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Her Media Diary Episode 15: "Know when it's time to check out" with Verah Okeyo
14 Plays1 year ago
Verah Okeyo is an award-winning journalist, communications manager, and media trainer with over ten years of experience covering global health with a focus on maternal and child health, infectious diseases, and underrepresented communities.
In this episode, Verah shares her journey from her childhood to the newsroom while battling with clinical depression. She shares the strategies she developed to manage her mental health and how her lived experiences have helped shape a set of values that guides how she reports the stories of others.
Verah’s story embodies strength, survival, and courage. She calls on journalists and media practitioners to first know when it’s time to check out and, secondly, to show empathy when writing stories of victims and survivors, even if they fall outside the box of our notions of who a perfect victim should be.
Subscribe to Her Media Diary now on your favourite podcasting platform https://linktr.ee/hermediadiary
Learn about African Women in Media https://africanwomeninmedia.com
List of organisations for support with your mental health
Africa mental health research and training foundation
National Institute of Mental Health
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Transcript
Introduction & Challenges in Journalism
00:00:00
Speaker
I knew if I'd shared about my depression earlier before the newsroom on top of being a woman and in that very masculine field and then you say wow I have depression normally when you say oh my god I'm going on maternity leave people like man you took this thing about procreating and feeling the world too seriously you know such kind of comments and it's it's it's not just comments there are comments and then it will also affect the kind of serious assignments that you are given.
Meet the Host and Guest
00:00:32
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of Her Media Diary, a podcast that captures the lived experiences of African women working in media industries. I am Dr. Yamasi Akimbo Bola, and today I'm joined by Vera Keo, a communications manager, journalism instructor, media trainer, and science journalist.
Vera's Mental Health Journey
00:00:51
Speaker
with over 10 years experience in journalism. In this episode, Vera shares her experience with mental health and how she developed coping mechanisms and a philosophy that guides her journalism practice.
00:01:05
Speaker
Vera, thank you so much for doing this interview. I think you and I have been friends for quite a while now. I want to say like four years or so that we've been friends around that.
Rural Upbringing and Influences
00:01:15
Speaker
And obviously in that time we've gotten to know each other quite well. I know a lot about your childhood and
00:01:23
Speaker
various episodes of your life and you shared some very intimate details about that with me. And in this podcast, I like to kind of go way back and show you've listened to a few episodes. So I think it's really important that context because our histories often shape our future. That's part of the circle of life, right? So V, I want to know, you know,
00:01:44
Speaker
way back the early childhood. What's first memories? Wow, what's first memories? First of all, I'm a rural girl. I grew up in rural areas and a huge chunk of my childhood was spent inside a national park, Hell's Gate National Park. The flower farm my father worked for share agencies. That time it was share agencies. It used to be the largest
00:02:07
Speaker
fresh cut roses, supplier. So anytime I remember that, my childhood, I remember nature. I remember being a very curious child and experimenting and all that. Okay. So, but growing up, what was that like for you? So that's what my childhood was, just like really exploring art, spirituality,
00:02:34
Speaker
A little of religion influenced my life, because I learned most of my craft. I play some musical instruments. I love music. And I learned most of that in church, because I loved to see, is there something beyond the now?
Perceptions and Spiritual Influence
00:02:50
Speaker
Is there another dimension to the world we are living in right now? I don't say I believe in aliens, because every time people say another dimension, they're like, oh, my God, she's starting to lose it. So... No.
00:03:04
Speaker
No judgements. I mean, we've got to, I guess, part of life is questioned in our existence, right? I think it'll be kind of arrogant for human nature to, for humans to assume that we're the only ones here. So I think it's a perfectly valid, you know, approach to seeing the world, right?
00:03:20
Speaker
Absolutely. So, yeah, that was me. And I unfortunately have not left those tendencies. As far as I'm concerned, they have even intensified. But because of those things, my age mates would see me. What a weird child. You've spoken about your dad a couple of times. Tell me more about him. Oh, my father. My father, the kind of person that he was, the kind of things I expect from people now that I'm an adult. I'm like, you know what, no man or
00:03:46
Speaker
no male person is ever going to be your father. So these days I've turned it down a little bit. My father was also like me. He loved art and he was different because my mom was the ambitious go-getter kind of person who was very rational.
00:04:01
Speaker
My father was very spiritual. He believed in karma. He believed in what you put out in the world. We'll come back to you.
Loss and Life Challenges
00:04:08
Speaker
And he taught me that. So my father encouraged me to be very curious because he wasn't a disciplinarian. Not that he was a pushover. He was a heavily built, tall looking man.
00:04:21
Speaker
The pictures I have of him and my mother, I used to look at him like, what an odd couple, like he was such a giant and she was so tiny. I cannot even read it. So my dad was like a gentle giant and he loved martial arts, he loved music, he played the guitar. He was a community-focused person and
00:04:43
Speaker
of course also spiritual someone who always believed an explanation like he believed in science like his wife was a nurse and those days my mother had a master's um and in a village where women are not so educated so my mother my father believed in science but also he believed the other explanations for things and that's kind of like how
00:05:04
Speaker
he influenced me to pursue other things. And most importantly, my dad was a man of, you know, the traditional things about honor, generosity. He lived by those things and he always said,
00:05:19
Speaker
do that and be that and you you won't have to worry about every other thing you just say you don't you don't need bodyguards if you if you're a good person to your neighbors nobody will feel the need to steal from you so he never used to he was not a material person my mother was a total opposite he was like go look for your coins man but my dad was like um be kind be healthy go
00:05:44
Speaker
eat well and the rest will take care of itself. So I'm a bit
Abuse and Solace in Arts
00:05:48
Speaker
of a balance of, should I say, capitalism and socialism? I want to highlight that we're speaking about your parents in past tense, right? Because you lost your parents at a young age. Tell us about that. Yeah, I lost both of my, my mum and my dad was apart. Like, I'm not, what, a month apart. My mum died in January 20th and my father died on January
00:06:10
Speaker
February 20th. I think my mom died because she was six. And then I think my dad died because of a heartbreak because my father wasn't sick. He just, when my mother died, he would just, you know, carry his seat. Every time I talk about it, I feel so sorry for my father because I think without my mother, he couldn't, he didn't see the need to leave anymore. So he would carry his chair and go sit by the grave and just, you know, stay there the whole day and
00:06:41
Speaker
He wouldn't eat. And so I think because of that, of the heartbreak, he died. Nowadays, I'm comfortable talking about it. My parents died of HIV. And it was so bizarre because my mother had been a champion for people to get care. But I think at that time, 2004, I don't think the ARVs, the anti-retroviral medicine that we use right now was very,
00:07:11
Speaker
friendly, so to speak, you know, they were toxic, they were exhausting and on top of that expensive. So I think they resigned. I remember them resigning. I was informed one at that time they resigned and they came home and, you know, started putting their affairs in order. I think they decided to reach a certain point and then start to stop taking their medication and
00:07:34
Speaker
My mother being a nurse knew what was going to happen after that, like they would die. So they constructed a home for us and told my elder sister and my elder brother, my parents were like, we have this property here, we have this property there, which wasn't important because after they died, my relatives kind of like took everything and we found ourselves homeless again. So,
00:08:04
Speaker
But it was a very difficult time because I was in, I had to drop out of school and I wanted to stay with relatives. Except secondary school. Yeah, secondary school from two and I was in my dream school at that time and my mom, when I went to form one she paid school fees for the whole year so I never worried about school fees and then after that
00:08:27
Speaker
I think the people she had left, they had left the money to look after us.
Living with Depression
00:08:34
Speaker
They didn't see the need to do that. So I was out of school for, I think a whole three times, like two times, I wasn't in school and I was living with relatives moving from this home to another. And then my head mistress is the one who felt like, no, she started looking for me, like when I was in for months, she started looking for me.
00:08:57
Speaker
and Kim called my relatives because that was information we used to leave on the admission book and I had to come back to school and finish my school in a convent so throughout my teenage I lived in a convent and that was fun because there was Catholic convents have huge libraries and I like books so that was it was a sad part of my life but
00:09:25
Speaker
It shaped how I think about children, how I think about vulnerable people, because I never used to think human beings could be that bad. Like I used to think, you can't possibly do that to another human being. But during that time when my parents died, that's when I came face to face and experience abuse of all sorts.
00:09:56
Speaker
physical, sexual. I really went through a lot during that time. I don't even know what was. I think, thank God for my art, my love for music, my love for writing. I think it's called Fantasia in Psychology. You can create a world of your own that is very different from what's happening around you. So for me,
00:10:25
Speaker
People always ask me, how can you sit down in a club like I could be with my friends? They are making noise and I could just be there feeling calm, smiling about something because I'm totally zoned out. I am in my own. So during that period of time, why it not for books and music and all my multiple interests? I don't think I would have gone to it. I think I would have lost my mind or something, but it
00:10:54
Speaker
Maybe I can just go back a little bit to my childhood. My childhood was also not so nice. I think the beginning of the worst things I saw about humankind was also during my childhood. My mom, now as an adult, I admire her tenacity, but
00:11:17
Speaker
I don't think, I'm gonna put it mildly, I don't think she liked me very much. And my first experiences of just abuse were in her hand. She could beat me just because she feels like she wants to beat someone. And I'm very dark skinned and my mom, if you've seen people from Madagascar, seashells, that's how she looked like. And then I came out dark.
00:11:46
Speaker
And then when she gave back to me, she got this scholarship to go back to school. She was Tanzanian, Maritouken, and she went back to school. And I think the influence of, because it came from very different worlds, the influence that my father had on me and my father's side of the family, which was a bit more modest, my mother came from a slightly wealthy family. When she came back into my life, I think when I was around seven,
00:12:15
Speaker
I was a totally different child and I wasn't enthusiastic about the things that she was enthusiastic about. So my sister, my elder sister who grew up with my mom throughout was, you know, how do you call that? You know, like the Southern bells, let's have tea.
00:12:36
Speaker
at three o'clock in the morning, those tiny pumps kind of women. That was my sister and I'm like, yeah, let's go ride horses and play in the mud. So my mother was like, what a strange child. Oh my God, what a tomboy. So trying to
00:12:56
Speaker
make me, and she was a perfectionist, a type A type of personality who wanted nothing but perfection. So you've kind of shared with us a very kind of heroin experience to have at a very young age. And I think around, was it around 2006, you were diagnosed with clinical depression. So tell us about that. So obviously, to some level, I feel like
00:13:25
Speaker
You know, in life you have to take, they're good and they're bad. So in my myth that is now, people look at me and they tell me, oh my God, you can do so many things. I make most of my dresses on a sewing machine. Nowadays I just don't have time, but I can do that. I can play some instruments, I can design, I can paint. And people tell me,
00:13:53
Speaker
I wish I could do all those things. And sometimes I really want to tell them, no, you don't because how I learned my gift was not like, yeah, let's go sit in a class and do all that. It was through some very harrowing experiences. So my gifts came from my very bad childhood and I know
00:14:20
Speaker
to some level, even my depression, like I was, I think 19 when I got to my diagnosis.
Newsroom Culture and Mental Health
00:14:28
Speaker
And I, I just finished high school and I was still living in the convent. I'm just about to get out and I'd finished my national exams and I want to get out and go and you know, start living my life. But
00:14:48
Speaker
At that time, I didn't believe it. I was like, depression, because at that time, like, you know, in high school, and they tell you, oh my God, he was depressed. You hear that statement after someone has taken their lives, or, you know, these people who lose it, and then they kill the entire family, and then the next explanation you hear is they had depression. And I'm like, I would never do that. Like me, kill myself, what the hell, hell no.
00:15:18
Speaker
So there was a stereotyping kind of media and stuff that you were consuming that kind of helps you think, yeah, you know, well, think differently about what actually what clinical depression was, was actually is actually is right. I was like, you cannot I am not depressed. And at that time, I went home. And I remember
00:15:39
Speaker
My godmother at that time was there. She was a principal at the school I was in and a nun, sister mother. And I was like, can you imagine that doctor? I'll not even say that doctor because I was so rude to him and I don't want him to remember me. I don't even know which medical school he went to. He said, I'm depressed. What do you mean I'm depressed? And at that time now, looking back, I was like, I never used to sleep.
00:16:09
Speaker
And I used to have these moments of extreme, like I don't call it a zone out. And this is the struggle I have when I want to describe how people feel like when they're depressed. Some people ask, so do you feel any sort of pain? I used to remember when I would not even be interested in eating, like getting out of bed was just hard.
00:16:39
Speaker
And I would drag myself out and I'm like, there were days I couldn't do it. Like I could say for three, four days, there's no urge to eat. And you know, if you live in the convent with the nuns, they're always very kind, generous people. They would bring you cookies and muffins. I don't feel like I remember those kind of episodes. And sometimes I would also not sleep at all. Like 24 hours, I'm just there. Yeah, no sleep at all.
00:17:05
Speaker
And then there are these. And this is all in your teens. Yeah, in my teens. I started experiencing these things, but I was like, you know what, maybe I'm just stressed. Because the high school I was in, at that time in Kenya was one of the best performing high school, so there was the pressure to perform. And I was just like, it's just the stress, you know, it's just the stress of worrying about it. But now that I look back, those were the cases of me starting to manifest, you know,
Advocacy and Journalism
00:17:34
Speaker
as we call it MDD, major depressive disorder of not being able to sleep, to eat, and sometimes not having the urge at all. And actually, I never sought care, by the way. I never took that diagnosis seriously.
00:17:52
Speaker
I went on with my life and of course, being around religious people, it was always like, you know, you gotta pray, you gotta fast, you gotta do. It's because you're detached from God. Did you skip reading the Bible like once? It could be that. So I was like, anytime I would feel like that, I would like, okay, now it's time to go back to God.
00:18:14
Speaker
Anyway, never used to work, but when it was finally over, like finally it has worked. So that's the time I got my first MDD depression diagnosis in 2005. I never mentioned it to anyone, 2006. I never mentioned it to anyone because I thought that was ridiculous. And then I got a second diagnosis in 2011 when I was in campus. Now, five years later and now the signs are
00:18:44
Speaker
You know, I'm having, I'm having, when I'm having episodes there now, TV and I could be zoned out for months, weeks. I don't even know how I went through campus. My classmates never used to see me in class and nowadays they joke about it and they say, oh, but you used to have multiple businesses. You, you are just busy, busy, busy, busy. So, but I'm like, those, some of those days I was, yeah, Missy, I was never even able to, I was just out of it. Let me just say that I was just,
00:19:13
Speaker
out of it and then on top of that is that yeah go on I was gonna say it sounds like you're very much dealing with all of it on your own was there any kind of support and you mentioned your grandmother there as well
00:19:27
Speaker
So were you with her this time? What was the kind of support available to you? So it's my, I call her my godmother, godgodmother, not grandmother, because I also have to say that that time I was very bitter with life. You know, I, as much as my childhood was very bad, I never at one point found myself with no roof over my head, you know, then suddenly my relatives, they took everything my parents had worked hard for. So I didn't even have a home.
00:19:52
Speaker
I hadn't seen my siblings because when we were chased out from our home in 2004, my siblings each wanted to look for a place they could stay. My sister went, got married, and that went totally sad. She eventually died in 2014, our HIV again. And I never saw my siblings for sale. I never saw them because I didn't know where they were. I mean, we would call each other whenever they would get a phone, but it was such a difficult
00:20:17
Speaker
period of in my life and and then I assumed you know what everybody's going through it and then on top of it I'm also not the kind of person who is very good at asking for help I feel like I should just handle my stuff on my own and that's not a good thing so I didn't see the need to talk about it like I was like
00:20:40
Speaker
So where do I even start? OK, now I don't have parents. So if I ask for help, I'm going to ask for what? Can you be my mom or my dad? So I was just like, well, this is part of life. I'll go through it. I'll find what I'll find out. And then sometimes, Amy, you don't have time to, like, really moan because there are things to be done. I have to take care of myself. I have to get food. As a girl, you need sanitary towels. I have to work.
00:21:09
Speaker
You know what I mean? I had to work immediately after high school. I started working. Even during the long holidays, you know, when we closed school, I had to work, I had to be a house help, I had to be cleaning people's homes, to find pocket money, to find things I could buy for myself. You know, when school's open, there was no time for feeling pity for myself. So the thing about depression that was coming, like depression,
00:21:39
Speaker
Well, we'll worry about that later. And then in 2011, when I actually knew I had to go get help, I didn't have the resources. I didn't have the money. It was going to cost me a lot. I didn't have the resources to go seek help.
00:21:58
Speaker
You'd go to the public hospital and they would give you the basic, because anti-psychotropics, they work in combination. If you're given one drug, you're given another one to counteract the effects of this other one. And then you've got to go for therapy. And seeing psychiatrists are not psychologists. They have to do
00:22:19
Speaker
They have to treat you physically to see whatever it is that
Creative Pursuits and Resilience
00:22:23
Speaker
you're feeling. If you're feeling like you are in a low mood, it could be the thyroid. So they have to test that. Is it a thyroid? Sorry, I didn't have the money for that. So the care that I got for my depression at that time was really basic to non-existence, so to speak.
00:22:45
Speaker
I, that period of my life also influenced how, when I came to the newsroom, mental health became a very, I have a lot of respect, first of all, and compassion for people who go through mental health challenges because, first of all, nobody understands. During that period of time, people labeled me weird, spooky,
00:23:07
Speaker
No, people label you names and you can't sit there and explain to them what depression is because they'll still not get it. They will still not get it. So I decided, you know what, Shovet, if you're not in my cycle, that's fine. Even up to date, there's still some classmates of mine who still think, what a weird human being, just because I wasn't able to,
Empathetic Storytelling
00:23:34
Speaker
When they're calling for parties, I wasn't able to show up. Or even if I showed up, I wasn't as enthusiastic because I literally did not have the energy even to smile. Like, I know someone who suffers from depression will understand that. Like, I would have episodes where if you say hello to me, saying it back was,
00:23:59
Speaker
It was effort. It was real effort. And sometimes I would push myself, you know what, let me just leave the house and go out and be a normal college going student. And I would show up there and I would still look like I'm out of place. People are like, why would you show up to a party? You're not even socializing. So eventually I just decided I am never going out. And that is still my personality.
00:24:28
Speaker
And would you attribute other people's reactions to your base? I guess we can attribute other people's reactions to your base on a lack of understanding and also stereotyping and media portrayal of mental health. In Nigeria,
Future Projects and Advocacy
00:24:48
Speaker
I know
00:24:49
Speaker
you know, and how those things are portrayed in media, in film, and you know, those kind of things. And the social kind of constructs of mental health is not very, very positive, positive noise that we help, that you kind of like shunned separately from society. So I, you know,
00:25:10
Speaker
And you mentioned there yourself that even when you got the diagnosis, you kind of attributed, well, no, it's certain kind of people that have this and not me. But also you mentioned there about the newsroom and your empathy for people with mental health because you are an award-winning global health reporter and editor, right?
00:25:35
Speaker
Let's start with, I want to get to the point to understand how this history you shared with us shaped the kind of journalism that you do and how you do it. But how did you get into, how did you find yourself in the newsroom? Oh, wow. That's a long journey. First of all, when I wanted to get my career, at first, right from my young age, of course, my mother, even despite her influences, was always a very
00:26:06
Speaker
I think from my point of view, it was always a rational. So during my childhood, she was a bit of a jackal and hide, like the good sides. She really fought for women and girls. My mom, I remember times in that tiny, tiny little frame, like she would go, she was a midwife. So she believed, you know, after in the village, she would split her time between the city where we lived in the village, my hometown and
00:26:36
Speaker
should see. If this woman doesn't deliver in the hospital, they will certainly die. They need an operation or something. And I remember her coming with cops, you know, to raid her home because the woman is almost due and the husband would not allow them to go to the hospital or because they are fearing they will be given family planning and be turned into prostitutes. You know, those days there used to be such funny, funny things.
00:27:05
Speaker
So I remember my mother really being, she took her work as a midwife very seriously, and her focus was always on the most, the far-flung parts of Nyanza, which is on the South part of country where we hail from as lures, the lure trade. So that and my dad, that thing about social justice was always there within me. So I thought, hmm, let me become a lawyer.
00:27:34
Speaker
into high school, I'm like, wait a minute, this is the process of how judgment and the law is made. Like, this is such a long time, my God. I don't think I have time for this kind of thing. Then I thought I could be a nurse, like my mom, because even today, there are people who are named after her because women decided, you know what, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have delivered this child. So even though I must say, I'm naming this child after Lou, you know,
00:28:03
Speaker
So I got that, then I wanted something that could allow me to deliver on justice fast. So when I came to the newsroom, I came into the newsroom as a cameraman. And then later I'm like, hmm, I don't get to shape the way these stories are told behind the lenses. So I switched.
00:28:26
Speaker
Even though I'm changing broadcast journalism, I was like, they cut the entire story to like, what I sound bite. So I moved to print where I could give people nuances and follow stories without people asking me or being on this thing for too long. I found my space within print journalism to where, you know, you could
00:28:49
Speaker
write echoes and echoes about issues and follow them for months and people would not, the editor would not like, I'm tired of that story. Like in the newspaper, that is what they keep on doing. So that's the need to fight for people like me. I'm not saying I've suffered the worst horrible kind of things, but I know what it feels like to be, first of all, a girl, to be African, to be orphaned.
00:29:18
Speaker
and to come from a family whose name doesn't mean anything, you know, okay or name, maybe from my generation it will start meaning something, but if you say okay or it doesn't make any sense, and that is kind of like some of the way, the respect you kind of get when you are in this country, the country that I live in, I don't know about other countries, but I suppose it's not different in Africa, like if you are just,
00:29:46
Speaker
People see young girls and they see orphans and things to be exploited. Like looking back at my childhood, I remember going for baza reforms from the government to get school fees. And I remember fighting with a counselor, you know, like he was actually going for for him. And I would leave that place and I would go and tell someone, you know what, that guy almost did this to me. Look at all these scratches on my neck.
00:30:14
Speaker
And people would just say, you're creating stories. You are creating stories. So that something became normal for me. I see it. I see the way people use domestic house help, because I was a domestic house help. Even right now, I see it. When you don't have money and you're vulnerable, I mean, you don't have money and you're educated. You don't have parents.
00:30:45
Speaker
It puts you at a very vulnerable position. And there is not enough that you can tell women, oh, don't travel at night, or don't do this. There's nothing that you can protect yourself under such conditions because you will always be a target. And when an injustice has been done for you, when you go to the authorities and seek for help, nobody will believe you. Nobody will see you.
00:31:16
Speaker
Even if you die, nobody will see it as something worth investigating. Because as far as they're concerned, you're insignificant. So that is what really pushed me to come to journalism. And that is why I don't separate my work with the values that I live in. I believe we shouldn't give everybody a yacht. Nobody should be Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk.
00:31:46
Speaker
But if we are in a river, some people can have a yacht, but some people can have a boat. No one needs to drown. No body needs to be, you can eat your five-star, I mean, five-course meal, but the other person, even if it's just a basic meal or rice and beans, people should eat. So for me, that's how I see life. That's how I see it. And that's how I approach my work with journalism. I used to pursue, and I took global health because that's where I saw
00:32:18
Speaker
growing up, that's why I saw the biggest injustices. Like my mom, her salary, because she wasn't so needy, I remember her, you know, going to this hospital, borrowing vaccines here, can I borrow? And then she would go to some places, like I remember some places called, it's called Guasites. The road there is, the road is bad, but
00:32:46
Speaker
you know, that time polio was such a huge thing in Kenya. And I remember my mother going there and taking vaccines to people who are, they've never been vaccinated, basically. So even that just thing, like a vial of vaccines, it didn't matter. Like it didn't matter that there are children over there and they needed those vaccines. So that is how I,
00:33:10
Speaker
lead my life, and I run a few businesses right now, and that is how the people who work for me, that is how I teach them, because I saw between, let me say this from my childhood, say my mid-20s, I saw the worst of humankind and how, when you are, as I said, a woman, African,
00:33:41
Speaker
if the other factors are making you more vulnerable, often it's worse even if you're disabled, if you have disability there, like if your person live with disabilities, even worse, because you can see people who take advantage of, you know, the psychotic people on the streets, like they're human beings, but you can see people rape them and they get them pregnant. And when they go to the police, people will even laugh, like, is this a story you're cooking up?
00:34:11
Speaker
even if they have injuries, people will laugh at them. So that's what brought me to the news, humanity. It shapes my personal experiences. And I cannot say I was so vulnerable because I am educated right now. And before my parents died, let me say, even though I lived in a rural area, I never saw CVGs, I never lived in a dirty place, I never. So I knew a bit of, let me say I was a little privileged.
00:34:39
Speaker
despite the abuse, it happened within privilege. So I can see how some people would be denied. So I considered myself not so much disadvantaged as I looked at people like if they were in my situation, but they don't have an education.
00:35:02
Speaker
They don't know whether this is, you know, some, some of those things may happen to people and they don't even know it's wrong. Like how self, how self who the owner of the house rips them again and again and again, and they don't even know it's wrong. Yeah. It's been normalized. Yeah. So that's, that's how I came to the newsroom.
00:35:27
Speaker
So you're in a position where you have lived experiences that kind of guide your values and your ethos in your journalism to ensure that the issue of representation of people with mental health and other health-related, and you particularly have a love for science journalism, right? So in that kind of quality and adequate reporting of those issues. But then at the same time, you yourself having
00:35:53
Speaker
mental health issues to contend with whilst reporting on other people's vulnerabilities and issues. So how did you navigate that? And I want to point out that you wrote a post on LinkedIn in October 2022. And I remember as soon as I saw that post, obviously I knew part of the story, but as soon as I saw that post, I texted you, WhatsApp you didn't know, I was like, I saw your post on LinkedIn, you know. And in that post you said,
00:36:23
Speaker
He said, I was selective of who I told. I was unwell because telling an ignorant person you have clinical depression can really make your life hard at work. And then in relation to
00:36:38
Speaker
kind of, you know, the wider impact on your actual practice. She said you could be passed over for promotions or given certain assignments because of a belief you'll not handle the tough ones. They could generally mean well. But journalism is a cutthroat field that also exposes people to situations that could exacerbate mental illness. So tell us how you've navigated both sides of the coin.
00:37:03
Speaker
Oh, yeah. So I did get my diagnosis very, very under the wraps. And in the newsroom when I finally came out, I actually talked about, oh, I am depressed in 2019, just at the beginning of the pandemic. I left the newsroom for a little bit. I came to the LSE. I came to London to do my post-grad. But also during that time, I considered that period of time
00:37:32
Speaker
to distance myself geographically from Kenya. And, you know, family can be a lot, you know, I give myself just a distance and go to other places and then come back to my life, checking back to my life again. So when I came back, I was like, you know what, I build my career at a certain point where I have no money to show for it. But I'm confident in Kenya, if you say vera okayo in my craft people,
00:38:00
Speaker
I have earned my stripes. I have done the job and I've gotten a place where people can question many things about people, not my delivery of my work. I reached a place where I knew, well, this is me. And despite everything else, all the awards and all the grants and all the
00:38:23
Speaker
innovations I've tried to bring into my work because I'm always experimenting. As I started that, I said, I'm a curious child. I'm always experimenting. So I was confident that if I talked about my depression at this time, nobody would use it against me at all. At that time, I just started getting grants for my work because I knew my employer at that time was never going to pay me the money that I felt I was worth.
00:38:51
Speaker
So I was like, well, if you fire me, I still have that money. I can just go and do. Well, they were never going to fire me because actually when I got really sick that year, it's actually a nation. They're the ones who funded my treatment and I still in a psychiatric institution for like a month and a half. So I knew they were not going to fire me, but that was a top leadership. But in between the middle level management, I knew
00:39:22
Speaker
If I'd shared about my depression earlier before, the newsroom, you have done plenty of, I mean Africa, women in media. We have done a lot of studies and a lot of writing about how it is harsh in the newsroom. And I think that is, should I say that's why I am in existence anyway.
00:39:42
Speaker
to make sure that women are making the most out of it so I knew on top of being a woman and in that very masculine field and then you say wow I have depression normally when you say oh my god I'm going on maternity leave people like man you took this thing about procreating and feeling the world too seriously you know such kind of comments and it's it's it's not just comments there are comments and then
00:40:08
Speaker
it will also affect the kind of serious assignments that you are given because you're pregnant or you're moody. We cannot run away from such things. So I knew if I'd shared that story before, it was going to derail my career a lot. So I decided to keep my battles under wraps. I don't think I ever even told anyone
00:40:37
Speaker
at my workplace that I was depressed ever until when I came back and I knew I don't care right now, like I'm at a place where I could do that. So how I navigated that is first of all, between after graduation, I think I graduated, I graduated in 2012, I was 25. I'd given myself like, I was 24, I was given myself like a period of time where
00:41:06
Speaker
I want to build my career. I don't care about money. I thought Nation, that company at that time was the best place to build that and I give my work my all, 100% of my work. And I knew because I would have those episodes on the days that I was okay, I would give my work everything, you know, deliver and have results.
00:41:31
Speaker
and success so that when I, I feel like now it's time to take a break. Nobody would say, but you know, you are such a lazy person. So the days that I needed to, I was okay. I did all my work. So first of all, is that working when you, you know, maximizing on your up moments. I did that.
00:41:54
Speaker
And number two, I took my, you know, my care seriously, but that is not just the medicine that I was being given at the hospital. It's also mental health. I love martial arts. I love riding horses. So I took time when it was Saturdays. I normally don't do anything since time immemorial. I don't watch TV. I don't eat. I don't, it's a day for
00:42:18
Speaker
It's time to take care of my body. So I go to the stables, I ride the horses, I go to the dojo with the trainer, we do the martial arts, physical exercises, unless it is something like really, really urgent Saturdays, I've always been sacred. So I create time for that because I know if I don't exercise, if I don't run, if I don't engage my creative self, like I got to go to the studio once in a while, try to remind myself
00:42:48
Speaker
how to play the instruments and be around music. I took that seriously. And one of those things is, and then number two is just mental resilience. Like this is your battle, this is your journey. Nobody has to understand it. I know it's very painful when people who suffer from mental health, they don't get the support from the closest people. I made peace with that a very long time ago.
00:43:15
Speaker
And I said, nobody has to understand this, and I don't have to explain it. And that's why I was saying I have to be very selective. And you could know that if you're someone who's suffering from mental health, you can know that when you interact with people. When you're telling them, I don't feel like going out today, like I've been going out the 10 times, the nine times, this one time, I don't feel like I go out. People who understand that,
00:43:44
Speaker
will be like, that's fine. They'll not make just out of it. They're not label your names. In my circles, there are people who were very close, but they don't know. I've had depression until I came out to share it on, I was on TV and now I'm having this podcast with you. And I posted a few things on social media because I wanted people to be okay with seeking help.
00:44:09
Speaker
There before she called me. Oh the 90 year old 30 year old. Well, I'm an old soul, but they label that because I never go out I never Sometimes I don't have the energy to do that So I feel like you know what I don't have to correct that if you feel I'm a 90 year old 30 year old That's fine. That's fine. I mean, it's not a crime. It's not a crime I can be that and it's it's good. So it's it's people were mentally ill and
00:44:38
Speaker
need to know that. And then the last thing when you're mentally ill is what you suffer from me sometimes is a lack of structure. So I had to put structure in my in my life that or even like a robot even if I wasn't okay I could do those things like I wake up at a specific time I sleep at a specific time I eat at a specific time so that one day
00:45:08
Speaker
I know it will come to a point where I am not able to think about these things. I will do these things on autopilot. So right now, at this time at 36, I could be really depressed, but I will wake up at 5 30 a.m. as usual, but I'm not a morning person, but I put it in there.
00:45:35
Speaker
I'll wake up, I'll go to the dojo, and then I'll come back, and I could go to the nitty-nitty granular granular. Those things happen because every day, that's how I live my life. So if you're mentally ill, like me, you need to structure your life that way so that you're able to do the most basic things. You're able to even bathe because
00:46:01
Speaker
There are certain episodes when you have severe major depressive disorder, you will not even be able to beg. So even that I have to put structures on those ones so that if it got to that point, I will not be found in the house thinking, you know what I mean? So that structure is very important and it varies from one person to another. So you find what works for you and then put it.
00:46:29
Speaker
So reflecting on your experiences and all that we talked about today, what advice would you give media organisations in terms of better supporting the staff who have their own mental health issues, but also in terms of reporting some of the issues around diversity?
00:46:52
Speaker
the equity and inclusion that you've talked about. So on both sides of the coin, the journalists, men and women who have mental health issues and, you know, compounding that with the pressures of being a journalist, the support for them, but also in terms of the content and reps, because in your own experience, you've got the lived experience where you also have that experience of the influence and the impact of media representation on it. So what advice would you give to organizations?
00:47:22
Speaker
Wow, that's a good question. First of all, I'd like to say people cannot be compassionate if they have never experienced that. You will always reflect journalists cannot be nice. Nice is not the word. They cannot be empathetic if the environment they work in has no empathy. So let's start from that point.
00:47:51
Speaker
I never knew there was a problem with how journalism, journalism's until I stepped out of it and then watch it from outside. And I can still see some of my colleagues were still, when I tell them those things, well, maybe they listen to me because, you know, I came into the newsroom as an intern and I don't have the ladder.
00:48:14
Speaker
So they can't say, oh my God, you don't understand, they don't understand. But there's still a lot of defensive, dispensiveness whenever you bring those things to reporters. So Newsroom should just know that if you take care of reporters, and this has got nothing to do with money, it's just if you reflect the kind of empathy on them,
00:48:39
Speaker
They'll be able to do that with people, you know? You've seen some headlines, especially where we come from, NBC. You've seen some headlines the way people report on gender-based violence, you know? Especially if the woman is perceived to be like, so this wasn't even your husband. OK, what were you doing out at night?
00:49:01
Speaker
You have to be a perfect victim somehow, by a perfect victim for us to feel outrage. You have to have been PY, you have to have been chased, you have to be now charged, go in, pass on. If you fall out of that box, the media will have no empathy and sympathy for your problems. Like you'll be attacked, troll, let's even talk about the extreme things like rape.
00:49:25
Speaker
I feel like there's a moment I think they lead lives that I wouldn't lead those lives. I'm like, wow. But that does not mean that it's okay for such a woman to be trolled online and be dehumanized, just because she has multiple sexual partners and decides to put her body out, dress skimpily, quote unquote, the crime of being living out of the boxes of what the society expect does not.
00:49:55
Speaker
allow people to do the things they do to you, doesn't allow you to be sexually assaulted, to be trolled, attacked online, or even be killed. You've seen the people being killed for their choices. So the reason why sometimes journalists cannot write of those things with empathy is because they're writing in their newsrooms. They don't experience that. They get attacked when they get pregnant, when they get sick,
00:50:24
Speaker
When they are poor, particularly for men, they cannot say, today I'm feeling downcast. I went to report about a house that collapsed and I saw small children, they are dead. I feel sad about that because I also have small kids. Nobody can allow male reporters to feel like that. They'll be treated like, I was about to say some bad word, but don't be a child. Don't be a child. You know what people say when they talk to men about that. Yeah.
00:50:50
Speaker
this idea of masculinity and you know. Yeah, like they have to be tough and strong and then just generally the environment in the newsroom. It's like military deadlines and when you don't meet those military deadlines the feedback is not giving to you in kind ways. I remember I was given a memo several times for just standing up to a bull in the newsroom
00:51:11
Speaker
Like they could clearly see that this is, this someone is coming after me for no reason, but I was, I was still giving those memos, you know? So how do you expect journalists to be fair in reporting when the way they are treated is as subhuman? So what I tell
00:51:33
Speaker
until media bosses, because they're also in that mix, as they were climbing up, that's how they were treated and they feel that is the culture. It's like, what is the thing that college students go through before they... Like some kind of induction or... Some induction, like, so everything, like you have to go through this thing. So it's until media bosses to...
00:51:58
Speaker
First of all, create departments like proper HR, my friend not those HR of hiring and firing, human resources. And after I came out from LSE, I took so many diploma courses to just try to understand if I ever become a manager, which I am now, if I ever become a leader,
00:52:20
Speaker
I'm not going to do that. And I've come to know one of the things I studied was I went and did my post-grad in education so that I could teach. I did a post-grad diploma in HR so that and I've come to understand human resources is not just are you delivering.
00:52:40
Speaker
so that you can get fired. It's you have to develop people. And I think newsrooms need to invest in that, that their biggest resource is the reporters. And then put in structures like a certain operating procedure. I'm grateful when I went to my boss and I told him, you know what, you can even pay me on half a salary, but I cannot continue.
00:53:03
Speaker
Um, the HR at that time, Jen Morori and my boss, um, like boss of my boss was like, are you kidding? No, you need help. You need help. You need to go to the hospital. You'll get your full salary. So at that time, I even, I didn't even know that nation had a policy for what happens when there's a mental health issue. And that's, I know multiple newsrooms in the country that do not have that. And in the continent, they don't have
00:53:33
Speaker
What happens when a staff loses it because of life issues, life issues. And I had clinical depression, which means it did when I came to the newsroom or not, it had to be there. But some people did develop mental health issues. I will encourage the story of Unisomolo. When she came to the newsroom,
00:54:00
Speaker
She wasn't depressed, but covering COVID, seeing people dying, people crying on the phone about their husband. I remember a colleague of mine, we had this really, really bad terror attack where people just walked into a university campus and shot 200 children, you know?
00:54:21
Speaker
And she was there taking pictures of those bodies, talking to mothers as they cry of their children. This was my only child. You know, those things he misses, they can weigh you down. Yeah, absolutely. They can mess you up. So newsrooms needs to understand that the world is, as a matter of fact, is becoming worse and more hostile. But even as we exist in it, as journalists,
00:54:49
Speaker
There needs to be a time you're like, yo, check out. This is you to check out of covering traumatic stories. Go for therapy. It needs to be mandatory for you. You cover one bad accident where there are three casualties, four casualties.
00:55:07
Speaker
You go for therapy. Cause for me, when I noticed there's a huge problems, like apart from a depression, it's just like a, it's like fatalism. Like someone tells you, oh, there's an accident. You're like, how many people died? Three. Okay. That's not a story. You have normalized tragedy. This has to, for it to matter. It has to be a huge body count, not knowing.
00:55:36
Speaker
one life that's a human being, that's a mother, that's a father, that's a human being. One of the things you said there also, I suppose, is advice for journalists themselves because you talked about how you didn't even know there was a policy in your organization. So what advice would you give to journalists themselves who are living with mental health issues, either because mental health issues that they have irrespective of their career or those that develop as a consequence of the kind of stories they report?
00:56:05
Speaker
Uh, number one, first of all, I said, no, when it's time to check out, like, uh, some people are not built. I want to advise and give to journalists is that no, when it's time to check out, like not, not checking out temporally, you can check out temporally, but even leave the industry like, um, like leave it. I think.
00:56:30
Speaker
There's nothing more precious than your sanity. It looks like a work thing to say these days that mental health is your mental health is priority, but it truly is a priority. So no one is time to check out. But for those who are diehard journalists, like I know at a certain point in my career, even though now I'm not in the newsroom, I'll go back. I was born to be in the newsroom.
00:56:59
Speaker
I'll go back there just at some point. Even in that school to know when to check out like once in a while, when do you give yourself a break? From that being on that treadmill to connect to your humanity, to connect to your sanity, to connect just to connect. It's important to know when to have
00:57:24
Speaker
temporary breaks of what to do. So that's number one, know when to check out. And then number two, I think journalism is one of those feel like, so it's good to have support systems of people who can, you know, become a second adult in your, when you're 95% of the time you are a Superman, but 5% you are clack Kent. So when you become clack Kent, you need to have people who remind you that you're still vulnerable to kryptonite.
00:57:53
Speaker
That 5% time can finish you. That's when people take their lives. That's when people get into abusing drugs and some very bad coping mechanisms. So Viral, what next for you? What next? So I've been working on this project still on my passion for diversity. What I'll keep on doing still, everything is connected. That's what I always say. Everything I've learnt in my life, good or bad,
00:58:21
Speaker
include circumstances or bad circumstances. In life, you have to take both the good and the bad and decide what you're gonna do with it. So at 36, I think there is so much more that I can give the world than complaining about, oh my God, what a terrible childhood I had, or how difficult life is, or how the world is messed up. So I want to be part of
00:58:52
Speaker
people, even if I don't give a solution, people who are helped to get people to think about solutions. At this point in my life, I'm going to take every lesson I have, I hunt and put it into my work. I don't think there's a priority when I look at things. I want to take projects that I am passionate about. So my friend, one of
00:59:11
Speaker
the people who saw me go through, you know, what I was going through, but at the same time, you know, still going to do my ethnographic journalism and whatnot. She gave me some money a lot, almost $6,000 to set up this digital news platform. I know there's a lot of those, but I will not be doing things by myself. I'll be like partnering with newsrooms to produce content to do journalism that is still good on the ground kind of journalism, but
00:59:37
Speaker
still to give people agency because for the whole pandemic I left the newsroom in the middle of the pandemic after covering the pandemic for a whole year and a half and when I came out I was still participating as a journalist but you know now in communication but I thought
00:59:52
Speaker
Wow, that generation of us who left the newsroom were like three ladies who used to be very close. Every time we come to WhatsApp, we're like, wow, they really did that woman bad. Look at her, she's been raped, but look at the headline. So I decided, you know what, why don't I, instead of whining and saying, coming to put hashtags on Montel on Twitter, why don't I work with people to tell them that when you tell stories differently, it's even good business for you and you get to do good by people
01:00:21
Speaker
So I'm working on that project. I'm very passionate about it. And I have decided I'm going to name it the Frontera. I love the Spanish language. I think in one of my multiple lives, I must have been a Spaniard. I don't know.
01:00:36
Speaker
of mine is called the Frontera, you know, it's a dignity that rallies dignity in rural areas, the nonprofit I run with my godmother for being toilets and basic social amenities in rural areas. So I decided to call it the Frontera, which is on the frontiers of journalism, trying to do things differently, but at the core of the entire thing is by the end of the day, we need to get back to the basics of life, which is people
01:01:01
Speaker
People are not commodities. People are human beings and we need to not get lost in the capitalism. Everything that I've learnt, I am going to give it back to the world in a good way. If I learnt anger and abuse, I'm going to give it back in the world by telling people this is how to be compassionate and how to love people.
01:01:20
Speaker
That's the next thing for me. Thank you so much, Vera. I mean, where do I even start with kind of all that I've gained from this speaking with you? And I hope that for you, it's been a positive experience. I hope that you've gained a lot from kind of sharing your story. I really hope that you've benefited from sharing that story as much as I and other people listening will have.
01:01:46
Speaker
and thank you for giving me this platform to talk about it. And also just being yourself, you know, just being much more than an academic. You're someone people can look up to if nobody has ever given you that feedback. Just thank you for being you and your students must be lucky to have you as their teacher. Thank you. Thank you so much, Vera. All right.
01:02:13
Speaker
Vera's story is beyond inspiring, because in where she is now in her life, in where she is now in her career journey, in her personal life, you can see how she has embodied and owned and used her experience to empower herself and also to empower others. For me, the bravery behind Vera Shain Hester, because I understand the culture that she speaks of, both in terms of the country, the cultures in our
01:02:41
Speaker
certain African communities, but also in the industry as well. But I also hope for everybody listening who I experience and who I've experienced about the things that Fury has said. Firstly, that you're not alone. But secondly, that there is a way in which all of it, all of your experiences can have meaning and does have meaning. And it is okay that sometimes you're not okay.
01:03:08
Speaker
to join me on an episode of this podcast, please contact me at GMC at AfricanWomenInMedia.com. You can also visit our main website at AfricanWomenInMedia.com to find out more about our work. In the show notes, there's a list of organizations and help lines to support you if you have experienced any of the topics we have discussed today. And don't forget, join the conversation using hashtag HemmediaTiring.
01:03:42
Speaker
Her Media Diary is a product of African women in media, an NGO advocating for gender equality in the industry. And this episode was hosted by Dr. Yemi Sia Kimbabola and produced by blessing Odell Basia as part of a five episode series on mental health in the media. All music featured in this podcast is by Nana Kobena. Thanks for listening and join us again next time.