Being on TV was bad for my mental health
Why life is better without the armor
The first time I was interviewed on television was in 2004, and the last time I sat on a set answering questions was in July 2023. That’s quite a time span, personally and in terms of how the news industry and political landscape have transformed.
It has been, at times, enriching, exciting, and meaningful.
At other times, I found it draining, crazy-making and soul-sucking.
That first television appearance was one week before my 61-year-old father died instantly from a heart attack.
So, I began this new career in a fog of grief and trauma.
When I started as a political analyst and columnist, Twitter didn’t exist, and Facebook was something for teenagers and college students, not cable news watchers or disgruntled column readers.
The only real-time feedback I got from the public on my writing or television appearances came through email. Finding my email would take a bit of digging, so the person had to be pretty motivated. They couldn’t just find my social media profile and vomit all over it like they can today. If someone sent an email calling me a bimbo, moron and worse, it couldn’t be retweeted or shared widely by those who agreed as it would be in later years.
Eventually, social media took over, and I had to live with nonstop commentary on what I said and how I looked. I developed a pretty hard shell to deal with it, but over time, the criticism took a toll.
Actually, that’s not totally right.
I already had a pretty hard shell.
Being in the public eye — particularly the television part — turned that shell into military-grade armor.