By Genoa Barrow | OBSERVER Senior Staff Writer

EDITOR’S NOTE: Jabari Rahotep is The OBSERVER’s audience development manager. He was inspired to share his very personal journey with mental health after seeing colleague Genoa Barrow’s special series on Black men and mental health. “I’m at the point now where I’m not as ashamed of the whole experience,” Rahotep says. Rahotep’s story is the eighth and final installment of features from Barrow’s “Where’s Your Head At?” community engagement questionnaire. The OBSERVER thanks all the responders for being vulnerable, rising above the stigma of speaking about mental health issues to share their deeply moving truths. 

As a high school and college sprinter, Jabari Rahotep won races and set records. Today, he’s getting back on track while learning to deal with the hurdles that mental illness erected during the course of his adulthood.

Rahotep, who went by a different name then, moved to Sacramento when he was 10. After graduating from Valley High, he left to attend Tennessee State on a track and field scholarship. He started having problems toward the latter part of his senior year.

“Everything was coming to an end,” Rahotep says. “I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do after school.”

He thought about going into education or “doing music” like many of his friends. He was “pretty decent” at photography and videography and considered turning those hobbies into a career. He figured that whatever he chose to do, he’d have to grind hard to make money at it.

“One day I decided that I’m going to just go hard and try to make something out of it right now,” Rahotep says. “It was a very poor decision that shaped everything else.”

He recalls spending the day working, failing to eat or rest. He did that for three days straight.

“On the fourth day, I was hallucinating and delirious from the lack of sleep and the lack of food,” he recounts.

“I was doing a lot of stuff and just trying to be super creative. On the fourth night, I think I started asking one of my roommates a bunch of different questions about God and stuff like that.”

Rahotep says “think” because some of his recollections of his past episodes are cloudy. He also remembers talking to a track coach, asking her about religion and spirituality. After telling her that he believed God had spoken to him, she sent folks to drop by his on-campus apartment.

“I don’t know how I got from that space to like, ‘Hey, he needs help,’ but I remember some of the athletic trainers would come to check on me and just try and do things to maybe help me get out of it, but I just wasn’t. I wasn’t coming out of that poor mental state.

“They ended up taking me to a hospital and the hospital gave me medications and stuff like that.”

Rahotep was transferred to a mental hospital.

“I was there for maybe two weeks, I think. At some point, I just wanted to get out and break free, so I just started running away. I think I got tranquilized.”

Rahotep vaguely remembers waking up to an officer in his room.

“They were giving me medication for how I was acting. The words they used were, “to balance my chemicals out.’”

Found to be a danger to himself, Rahotep was committed as a 5150.

“They diagnosed me, I think, at the hospital with schizophrenia,” he says. “That was a quick diagnosis. Later, it was more considered bipolar.”

According to Mental Health Today, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia have common traits and key differences. Bipolar disorder causes shifts in mood, energy level, and thinking. Schizophrenia causes a person to appear to lose touch with reality. While symptoms can overlap, Compassion Behavioral Health, a South Florida mental health treatment and substance abuse center, states, “Individuals with bipolar disorder may experience mood swings and heightened levels of energy, while those with schizophrenia may experience functional impairment, such as social withdrawal. Schizophrenia can also cause more profound and more persistent psychosis symptoms, such as disorganized thinking and speech that may not be present in bipolar disorder.”

The schizophrenia diagnosis came as a shock to Rahotep. Then his stepfather shared some research with him that showed that it’s not so uncommon in African American men his age. Knowing it wasn’t as unheard of as he first thought was helpful.

Recent studies have shown African Americans to be 2.4 times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia. There’s also been discussion on social determinants of health, and medical racism, that may lead to such frequent diagnosis.

In Sickness And In Health

Rahotep didn’t talk much about his experiences outside his innermost circle. 

“It wasn’t as popular as it is now to talk about mental health,” he says. “In 2011, it wasn’t where we are now.”

After the initial diagnosis, Rahotep’s mother came to get him from Tennessee and brought him back to Sacramento. He’d gotten a change of environment, but he was different. His demeanor changed. He spent six months unable to work out as he normally would. He got bored and started partaking in recreational drugs.

“That hyper-charged the situation,” Rahotep says. “Being younger, I was more in denial.”

Denial led to continued mistakes, he says, and more trips to the hospital. Today, Rahotep puts the number of stays at around seven.

“I have had several embarrassing public displays of my illness,” he adds.

The most public occurred on his wedding day in 2021.

“My wedding day was the real last straw for me,” Rahotep says.

He and his fiance spent months picking out outfits, securing a venue, figuring out how they were going to coordinate out-of-town guests, and choreographing a special dance for their reception. Rahotep juggled pre-wedding tasks while working during the summer as a substitute teacher. He started feeling apprehensive, but didn’t want to disappoint his bride on her big day. Again, he fell into the pattern of not sleeping.

When the day of the outdoor wedding arrived, Rahotep was determined not to let negative thoughts win. He’d swayed a bit during rehearsals and was told to work on that.

“I’m up there. She comes out and she looks beautiful. I didn’t know how long the minister was going to take. I was just standing, super straight. My legs were locked and I fainted. At weddings, fainting is normal. There’s a lot of videos out there of people getting overheated or nervous and passing out, but I was really going through an episode.”

His fiancee was right there at his side.

“She caught me,” Rahotep says. “That’s on video somewhere, but I haven’t watched it yet.”

He was taken inside the venue where their reception was supposed to be, and later went to the hospital hoping to get medication that would help him sleep. The couple rescheduled their nuptials, finally getting to exchange vows two weeks later.

Despite his wife never making him feel bad, Rahotep has felt ashamed, as if he left her at the altar.

“We have a really good marriage,” he says. “She’s been making me feel good about how that’s just one day. I don’t feel as guilty about that, but I still feel like I want to make up for that.”  

Most of the guests at their first ceremony still don’t know the real reason there had to be a second one.

“That was three years ago, almost,” Rahotep says. “I haven’t had any episodes and my goal is to not ever have one again. My focus is now my mental health. It’s always in the front of my mind, instead of putting it in the back of my mind.”

Grand Rising

For decades, Rahotep’s mother maintained that another man was his father. Finally learning the truth put him on a path to self-awareness. He got a level of clarity after meeting his biological father last year. He learned of his father’s own battle with mental health issues.

“I’m learning about my dad. He has anxiety and different mental health issues that he’s dealt with while incarcerated.”

Rahotep has been able to fill in some blanks.

“I think that that was a missing element that contributed to my mental health growing up,” he says.

“I listened to his life story for a little bit and it kind of aligned. He ran track as well. A lot of questions were answered. Spirituality-wise and the way he approaches life is very similar to me. He reads the similar type of books I read. He sent me the book, “As a Man Thinketh.’ It’s just in line with how I’ve been conducting myself as an adult. It just feels like I’m the refined version of what he’s doing. It’s allowed me to have something to refer to like, ‘Oh, this is why I think like this or that is why I am like this.’”

Rahotep is focused on “getting right” his mind, body and spirit. He changed his name. He changed his diet and became vegan. He’s embracing his love for fitness and is working to become a life coach. He’s also sharing his truth and his path to wellness through a new business venture called M3 Work Inner Mastery. His logo features a person looking in a mirror and another working out, with the letter “M” placed in different directions.

“I use this to remember to work on my mind, my muscles and my mobilization,” Rahotep says. “It’s about self-reflection, self-work, inner mastery. Those are things that I’m working on to improve my habits. It’s a step-by-step process, always breaking down whatever goal I’m trying to achieve into smaller parts.”

Rahotep co-leads monthly health fitness sessions for Black men with other like-minded locals.

“We come to a park and we do pull-ups and push-ups and we use body weights. Fitness is another way that I work on my mental health,” Rahotep says. “All the energy I have from running track, when it’s stagnant, I feel that contributes to my mental state. My body’s used to moving a lot and movement is good for our spirit. That’s how we’re designed.”

Rahotep attributes his current success to accepting his mental diagnosis and keeping it in the forefront of his mind.

“That helps me prioritize things I need to do to keep my mental health sound like working out, getting good sleep, eating healthy and meditating. I now see my mental illness as an aid to my self-actualization journey, helping me remember to do things that are generally good for me,” Rahotep says.

“Mental health has been such a taboo concept that it is hidden,” he says. “Most of my story has been hidden from others because it feels unacceptable for people to either be hospitalized for mental health or have mental health episodes. Whereas if someone breaks their leg or someone gets sick with any disease, we accept that or we understand that we have days off for that. It’s more recognized.”

Rahotep wants to see mental health days gain wider acceptance.

“There should be more inclusion for accommodation for mental health,” he says. 

“A lot of people will go hard for their job or go, go for life, in society, for their family, and we usually have to tell each other to take a break. Now that we’re acknowledging mental health, we should honor that by creating the space for everyone to take a mental health break.”

“Head Space: Exploring Black Men’s Mental Health” is an OBSERVER’s special series.This project is being reported with the support of the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2024 Ethnic Media Collaborative, Healing California. Senior Staff Writer Genoa Barrow and The OBSERVER are among the collaborative’s inaugural participants.