Millions of boys are raised to view vulnerability as a sign of weakness.
Charlamagne Tha God, speaking with the New York Times national politics reporter Astead Herndon at the Well Festival on Wednesday, had a message for the people who were raised like that: Throw out that way of thinking.
Charlamagne, who was born Lenard McKelvey and is best known as a host of the popular radio show “The Breakfast Club,” has become outspoken about his experiences with depression and anxiety.
He said one of the most effective ways he had found to cope was meditation. Another is simple: He goes out to his lawn, takes his shoes off and walks through the grass.
“People say that as a joke, like, ‘Man, go touch grass,’” he said. “Go touch grass! And watch what happens.”
It hasn’t been easy to be open, he said, but it has been worth it. Sometimes, he added, strangers approach him to say that because he talked about going to therapy, their husband or brother decided to do the same.
That led to a realization, he said, that “when you live your truth, nobody can use your truth against you — when you live your truth, you kind of just find a tribe that gives you more strength to continue doing the work.”
Charlamagne said men, and especially Black men, did themselves and their loved ones no favors by keeping their struggles secret. The point is personal for Charlamagne. Only in 2018, when a cousin killed himself after attempting suicide several times before, did his own father tell him he had once attempted suicide.
“I remember just thinking to myself, ‘Wow, if you would have told me this years ago, then I would have known what that anxiety was I was experiencing. I would have known what those bouts of depression was I was experiencing,’” he said. “And I remember asking my mom, I said, ‘Yo, you know Dad was going through all of this?’ And she said to me, ‘Yeah, I thought he was just playing crazy to get a check.’”
“My point is,” he continued, “there’s no need for any of us to keep secrets from each other. If we was to tell each other what it is that we’re going through — and even better, the things that we did to get through what we was going through — we would all do ourselves a big favor.”
Maggie Astor covers the intersection of health and politics for The Times.
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