Warning: This article contains content about self-harm.
Jodi Johnson had been up all night when he decided to finally press record and start telling his story early one morning back in January.
After years of fighting and hiding what had been controlling his life ― complex post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, attention-deficit disorder and anxiety ― the 21-year-old was about to tell the world his story, less than a year after beginning treatment with cognitive behavioral therapy and medication.
“It was really, really, really scary,” says the Rehoboth Beach Patrol lifeguard and college senior with an infectious smile and energy to match. “Honestly, I didn’t have a plan going into this.”
The result has been a podcast called “Down Bad with Jodi Johnson,” which is part personal diary, part mental health education course as he pushes to destigmatize mental health problems and spread tips on self-help. It’s available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
As someone in the midst of the early stages of grappling with his past and how it has affected his life, it’s a fascinating glimpse into a young man’s real-time fight to regain control of his life.
Across 33 episodes so far, Johnson is unwaveringly open and honest about his past, no matter how difficult the subject.
A deep dive into his own life
He talks about everything from self-harm, depression and substance abuse to intrusive thoughts, family dysfunction and even cheating on an ex-girlfriend. Behind each discussion is an analyzation of his behaviors using the tools he’s gained since first seeking treatment nearly 1-1/2 years ago.
At times, he’s brought to tears re-telling his own story, which he says he’s doing to not only help the 1,500 listeners he has gained, but also to aid his own behavior. He uses the podcast as an audio journal of sorts as he deconstructs his life and feelings while explaining how he has learned to face challenges head-on while holding himself responsible instead of trying to escape from his feelings and thoughts.
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“Your thoughts don’t have power. You do,” says Johnson, who lives with his grandparents in Seaford when not studying psychology and biology at Hartwick College in upstate New York as a first generation college student.
And if you have listened to the hours of introspection and think you know everything Johnson has gone through, you’d be mistaken.
“It’s merely a glimpse of what’s happened in my life. There’s some stuff my audience will never hear,” says the five-year lifeguard, who won second place in the Open Men’s 4×100 Run Relay with his Rehoboth Beach Patrol team at the U.S. Lifesaving Association’s National Lifeguard Championships earlier this month.
Once closed off from talking about all this (to both himself and others), he’s now an open book for strangers and friends alike. And he just happens to be one of the most positive, engaging people you could ever meet. A surprise for some considering his struggles outlined on the podcast.
Rehoboth Beach Patrol Lieutenant Zach Abeles, one of Johnson’s superiors, first met him a couple of months ago when he joined the patrol after previously serving four summers on the Delaware State Parks Beach Patrol. What he found was someone who is both extroverted and introverted at times. He has since learned there’s a term for that: an ambivert.
“From the moment you meet, he’s unapologetically Jodi and that might be wild and wonderful or that might be a little more pensive and introspective,” says Abeles, 31, of Rehoboth Beach. “You don’t really get that sort of blend with most people in today’s world. It’s a beautiful balance that makes him a very eclectic human being who draws you in, wanting to know more about him.
“He’s someone I want to see win in every way.”
The subject that brought him to tears
Long stigmatized, discussion of mental illness was almost always done in private, if at all. But things have changed over the years. And for Johnson, talking publicly about it has become part of his own rehabilitation.
He refuses to shy away away from the most heart-wrenching topics, including self-injury, speaking openly about the times he could not control his emotions and turned to cutting himself or punching walls as a response for the trauma he suffered throughout his young life.
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“I was in full self-destruct mode,” he said on his podcast’s “Self-Injury to Self-Love” episode. “I didn’t like what I was doing, but I felt it was my only option. It was about the pain and relief that self-injury gave me. That’s why I used it as a coping mechanism. I wasn’t doing it to kill myself.
“This was honestly one of the hardest times in my life. I’m just amazed I made it through it.”
He is now happy to report that he is more than four years divorced from the cutting instances that happened while a student and three-sport athlete at Georgetown’s Sussex Technical High School. He is also more than a year past the last time he punched.
He described the thought process of those moments of self-harm as desperation: “Self-injury gives someone the control of taking this invisible pain and transforming it into a manageable, physical pain. And as sad as that may seem, that’s the only way you can put it into words.”
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It is during this podcast episode that he is overcome and cries before using it to point to his ability to show emotion as part of his evolution.
“You clearly know now my emotions are no longer blocked. So I guess I did do something good for myself,” he said with a laugh following the tears.
On his left wrist where he would cut himself, scars still remain. But there is also now a tattoo of a rose right next to them that he got on his 17th birthday symbolizing peace, hope and new beginnings.
Family, cheating and the connection
In another episode (“Cheating”) he says was difficult to record, he speaks about his family background and cheating on an ex-girlfriend when he was 17 in high school.
But first, he reveals some of his family background.
He was largely raised by his grandparents, who adopted his Chilean mother at a young age. She has been in and out of his life. Johnson also grew up without a father for the most part since he has been incarcerated on and off for most of his life, including currently.
He lays it all out: His father has five children with five different women. His mother has three children with three men. Looking back at his behavior in his past relationships, he can see how some of that had affected how he viewed relationships.
“How can I ever ground myself in a relationship and fully trust and commit myself before I unpack the uncertainty for another to love me and stay?” he asks on the episode.
Taunts and intrusive thoughts
He also had identity uncertainty growing up as a biracial boy being raised by white grandparents.
With a Black father, he was targeted by racial jokes in elementary and middle school that “Black kids don’t have dads.” Soon, he would make the same jokes to beat them to the punch, internalizing the pain.
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“I wasn’t brave enough at the time to stand up and say this actually hurts,” he said on the “Down Bad” opening episode. “Sometimes it was funny as hell, but sometimes it was so uncalled for and so targeted and so hurtful. And I would just have intrusive thoughts that no one wants me.”
He would then carry those thoughts with him as he began having relationships with girls. Other intrusive thoughts would surface as well, like thinking about swerving his car into a tree or ditch while driving in high school, he also revealed.
He says subjects not yet discussed on the podcast include other traumas he has witnessed while growing up with loved ones who attempted to harm themselves and also suffered from mood disorders.
“I don’t know to what extent, but I think that’s a lot that is contributing to my trauma,” he says. “I always just kept my mouth shut and tried to be strong. PTSD is repeated traumatic events just being repeated over time and that’s just how my brain became wired.”
He began smoking marijuana and drinking in the ninth grade as a way to cope, continuing into his college years as the pandemic hit and exacerbated the whole situation.
One night he drank so much Tito’s vodka that he awoke in a hospital bed in an emergency room, which he calls a rock bottom moment.
When it comes to marijuana, a video of him smoking pot was shared with his coach and led in part to his dismissal from his college soccer team. At the time, which was just months before he would seek treatment, he was angry about it. But he was also a self-described “mess” and now sees it as a turning point.
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“It was something that I really needed more than anything,” he said on the podcast. “As soon as I was kicked off and felt like I had to fight for my life, my light switch said, ‘Bing! No, no. At this point it’s this: Jodi give up or choose yourself.'”
He now has a plan for each day, outlined neatly in a moleskin planner. And he has emerged as a Renaissance man of sorts. He’s just as comfortable as a jock who wears crop top t-shirts and denim print speedos, ripping occasional keg stands and goofing off with buddies as he is as a journaler and poet who has cry sessions with friends and loves exercising his analytical mind.
After years of being self-conscious, he is building self-confidence and self-esteem day by day, reveling in his own true, unique identity ―all while flashing his now-trademark magnetism.
The response from friends…and strangers
For Johnson, the podcast allows him to reach out to others who may be in need ― or their friends and family, helping them understand some of the intricacies of mental health struggles from firsthand stories paired with well-researched tips.
He gets messages from people he’s never met, sometimes from listeners from a different country around the globe.
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“They say things like, ‘You put how I feel into words,’ and I can’t tell you how much that means to me,” says Johnson, who just arrived back to Oneonta, New York to begin his senior year of college at the small, private liberal arts college.
Even weirder, perhaps, is having friends and relatives listen in. They hear it all as he plunges into a pool of vulnerability each week, revealing a new layer of his life.
College classmate Louis Cappellino, a senior lacrosse player who first met Johnson before he was dismissed from the soccer team during the COVID-19 lockdown at school, says he admires Johnson even more due to his podcast, which he finds inspiring.
“I’m not going to lie, it’s something I find very strong about him. He’s able to reveal these feelings to people to make them more open about themselves,” says the 22-year-old Long Island, New York native and nursing major. “He literally asks himself every morning, ‘What can I do to be a better human being for myself and others?’ It puts a smile on my face when I see him do all this.”
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Cappellino’s seen him in both hard times, such as when he was kicked off the soccer team, and good times as he’s embraced therapy and medical treatment. And now Cappellino’s rooting for him, like most who cross his path whether it’s in real life or over the airwaves.
“Deep down, he’s always been the same person through it all. He may fall, but that dude gets up. Every. Single. Time,” Cappellino says. “He is fearless. Some people are OK with being average or normal. He isn’t.”
Also among his listeners is his 82-year-old grandfather Jerry, who gets to hear all about weed, alcohol, sex and more. (“It’s kind of embarrassing,” Johnson admits.)
But his grandfather really appreciates the peek into his life, telling him that his father never talked to him about these kinds of subjects.
“They never talked about emotions and hardly hugged,” says Johnson, whose always-good relationship with his grandfather is now even stronger thanks to the podcast. “He wants to understand me more and what I’m going through and where he can help.
“That feels so good. Every time I see him now, I give the man a hug. He tells me he loves me and that he’s proud of me. It’s really what I need.”
How to get help
If you or someone you know in Delaware is experiencing a mental health crisis or emotional distress, contact 211, a state telephone and text message line available in multiple languages that connects users with resources on a variety of issues, including mental health. The national 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, along with chat services through suicidepreventionlifeline.org.
Have a story idea? Contact Ryan Cormier of Delaware Online/The News Journal at rcormier@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2863. Follow him on Facebook (@ryancormier) and X (Twitter) (@ryancormier).
