Genoa Barrow | OBSERVER Senior Staff Writer
Geriatric mental health took center stage as seasoned actress and author Jenifer Lewis shared her triumph over mental and physical challenges as the keynote speaker for the National Council on Aging’s seventh annual Older Adult Mental Health Awareness Day Symposium.
“I’m aging. We’re all aging,” said Lewis, 67, during an early morning talk that kicked off the event, held virtually on May 2.
The lively chat was moderated by council President and CEO Ramsey Alwin.
Lewis is often referred to as the “Mother of Black Hollywood” for her many TV and film roles. Her TV résumé includes “Blackish,” “A Different World,” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” She earned the title of “Mother of Black Hollywood” by playing everybody and their mama’s mama: She portrayed Tina Turner’s self-serving mother in “What’s Love Got To Do With It?,” Tupac Shakur’s mother in “Poetic Justice” and Whitney Houston’s in “The Preacher’s Wife.”
Lewis is recognized on sight or upon hearing her voiceover work, but fans may not know that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1990. Mental health issues showed up long before that, but Lewis and those around her chalked it up to her even-then over-the-top personality and fierce flair for the dramatic.
“I was just ‘Crazy Jenny’ coming up,” she said. “That ‘crazy’ was something special before my name.”
Problems began to show themselves as Lewis worked on Broadway during the 1980s.
“I knew something was wrong,” she said. “All the shows I would write for my cabaret had titles like ‘Jenifer Lewis Broke and Freaking Out.’ There were no words for mental illness back then, not like there is now.”
Then came the devastating loss of dear friends and castmates to a disease many didn’t understand at the time.
“I was in the workshop of ‘Dreamgirls’ after it started on Broadway. The entire chorus died from AIDS. So when I got back, got out to L.A., I had a nervous breakdown because I knew 200 people that died,” Lewis recalled.
A friend urged her to get help. She resisted.
“I was like, ‘I’m Jenifer Lewis, I don’t need help. I’m fabulous.’”
She started driving recklessly. She cried every night and had breakdowns during auditions.
“It started affecting the dream. It started affecting my career. That’s when I really woke up and got myself in therapy.”
Counseling helped the veteran actress unpack a wardrobe full of childhood trauma and adult drama.
“I came from great poverty and with all the dysfunction that comes with that,” Lewis said. “From childhood abuse to molestation by the pastor of my church, to being ignored, because I was the baby of seven and I didn’t get the attention. My mother had me when she was 26. Imagine a 26-year-old with seven children. Unbelievable.
“I have learned to be forgiving. I worked very hard in therapy, to go down deep inside of myself, and pull the pain out from the root. I tell people, that’s what’s important. This mania and depression and the things that brought it about, you can’t snatch it out like a weed. You’ve got to go down into the root. That’s the work.”
Lewis also discussed rebuilding her body and mind after a 10-foot fall while visiting the African Serengeti in 2022. She was 65 years old and couldn’t walk. Grateful to have defied death, Lewis is now determined to “do more.”
“After I fell, I asked myself, ‘How did I live?’ And now that I am alive, ‘What are you going to do?’ ‘How are you going to earn not having become paralyzed after that fall?’ The answer that came to me is ‘I will serve more than I was before I fell.’”
Having already been in therapy provided Lewis with the tools to make it through the ordeal and recovery. She shares her story of resilience to inspire others to live in their truth and be OK with who they are.
“In my memoir, ‘The Mother of Black Hollywood,’ I start off with telling people that there ain’t no shame in my game. I tell everything. There are no secrets. I think we are as sick as our secrets.”
As the online symposium was attended by mental health professionals, Alwin asked Lewis what advice she has for them.
“I’ll tell you what my therapist did for me,” Lewis said. “She never let me stop seeing that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. She would always remind me that it was me doing the work.”
Lewis recalled raging against her therapist, being thrown out of the woman’s office and later apologizing.
“She said, ‘Jenifer, I see you two hours a week. You have to live with yourself the rest of the time.’ I had never thought about that, so I say to the professionals listening to me today, hold the torch. Don’t let [people] fall. If they fall, let them get up, let them do the work. If they don’t, they never learn. She never rescued me … I thought the knight in shining armor was coming. I thought God was coming. I thought, ‘Somebody will show up.’ So, just let us know that we’ve got to look in the mirror, and that you’ve got to show up.”
Lewis is also the author of “Walking in My Joy: In These Streets.” Her next book, she says, will share more details of how her fall impacted her mental health and the arduous journey back to wellness. The book is based on journals she wrote in while bedridden.
The symposium was co-sponsored by the U.S. Administration for Community Living, the Health Resources and Services Administration, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and featured workshops ranging in topics from nutrition and mental health, to substance use in older adults, and depression and equitable access to care.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is an early introduction to OBSERVER Senior Staff Writer Genoa Barrow’s special miniseries, “Senior Moments: Aging While Black.” The series will debut later in the year and is being supported by the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism and is part of “Healing California,” a 2024 reporting Ethnic Media Collaborative venture with print, online and broadcast outlets across California. The OBSERVER is among the collaborative’s inaugural participants.