Mental health advocate Hanifah Griffith went from quietly struggling financially, mentally and emotionally in undergrad to launching a whole platform and brand surrounding real ass talks about mental health in both Afro-Caribbean spaces and for immigrant students in just the span of 3 years. She's inspired me to be honest about my own mental health needs and has opened the door for many others to dive into asking themselves harder questions like what it means to be authentic in this day and age, how inner child work affects relationships and more. From exploring how race has affected her journey into mental health treatment and research, to debating religion vs. spirituality, to talking about authenticity as the face of a platform, Hanifah continues to blow me away with how humble and honest she is about how her journey looks.
Tell us a little bit about you!
Hi, my name is Hanifah Griffith. I consider myself a mental health advocate. My goal with that label is to destigmatize mental health within the Caribbean; as an Afro-Caribbean, there isn’t a lot of people talking about mental health. It isn’t accessible and normalized within my community so I said, you know what, why don’t I do that? Especially seeing how I myself went through a lot of hardships when I was younger and even in present day. To be that person that can help other people in their healing journey…yeah, that’s my goal. So yeah, Hanifah Griffith, Mental health Advocate.
You made it sound so James Bondish right there! So I’m gonna hit you with a big question to start off with. What do you think is the biggest reason for why you didn’t see anyone within your identity in this space?
I definitely think shame is the biggest thing. A lot of my cousins who comment on my posts, are like, ‘could never be me, could never say that’. It’s something that growing up in Trinidad, we were taught don’t air out your dirty laundry in public.
Also, fear of how you’re going to be perceived by other people. For me, that’s the biggest thing. Especially everytime I work on my podcast. Like my most recent podcast I spoke about suicide ideation; to put myself out there and say, ‘yeah, I dealt with suicidal ideation and I do have a chronic illness,’ that put me in bed for a whole week. That was hard to tell people and to know about me, so I definitely think shame and fear is a big thing that has held back so many people like me from coming forward and talking about mental health.
Within your own family, you seem to get not necessarily pushback, but mixed feelings about the topics you talk about. What about on a wider scale- how has your community reacted to the topics you talk about, and the overall work you do?
I’ve been seeing a lot of people from the Black community not necessarily praising me, but thanking me for talking about these topics. When I posted the chat with Eva Jean-Charles about suicide ideation, I had several people, majority from Caribbean, say, 'this is exactly what I’m going through, thank you for giving me the words for how I’m feeling- thank you for speaking up on something I couldn’t speak on'. I think it’s something people want to hear and want to talk about.
I was a researcher my first year, but then I realized; me personally, it’s hard to be a researcher, especially within the realm of mental health, because I’m more action-based than research-based. I take what I learn and I make it digestible for others to understand.
You are obviously still in school. I’m curious; do your feelings and findings about mental health within the Caribbean community- is it a sociological thing? Idealogical?
My background is in applied Sociology; I’m in a Masters program.
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Right! To answer your question, I think it is a sociological thing; especially in literature, because what I’ve found is when you talk about mental health, people are quick to talk about non-black or non BIPOC- mental health. It’s always white or people who identify as white, that’s where most of the data comes from.
My first semester, I was doing research on mental health in the Caribbean and there was absolutely no data. I found one report from 1965, so to see how in 2021, people are still not thinking or bringing acknowledgment to mental health matters in the Caribbean community, that’s where this stems from.
It brings me back to the whole idea of perception, because I was reading one article where the author stated that perception is the biggest thing when it comes to mental health in the Caribbean, because we are fearful of how we perceive.
When you think about sociology too, you realize there’s a mirror reflection between the data being presented and the society. I see that in the data. There’s that missing piece of Caribbean mental health discussions and data, and then in society- it makes sense. We don’t talk about these things.
How deep would you say race and racism runs in the topic of mental health and not wanting to address it within your own community?
That’s a really good question. There’s institutionalized racism in this field that affects things like even trying to get a counselor. There’s different facets of racism- it all goes back to access. When you see people within this field who don’t look like you, because only 2% of mental health counselors are black- that’s nothing! That’s nothing. To say that you could be looking for someone that looks like you, and you can’t find anyone that looks like you, that gets you and understands your living experiences and trauma as a person of color…
I had a counselor who was a sweet old, white woman. I found that every time I said something, her response was like, tell me more. And I was frustrated because that wasn’t the problem, that wasn’t the focus for me. She didn’t fundamentally understand me and I had to spend an extra hour explaining my trauma that she would never firsthand experience or understand.
When I think about being in the same spaces as people who don’t look like you, you fear that they judge you because you’re Black. I was in this space and I wanted to talk about how the racial war I l have lived in the past year has affected me- but I couldn’t, because I was fearful if she could actually put her biases aside and tend to me or if she was going to make excuses for what was going on. I just found that I didn’t want to deal with that.
When you do your own work, talking about these topics, does it ever make you fearful that you don’t know who is receiving these messages and the outcome of that? Because I’m thinking, you with the therapist and not being sure of sharing that message with them, how will they receive it and then we transfer it to a larger scale and it’s social media where white people will see this, non-black people of color seeing this…do you ever fear that?
Oh, 100%! Dani, whenever I post an episode, I have an internal dialogue with myself. It’s like, ‘ok, I’m putting this episode out, I said XYZ about myself that I’ve never said before,’ then I take it a step further and say, this is a platform- an open platform- that anyone has access to. My friends can see this, I don’t know where this is going, and then I think about, ‘ok, if I say that, white people are XYZ, I don’t know the repercussion of what could happen'. That sometimes deters me from posting, because I think so far ahead of what could happen or what people could say. You know, cancel culture is a very big thing as well, and I guess somebody could get a hold of my videos and twist things around…it’s a very big fear. Sometimes I’ll put my audio in the software I use and close my eyes and I upload it and walk away. That’s how I have to deal with it.
Then there's the fear of not being heard at all. I started my podcast in 2019. I’ve struggled with it the last 3 months, because I felt like everything I was saying was going nowhere, like I was publishing it and nothing. I don’t want to say public validation is something I need to continue my work, but just knowing people are listening, that’s what I wanted. I really had to get over that fear in 2021. My end goal is I want to provide spaces for Afro-Caribbean and Carribbean BIPOC to heal; inclusive spaces to heal, so LGBTQ+ community as well.
Anytime I have that fear of this is just me in the void, I have to remind myself that… this is a small picture of the grander scheme of things that I want to do. So, because I have a strong why, every time I’m facing that ‘oh, I want to avoid this,’ I have to remind myself that why.
I also think of my inner child as well. I was 13 when I first considered killing myself. If I knew there was one person who looked like me, sounded like me and embodied what I was talking about now, it would’ve saved me. Knowing that, I want to be that for somebody else.
How do you feel spirituality intersects with your healing and with the work you do for your platform?
It’s so crazy because growing up I was raised Christian. Very White Jesus complex kind of thing. As I grew older, my brothers ex-girlfriend, probably when I was 12-something, I went to her house and her parents had a picture of a Black Jesus. I think from that moment, I realized there was more out there than what I was learning in school. That was my first step into discovering other things.
When I was in undergrad, my whole four years I was learning about Buddhism. For me, how my mental health and spirituality come together, I use a majority of Buddhist teachings. For instance, understanding there is no self and with that knowledge of no self, it helps us navigate this space of mental health and things that happen to us. It is easier to…not push it to the side…
I’m going to use this analogy: There’s this body you are in, and you have trauma coming to you everyday. But instead of you holding on to that and letting that be who you are, it slips off. That’s what I think about the teaching of there’s no self in mental health; yes, things happen to me, but it’s easy for it to fall off because it isn’t actually a part of me.
I haven’t been super open about what I believe in, because of course, Christianity is the main thing at home. Don’t get me wrong, I believe there’s a God, of course. But the ways in which I learned that, I don’t really identify with anymore. I’m not sure of the path I’m going down now. I want to be able to explore different things before I say, this is what I believe in. So right now for me, that’s Buddhism, and who knows, maybe I will come back to that idea of Christianity's God, but right now it’s me exploring what I believe in. I don’t know if this will touch my community, I’ve never heard an Afro-Caribbean talk about Buddhism before, I’ve never heard that before. So I do kind of keep it to myself for the most part.
Do you feel like sometimes your religious background has held you back spiritually?
100%. They think there’s no other God but their God. When I talk to my aunts and uncles, that’s all they will acknowledge. You could be like, ‘oh, have you read the Quran?’ and they’re like, 'you mean the Bible?' There’s no room for exploration. When you do explore and talk about different things, it’s always like this shutdown or judgement…”How can you not believe in God” and “How can you do this or that.” I definitely think that’s something that held me back, which I hate.
Like when you think about authenticity, everyone wants to be authentic, 100% yourself, because when you’re 100% yourself, it makes it easier for other people to find refuge in you or parts of you. So if I’m not able to walk 100% myself, sometimes I think not only for myself but for other people who I might want to touch, I’m kind of not giving them the opportunity to find someone like them. That’s one of the things that weigh heavy on me, is that if I’m not 100% walking in who I want to be, someone else might be struggling with the same exact thing I’m struggling with. But because I have this fear of me being ostracized by family or being the talk of the town, I’m holding back the opportunity for me to connect with that person. As human beings, we thrive with connections, so yeah, fear of being ostracized by family members has held me back in terms of spirituality.
I think anything outside of Christianity immediately opens up this whole realm of, ‘Oh, you have to be crazy, because if you don’t believe in God…’, you know?
Do you think most of your healing has come from outside of religion, and more so from spirituality?
Yes, 100%. Whether I want to call it God or Buddha or whoever it may be, I know there’s something greater than me and to understand that helps me detach and divorce from my problems, if that makes sense. Knowing that there’s something or someone up there who’s hearing what I’m saying, hearing my crying, my tears, my problems… it’s easier for me to be like, ok, you’re not in this alone. It’s easier for me to have faith that everything is going to be alright.
I have a relationship with God outside the realm of religion. For me, religion is this man-made thing, whereas God is the direct source. So if I want something, I wouldn’t necessarily go to religion because religion was touched by man, and man can manipulate this thing. So instead of going to religion, it’s like, let me have a conversation with God, let me have this moment to reflect with God. I found refuge in spirituality outside of religion.
All of us have different tools for understanding spirituality, sharing those messages and using it in our everyday lives. I just want to know, what’s your tool, for when it comes to spirituality and healing? What is it that you use for yourself and what do you use to help others in your community?
Hmm.. I don’t know if therapy is considered a tool. The thing is, I’ve never fully touched on spirituality as a tool…I’ve never thought about it.
I think a lot of the topics you talk about are inherently spiritual, because they have to do with inner healing. For me, I would be interested in knowing, what do you consider as your tool, or your gift, when sharing these messages about healing?
Definitely introspection. There’s this thing a professor once taught me; the same way how we understand the universe, the universe looks at us. So when I think about spirituality, I think about the universe outside, yes, but also the universe inside of me. There’s things that I need to expose inside of myself, like inner child healing or asking myself questions about authenticity.
I’ve never really thought about it before, but I know it has to do with asking myself questions. That’s my biggest thing; understanding there’s more within me to explore and understand, especially when I do episodes talking to other people.
Like, when I was talking to Eva about suicide ideation, with my friend Rebecca it was authenticity, with my cousin it was identity. Those are all topics that not only I saw they were interested in, but that I also needed answers for. So, this weird... niche space, is just me asking myself questions, and understanding there’s more inside of me that I need to uncover.
This is big for me especially, because I have a big memory gap from the age of 15, 16. So, a lot of these questions are meant to help me mend into pieces things I can’t remember on my own. Every time I have a conversation with someone, it always ends with “oh, I didn’t look at it that way,” or “oh, I didn’t remember that before,” so definitely it helps me to question things.
Do you ever get frustrated or scared knowing this inner work on yourself never ends?
100% yes. I think recently you posted something about shadow work, and I remember from beginning of 2020, I journaled the entire year. I realized as the months were going by, I was getting more fearful of writing in my journal! I was scared of what was going to come up or what I was going to uncover, because my journal was completely freehand writing. No prompts, I just let my thoughts go wherever they go and then I write it down.
As the months went along, more trauma was coming up. I was like, I don’t even want to do this anymore, I’d rather just let life happen! But then I realized about a month ago that things were too heavy. I had family that had passed away, I had been thinking so much about that. Having that weight on me, I realized I needed some way to release that, and the only way to release that is to ask myself those hard questions.
Why do you have an unhealthy obsession with death? Why is it that you’re triggered by money? Why is it that when somebody gets you angry, you just kind of sit down and not talk and shut yourself out? These are the things I’ve been asking myself recently and the only way for me to be able to get those things out is through writing. Conversations like these help, but conversations can only go so far because it’s kinda scary to say some of these things in public. Sometimes not even in public, sometimes to yourself.
Your past behaviors can predict your future or present behaviors, so if you’re thinking to yourself, 'oh it happened 10 years ago, I’m fine. I forgot it'- no you didn’t forget about it. Your body holds all that. Your body holds trauma, even if your head doesn’t. I forgot a lot about my past, but my body would have knee jerk reactions to things and then I’m like oh shit, this needs to be dealt with, because I still feel the way I feel right now because of what’s stored in my body.
This pushes me more into facing myself and doing the work I need to do in order to have a healthy relationship with myself and with other people, because you know, your relationship to yourself is going to be a reflection of your relationships with other people as well.
What are some things you’ve learned about yourself from your inner child healing and shadow work?
That sometimes people aren’t privileged to know your truth or to know who you 100% are yourself. That’s ok to a certain extent. I was doing a podcast with a friend and he was saying, you need to have a healthy intra boundaries- things that you keep to yourself that will help your relationships.
I was like, oh wow! I had guilt around me hiding certain parts of myself, but when he said that, I was like maybe it's not guilt, but maybe it is me developing healthy boundaries for myself so that I don’t have to be faced with shame or fear or judgement.
Another thing: it’s ok to be 100% truthful with yourself. A lot of the shame I had, wasn’t my own shame. It was shame that other people- society- had given me. It’s ok to be authentic with myself and explore what I’m interested in and not letting other people have a say in what I’m exploring.
I also learned that everybody is going through something, whether you see it or not. Like when I posted about my endometriosis, everybody was like, oh my God Hanifah, this is what you go through!!! And I see how people reacted to that, and I wonder how I’m treating other people. We’re all human, we all have things we’re going through at the current moment and we need to be kinder to other people.
You’ve mentioned the word authenticity a lot. What is it like having to show up on social media as a certain version of yourself?
That is such a good question. For me, when I was first doing this in 2019, I was like Hanifah, you need to have all the facts in case anyone wants to rebuke anything you say and you can prove them wrong. So before I would even post a video, I would do research on everything I said. But then I realized, this is causing me sooo much stress and anxiety because I’m trying to be this…thing that I’m not..yet. Or trying to be a professional when in reality I’m just a person who is having these lived experiences and talking about them.
When I shifted my mindset from I have to be perfect all the time to I’m human, the conversations I’m having are human conversations, I think that’s what relieved a lot of stress. I’m not striving for perfection, I’m striving for real conversations. People want spaces to talk, people want to be heard and seen. I want to authentically hold spaces for people to come in and just leave their mask at the door, just come and be who they want to be.
What’s the direction you want to take here on out? What can we expect from you?
I really would want a radio show at my school, to do the same thing I do on IG. My biggest dream is to have a nonprofit organization where the whole mission is to have healing spaces so people can come and just talk, talk about the things troubling them or things on their heart, and see that it’s a human thing that we are all going through and there’s always going to be somebody else going through it too.
I’m definitely also going to open up a private practice after I finish school. So those are all the things I’m striving for. And a Ted Talk! Cus I love Ted Talks.
You can catch Hanifah talking about mental health on her podcast, Behind Closed Doors- available on Spotify and Apple, or catch her amazing lives on her IG, @hakneefahg