. I used to be the kind of person who would never let anyone know if something was bothering me. I would keep it bottled inside till the sad feelings submerged me emotionally. Over time, I realized that if I didn’t find a way to “unbottle” my feelings, they could become detrimental to my well-being. Luckily, a particular friend of mine became my closest confidante, and my world changed. Suddenly, I felt a sweet kind of freedom to express myself with no limits whenever I was going through a rough patch, and trust me, being able to do this is a gift.
The truth is keeping things inside doesn’t help anybody. We are all human and we need to be able to talk about our pain, that’s the first step to working through it.
Taraji says she realized she suffered from depression about two years ago; this was because she started having sudden mood swings. She says:
“I would get so low, really, really low, beaten, like never before… You may have those days [when] you’re like, ‘Oh, I just don’t feel like getting out of bed. I just want to sleep in,’ but you don’t feel heavy. I was just starting to feel heavy a lot, [like] suffocating…. It just came out of nowhere.”
When she started feeling this way she realized she needed to get help. Also, her son was going through some issues as well at the time, as his father was murdered when he was nine and his grandfather died about two years later. It was a lot to deal with and he shutdown emotionally.
Henson went on a journey to find a ‘unicorn’ therapist as she called it, who could understand her cultural background and really get where she was coming from. When she finally found her therapist and started expressing how she was feeling to her she discovered that her mood swings actually stemmed from the fact that she was going through menopause – a fact she probably wouldn’t have discovered if she hadn’t sought to get the help she needed.
These experiences ignited her passion form mental health awareness in the black community – especially among kids from ages 5-18.
She started her own foundation called the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation, which was started to help diminish the stigma around mental health in the black community. The foundation helps schools create “peace corners,” or areas in classrooms for students to safely express their feelings.
In addition, the foundation is also working to place culturally competent therapists in schools, and also makes available a database of therapists anyone can access, amongst other benefits. The foundation is named after Henson’s father, who was thought to have bipolar disorder.
“I hope that one day we can all be free to talk about mental health and be okay with seeking help,” she says.
And I agree with her.
Photo Credit: SELF
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