By Genoa Barrow | OBSERVER Senior Staff Writer

Giving a child the name of your favorite martial artist says a lot about what you wish for their life.

Heaven’Le James’s father’s tribute to Bruce Lee has come to speak volumes as she has had to fight some pretty tough battles, including being bullied for her physical appearance and having suicidal thoughts at a young age.

The OBSERVER recently sat down with the 18-year-old and her mother, Faren Johnson, to speak about her continued journey to wellness. The duo have a close relationship that has deepened as they’ve learned to navigate Heaven’Le’s mental health and learning challenges.

“Honestly, she was the only person, outside of my siblings, that I’ve ever been able to talk to when I was younger and dealing with those things,” Heaven’Le says of her mother. “As I got older and she started signing me up for all these programs against my will, I was able to talk to people.”

The teen has a sharp wit and often employs dark humor and teasing that she refers to as her family’s “love language.” Not everyone gets it, or her, making for awkward moments.

Heaven’Le has always marched to the beat of her own drummer. She had a quinceañera despite not being Latino and as a youngster, when given the choice of what to wear for outings, she’d pair her father’s boxer shorts with a colorful tutu and rain boots, topping off the outlandish outfit with a pom-pom hat.

The world isn’t always kind to those who are different. Heaven’Le found herself mocked in middle school, teased for her individuality as well as things she didn’t have much control over such as a birthmark over her right eye, an overbite, her hair, and skin color.

“It affected my mental health a lot,” Heaven’Le says. “I really didn’t feel pretty or anything like that.”

These incidents made her want to avoid school, often feigning a stomachache or some other illness.

“I didn’t like the children. I didn’t like the teachers. I just wanted to be at home,” she says.

“Kids weren’t always the nicest,” Faren Johnson adds. “She would get into a few altercations every now and then, and she would just prefer to be home because she didn’t have to deal with that.”

At the time, Faren was a licensed child care provider for children with special needs. Heaven’Le would spend a lot of time at home with her, also avoiding many of the extracurricular activities her siblings engaged in.

Although she didn’t have the language to name it at the time, Heaven’Le became a “people pleaser” to avoid conflict. Later she got good at roasting her tormenters verbally.

Enter The Dragon

“I would catch myself just kind of going in on them,” she says of the schoolmates who bullied her. “I got written up many times for having ‘outbursts’ and things like that.”

Ironically, her family nickname is Pooh, as in she’s mostly soft and cuddly like the Winnie the Pooh character. There are times though, when she’d turned into a grizzly bear, her mom says.

“She was just so angry,” Faren recounts.

Recognizing behavioral changes and other potential warning signs, Faren would periodically ask her children about their emotional states.

“She would definitely come up to us at random times, like, ‘Hey, are you suicidal by any chance?’” Heaven’Le recalls.

Heaven’Le says that life was getting increasingly difficult, and one day she admitted to her mother that she felt like giving up.

“I was just like, ‘Yeah, I don’t want to be here. This sucks.’”

She was just 8 years old.

From 2007 to 2020, there was a 144% increase in the suicide rate among Black youth ages 10-17. Black children ages 5-12 are approximately two times more likely to die by suicide than white children of the same age. Black students also had a higher rate of suicide attempts.

Such alarming statistics highlight the urgent need for improved mental health care in Black communities, even as the overall youth suicide rate decreases.

Game Of Death

Heaven’Le’s first admission of suicidal ideation came after the death of her beloved maternal grandfather. Prior to his passing, he came to live with them after being diagnosed with stage four metastatic cancer. When he died, Faren went from being volunteer parent of the year two years running to staying in her room all the time, grieving.

“They got to see that firsthand,” she says of Heaven’Le and her other children.

A few months later, Heaven’Le’s fraternal grandmother also passed away from cancer.

“I’ve been through a lot of stuff in an extremely short time span,” Heaven’Le says. “People died back to back within six months of each other. That does take a toll on you.”

Johnson’s children were encouraged to journal, and the family practiced grounding techniques, such as walking barefoot outdoors, to promote relaxation and reduce stress.

“We’d go on hikes because I know firsthand that the sun and being out in nature can help you in and out of a dark space,” Faren says.

“We’re very active with our kids,” she continues. “Even when I was dealing with complicated grief myself, we still made sure, my husband and I, that we are very present with our kids.”

Parents can miss cues, no matter how attentive they are.

“Mental health is not always verbal,” Faren says. “So there’s times as caregivers, we have to be able to identify those things if they’re not talking. So though she [Heaven’Le] was saying, ‘Nothing’s wrong, I’m OK,’ I’m noticing she wants to sleep more. I noticed her attitude or her being snappy.”

Making sure children know you’re there is critical, she says. For her and Heaven’Le, it’s watching movies together or shopping at Sephora.

“Sometimes kids won’t talk to their caregivers, so we have to be able to be present with them even when they don’t talk,” Faren says. “We have to just be OK with that and make sure that they know they have a safe space to come to when they’re ready.”

Memories of the darker days can still bring Heaven’Le to tears.

“A lot of these things are raw and uncut about grief, but here we are, and sometimes it’s just hard,” her mother says. “I never want her to feel like she has to apologize for how she feels, or what she’s going through.”

Fists Of Fury

Through conversations with her daughter, Faren ascertained that there was no real intent behind her daughter’s suicidal comments. She didn’t dismiss them, however.

“As a parent you want to protect your kids and keep them safe from everything. You want to fix it. Sometimes you can’t,” she says. “All we can do is give them the tools and the resources to be able to navigate through those things.”

Heaven’Le’s father, a boxing trainer, has taught her combat moves to help her cope with her mental health challenges. Boxing has been found to help with stress relief and can be a self-esteem booster.

When she again voiced a desire to check out in the eighth grade, her mother signed Heaven’Le up for the Race and Gender Equity (RAGE) Project.

“I try to encourage [my children] to have outside resources and support as well because, God forbid, what if Mommy isn’t here,” Faren says. “I want her to know that I’m not her only resource. I’m not the only safe space for her to talk about her day and things like that.”

RAGE recently received a sizable grant that stems from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s statewide Master Plan for Kids’ Mental Health to improve youth mental health for Black and African American youth in Sacramento County. RAGE participates in the Never a Bother campaign, which seeks to reduce suicide, suicide attempts and self-harm behavior for disproportionately impacted youth.

Initially, Heaven’Le was not interested. “When she first enrolled me into the program, I was like, ‘I don’t want to do it. I’m not going. You can’t pull me out of this car.’”

Thankfully, that changed. 

“When I first met Heaven’Le, she was extremely quiet,” Program Associate Kiki Ault-Brown says. “She didn’t say a single word, sat in the corner, just kind of observing. As the years went on and as she became more comfortable in seeing that her voice matters and within our programs, she’s able to speak out, she’s able to build a community, and she could see that her community can help her grow as a person.”

“Thank God that’s what I’ve been given,” Heaven’Le says. “Not a lot of people are able to have those spaces, or to find people that are genuine about wanting to see you grow, and not just grow within their company, their brand or their business, but just grow.”

Heaven’Le is wary of therapists and therapy in the traditional sense.

“Sometimes when I try to talk to outside people, they make me feel like I’m crazy.”

At RAGE, she feels listened to and valued.

“They actually care about youth voices and care about what we have to say and actually take those things into account and implement them,” Heaven’Le says.

She now mentors other teens in the program. She encourages others to also find someone they can talk to or resources, like she did.

“It just depends on where the person is,” she says. “It’s about where you would have to meet them, not where you want them to be.”

The Big Boss

Heaven’Le attempted to get back on track during her 10th grade year. Then the COVID pandemic happened and she got sick several times. She thought it might be the universe’s way of making her pay for all the times she faked being sick to get out of school. Heaven’Le struggled with math before being tutored by an older sister who has a biology degree.

School was also challenging due to a possible learning disability that she hopes to get help addressing when she enrolls in college.

Despite challenges, Heaven’Le, a self-proclaimed “super senior,” graduated from an online high school in November. She remains optimistic about her future, planning to study psychology in college and to start a marketing firm for the beauty industry.

“Psychology is like studying the human brain,” she says. “If I understand how the human brain works, then I can be a better marketer. I’m able to find the target audience faster and do all these things more efficiently.”

Her entrepreneurial spirit dates to middle school, when she sold her sneakers for $50. She convinced a buyer that they were “limited edition LeBrons” because they were the only ones in her closet. Her first actual business was selling lip gloss. She once made her younger brother fill out a job application and go through an interview process just to help her. She later added other cosmetics, eyelashes and hair extensions to her repertoire, aided by money she received from a program stipend.

Although it has been painful for Faren to watch her daughter struggle, she’s happy to see her overcoming challenges and looking forward to a brighter future.

“I really, really love the RAGE Project and how they connected with Never a Bother because they have helped this beautiful butterfly emerge even more,” she says. “She has always been very outspoken, very artistic. She has a beautiful gift and I’m not just saying that because I’m her mom.”