‘Big Brother 24’: Taylor on Mental Health, Coping, and Advice for Fans Who Want Accountability

Big Brother 24 started with a short mention of mental health. But Showbiz Cheat Sheet sat down with winner Taylor Hale and Sydnee Corriders to talk about it further in relation to her experience in the house on Zoom on Oct. 26, 2022.

Sydnee is a Brooklyn-based Therapist and Racial Equity Consultant. She is the Founder of The Healing Collective, a therapeutic group practice offering therapy and coaching services to NY and beyond.

Taylor’s coping mechanisms came before ‘Big Brother 24’

Q: The live feed fans also watched how you coped. Sometimes it was lying in bed, some self-talk. Can you talk a little bit more about how you found those ways to cope? Did you already have them before going into the house, or were you self-discovering as you go along while you were in this stressful environment?

Taylor: I’ve always known that my bed is my comfort spot. It’s why I used to pay an obscene amount of money for rent in my old apartment in D.C. Like, I want a home that feels comforting and caring for me, and the space that I created for that in the Big Brother house was my bed. You know this, I never left that bed unless I was HOH or another time.

But outside of that, staying in bed. You cannot expect to receive love from other people, especially in the Big Brother House. You need to make sure that you are the only one pushing yourself forward. Now, did Joseph help me through some dark times? Absolutely. Did Brittany and Michael, help me through some dark times? Absolutely. There are moments where you can lean on other people.

But we sign up to play a game. And in this game, my coping mechanisms were getting in that bed, reminding me what my core and my truth feels like, and telling myself how to continue on. You can’t continue on if you don’t believe in yourself in the way that you hope other people will believe in you.

Some of those days where I felt especially isolated, on those days where I felt like I did not engage with people who didn’t have it for me. I remember laying in that bed and just saying, ‘Get up, get up. You have to get up, get in the shower. You have to move. You cannot lay in this bed all day as much as I wanted to.’ So those coping mechanisms outside of the self talk laying in bed, being more inwards than ever, that was already established. But once I got into the house, I couldn’t be fully internal. There were moments where I had to motivate myself verbally so I could actually get up and play the game.

Taylor believes in ‘looking the part’ as self-care

Q: Also curious, was outfits ever part of it? Because I specifically remember you were having a down day, and like you said, you were in the bed for a long time, and then you put on a hot bathing suit, and like some people were mad about it. But you’re like, go out and I’m going to sunbathe and…I don’t know. I think Black women sometimes do turn to luxury, sometimes as a form of self-care, and then get put down for it. So I’m very curious if it was part of self-care or that’s literally the clothes you had.

Taylor: Oh, well, look, I had a much plainer black bikini that I could’ve worn, but I had this bomb orange bikini with a matching cover-up and my favorite heels to wear with it. If I’m going to choose to have a good day, part of having a good day is looking the part and feeling the part.

I don’t feel a part if I don’t look the part. And I told people specifically, ‘I’m going to have a good day today.’ And yes, I did stay in that bed until just about the time the sun was going down. But when I put on that bikini, I felt like me. When I put on those heels, I felt like myself. When I got through the house and into the sun, I felt like I was declaring my space in that moment in time.

And that is something that no one can take away from me, no matter how much they wanted to. And we saw that people wanted to, but that was something that I chose not to let affect me. And frankly, when I was later told about it, all I could do was laugh. Because if you’re mad about a girl putting on a bikini and having a good day in the sun, you got to go worry about something else.

What Taylor’s experience can teach fans about the experience of many Black women

Q: Sydnee, can you talk a little bit about this? Black women…Black women, do a lot to protect themselves to the outer world, when they know they’re basically on defense mode and enduring a lot. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Sydnee: As you asked the question, Nicole, and as you were sharing Taylor, I was again going back to that both and. Like there was a part of me that was feeling so empowered sort of through you as you were sharing of like one thing that Black women gonna do is put on a fit. You know, have your hair feeling how it needs to feel and just, like, do what we need to do to come back to us, I think, is what I heard you say. And I think that is so beautiful.

And it also can is a bit disheartening that we have to, right? And I think that thinking about, again, the Big Brother space, how it’s very reflective of real life and also is exacerbated, right? It’s sort of literally a microscope. You know, there’s a microscope on this microcosm of real life. And so I think about how we should be able to just lay in our bed and be sad when we’re experiencing hard things. And also, that’s not a part of, you know,–you we need to pull through as human beings and as Black women and also in the part of the game. And so I just really commend you for that.

But I do think so often, particularly Black women, a lot of the harm and hurt that we experience is kept inside because we just got to keep going. We got to take care of ourselves. We got to take care of other folks. Don’t let us be, you know, we’re strong, and that’s an issue. But don’t let us have a hard, hard day then we’re weak, right? As opposed to vulnerable or brave or strong in that vulnerability. And so we got to put on that face, and then we put on that face, and then there’s something negative to say about that, too.

And so, you know, there’s really such a box that we are put in. And what I’ve come to learn is none of us can fit in it. And so put on that orange bikini and do you. And so I really respect the fact that you were able to do that. And I think it was hard for a lot of folks, particularly Black women to have to witness, though. You know, in terms of their compassion for you, Taylor. And also the ways in which we connected with, ‘Yup, that’s what we got to do. We got to just talk to ourselves because sometimes we can feel alone in it. Or all we got is that fit, you know.’

And then, yet then folks are have something negative to say about the luxury. And so, what does it look like to really disregard what other folks have to say and do what we need to do to care for ourselves? And I just wanted to highlight how much I do commend you for being able to do that because I think a big part of Black womanhood is also community. And so to do that in isolation in a lot of ways is incredible.

Why ‘Big Brother 24’ fans should check on their mental health after this season

Q: I also just want to say this conversation includes our they/thems, our nonbinaries in our Black community. I know we got it very, very binary right now but yeah. Didn’t forget about y’all. You have it even harder.

So at the end of the conversation, let’s circle back around to accountability. What does accountability look like for you, Taylor? It might look different, different for different people. But what’s your preference for accountability?

Taylor: What’s interesting in this environment is that there is this echo chamber for every single one of us coming out of the Big Brother house. And for me, I have a very beautiful echo chamber. I’m surrounded by love and excitement and enthusiasm and it’s fun. And yes, I have the largest following. So I get so much of it every single day.

Even though I was severely wronged by a majority of this cast. I cannot imagine stepping out into the world, wanting to be grounded again, maybe even attempting to make amends. But still, every single day, every moment being in your echo chamber and being told over and over that you are a bad person until all the things that may be true. But over and over to be told that you have wronged somebody, harmed somebody, become a bad person, have shown the worst version of yourself. I can’t imagine what it is like to be surrounded by that every moment of every day moving out of the Big Brother house.

So people always say, ‘Oh, you have so much grace and so much empathy.’ Imagine being a human being that is stuck in that space. For me personally, accountability that I can value looks like the people who apologized to me or owned their stuff before leaving the house, and majority of the women have done that. Kyle did that. Majority of the people actually truly in the house acknowledged their wrongdoings, apologized, and then went out the door with Taylor’s karma.

However, what that means is that when I enter the real world, I already, one have the knowledge of someone saying what they said. And when I do see it back for myself, I am prepared for it. And I am ready to have that conversation with that person when I am ready. And that person has given me the space to have that conversation on my own time. But they are the one that perpetuated the harm. And they understand that I don’t have to forgive them. I don’t have to have that conversation. But they are the ones that open the door.

I am OK with holding people accountable personally, privately, but I also need a public acknowledgment of what the wrongdoing was as well, because everything that happened was so public 24/7. That is what it looks like for me and for me. When those people have their moment of public atonement apology. I don’t want the goons going out to them anymore.

I want these people to be able to move on with their lives because, I mean, look at me like I’m moving on in the best way, with or without them. You, my fans, the people who want recognition and retribution for the things that were done, just look at my success. Accountability is only owed to me, even though I know that everyone else saw and was harmed. I’m coming to understand by what happened to me. Find your retribution in my success and let me handle the other people.

Q: Alright, fans, this is your turn in the mental health conversation because I did want this to be a part of it. When you’re watching a live feeds, there’s no way the live feeds cannot affect your mental health. There’s no way for you to feel like you weren’t a person in their house, even though you were sitting at home. And there’s no way–well, Sydnee, you can tell me if I’m wrong, but there’s no way of not feeling victimized and feeling you are owed accountability. And I think that’s part of the fervor with this fandom. What advice, Sydnee, do you have to fans who are seeking soothing? Because I think that’s the underlying of this all. I want to be soothed by the racism, sexism, misogynoir that I saw all season. And yet these people don’t even know me?

Sydnee: I wanted to just say that number one is being able or allowing yourself to acknowledge that you need to be soothed. Because I think that’s what’s challenging about reality television is you might not have the awareness that you’re needing that at all.

You’re having a physical response, a somatic response that feels really overwhelming and really challenging. And you’re enraged, and you’re hyper-focused, and you’re not able to stop viewing, or you’re not able to view, and you’re feeling really impacted.

And it feels like it’s all for Taylor because Taylor was the one that was experiencing this in this example. And I think acknowledging that you have a place in the pain and that you do get to share a bit of it might be easing in itself because otherwise, I think it can be confusing.

And I think the other piece, though, is what does it look like to release. And to know that just as you name Taylor, you are getting the care that you need, you’re also feeling sort of the retribution that you deserve. And so, what does that look like for others?

Is it in seeing the success that Taylor’s holding? Is it in taking a deep breath? Is it in taking a break, maybe from the hashtags and its tweeting and the viewing or whatever it might be?

But I think checking in with your body, allowing yourself space. But I do believe that it starts with acknowledging that you were impacted by this. And sometimes we don’t realize that because as much as we feel a part of these shows and these experiences, we know that we’re not. And so, I think it can be important to acknowledge that we are impacted by this by viewing the harm that others experience.

And that is such an important part of community, is that collective experience, while also acknowledging that we have different ways of needing to care for ourselves. So think reflecting on what does care look like for you? Is it deep breaths? Is it space away? Is it journaling, and how can it be released in a positive or not just positive, a really healthy way for you?

This article has been condensed for this article.