We recently had the chance to connect with Nija Spencer and have shared our conversation below.
Good morning Nija, it’s such a great way to kick off the day – I think our readers will love hearing your stories, experiences and about how you think about life and work. Let’s jump right in? What are you most proud of building — that nobody sees?
One thing that I am building or have already built is my mental health organization, The Black Therapeutic League. The purpose of the league is a safe haven curated for black students to vent, educate & persevere through mental health and its stigmas. I created this organization on May 17th, 2024, during Mental Health Awareness month, and have my first collegiate chapter on my college campus at Rowan University. My organization became sponsored by the BSE office on campus, and now the African Studies Department sponsors our collegiate chapter. I created this organization because when I was an incoming transfer freshman student back in 2021, I attempted to join different organizations on campus and didn’t feel welcomed. I didn’t feel welcomed no matter where I went. If that didn’t already add to what I was already dealing with, I had really bad mental health issues.
I was severely depressed. I was so sad that I couldn’t get out of bed. It was hard to brush my teeth and shower. I stopped going to class. My energy was dark. I was dark. But this too shall pass, like my tattoo says on my chest. I found the light at the end of my tunnel by finding help on campus from a black therapist. At the time, we were only allowed 12 therapy sessions in one academic school year. I used all 12 and was still having issues. I thank that black woman every time I see her, actually saw her the other day. Because another woman of color saw me, I was able to see myself, the accountability that I need to take and the voice that I had. Despite my ongoing depression I managed to muster up the strength to keep going and I was determined to get through this rough patch in my life
Fast forward to now in 2025, my organization has a brand new eboard and an official general body. We have partnered with organizations on campus like The Black Student Union, Men of Color Alliance, Beauty In Distress, Stronger Tower Family to name a few. My goal for my organization at the collegiate level is to combat the current and ongoing mental health issues that we face on and off campus. I want to ensure that my peers before and after me learn to navigate their mental health so when they become the successful and powerful professionals I know they’ll be, mentally and emotionally they’ll have that under control so it won’t hinder the success and hard work they’ve done over the years.
Mental health, therapy, anything dealing with psychology in my community is considered “taboo”, “dramatic” or for “white people”. Mental health has no color. We all deal with it. But how we’re going about dealing with it is all wrong. There’s so many stigmas surrounding it you may be embarrassed to find help or even get it. That’s where my organization and I come in. We are here to be the voice and vessel of our black students. I say that nobody sees it because mental health is a sensitive subject to some. It’s not often taken seriously due to stigmas, due to lack of resources, and due to lack of representation. That’s exactly where the Black Therapeutic League comes in. My organization and I will not stop until we overcome the issue at large and I am happy to be the voice of my peers as I help an encourage them to find their own
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Nija Spencer. I am a 26-year-old senior transfer student at Rowan University, majoring in Psychology and with a double minor in Sociology and Philosophy. I am a first-generation college student from Woodbury, NJ. I am a multi-faceted baddie. I’m a content creator, author, and mental health advocate. During the pandemic, I went viral for telling my story about my toxic parents. That vulnerability soon formed my loving and supportive community of over 300,000 followers. It’s scary to be that vulnerable on the internet. People are judgmental, people are cruel. Trust me, I had dealt with my fair share of negativity on Beyoncé’s internet. But I realized that telling my story wasn’t just about me. It was about using my voice and encouraging others to use theirs. We live in a day and age where toxicity, trauma, and abuse are so normalized that we are so used to these toxic ways and behaviors that we’ve grown accustomed to. I want to change my narrative and help others take control of their narrative. If I can help encourage somebody to confidently use their voice, I’m gonna do that, and I’ve done it. I’m still doing it. My passion for mental health and advocacy led me to start my mental health organization, The Black Therapeutic League. I hold my organization so close to my heart. As I leave my legacy at my university, I made a promise to tackle and get the mental health climate under control, and I will fulfill my promise. The purpose of my organization is to help open doors for black students. Networking and making connections have gotten me so far in my college career. Now that senior year has started, we’re focused on school, my organization, and other orgs I’m a part of, and content creation. I’ve been getting invited to a lot of speaking engagements recently. I spoke just last week at the Jack and Jill of America “J&J + Carole Robertson Day” on behalf of the Black Student Union. Shoutout to my homegirl Najeaya for coming to support me and film me. My homegirl goes the extra mile for me every time and I truly love her for that. Other than releasing new and more vulnerable content on TikTok Tok I have been working on my book “The Damage You Did”. This is the most sensitive and tear-jerking piece of work I’ve written in a while. It’s about my life and my early 20s. I’ve been through so much and lived so many lives at 26 I think it’s time to share with the world as I continue to heal and move on with my life. I wanted to release it this fall, but I’m going to allow my pen to determine when it’s finished. I can’t wait for you guys to read it. You’ll hear me on the pages, and I promise you it won’t disappoint
Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
Before the world told me who I had to be, I was once Nija Henderson. Not too many people know this because this happened when I was eleven years old. My mom abruptly changed my last name to her maiden name because a relative that we don’t even speak to questioned if I belonged to our family. I was born with my dad’s last name. Growing up, all of my awards had his last name on them. I used to be so excited to come to class to see how long my name tag would be. I was in the fifth grade when this happened, and of course, my teacher at the time announced it to the whole class because he felt like I needed to be “reintroduced”. My mom wasn’t married, so why was my last name getting changed? That’s not something you can explain to ignorant ten and eleven-year-olds. I felt like all my life I had been “Nija Spencer” for my mom and for the world. When I think of Nija Spencer, I immediately think of the bookworm, that really smart girl that always has her head in a book, the author, the “good girl”. I separated being “Nija Spencer” and Nyethebrat because Nye is all the above: the author, the influencer, the leader, the activist, the student. Being Nyethebrat allows me to show you my story and the layers that I have to me. I feel like when people tell you who you should be and you become that, you lose yourself. I’ve always been smart, but I’m more than that. I’m a yapper, I write my own rap music, I do makeup, I’m just a multi-faceted baddie coming after everything I said that I would. I’m owning my narrative by being who I am and staying true to that, and that’s what matters
Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
If I had a dollar for every time I almost gave up, I’d be a billionaire like Rihanna. A recent time when I almost gave up that truly changed the trajectory of how I think and move was when I went off to my Disney College Program last fall. I had COVID when Disney recruiters visited my school to discuss the program. I ended up applying anyway, and once I did, I immediately got a phone interview. The interview went well, and now I had to wait. About a week or two later, I got a “congrats” email telling me that I got accepted into the program. I couldn’t believe I was leaving my life in Jersey while I was in school to go work at Disney World for a 4-month internship through their college program. I wasn’t even gonna go because I couldn’t afford it. One of my favorite mentors, Vany Woods, helped find other women to help pay for me to go to Disney. I was working at the Child Development Center over the summer to help save up for this big transition, and they fired me. Never tell older women your plans if all imma say. There’s a lot of jealousy towards you when you’re doing good. The job market was horrible and still is. I couldn’t find a job to save my life, and I applied everywhere. I even applied to go back to Burger King, that’s how desperate I was to find a job, and Burger King was my first ever job at 16. I put my pride to the side and raised a GoFundMe to help me at least get down there. TikTok was paying me good, so if I could just keep making money off my content until I got to Florida, I’d be fine. I went to Florida by myself. No family traveled with me, nothing. We were on the verge of homelessness, so the best they could do for me was drop me off at the airport. I went to Florida with the clothes on my back and one suitcase, praying to God that for my 26th birthday, he’d let me keep my childhood home. I prayed and cried almost every night, praying that I had a home to come back to. Those 4 months of being that far away from home were hell, I can’t even lie. It was election year, hurricane season, I’m from Jersey, baby. The most we do is heavy rain, but being in the center of a REAL tropical storm!? Nobody prepared me for that! The college program is its own world, and the people who participate in the program, your peers, can really suck the life out of you. I was dually enrolled as a junior, taking 15 credits. I was doing another internship in addition to my DCP called the Rowan Global Technical Experience on the Digital Marketing track, and I took it a step further by enrolling in medical assistant school. I couldn’t change the possibility of being homeless; my mom had to fix that. But what I could do is set myself up for success in the midst of the storm I was going through. I got into two back-to-back motor vehicle accidents down there. 30 days exactly apart from each other, and the last one being 3 days before my 26th birthday. My roommates were dirty and trifling. I wanted to do more than give up. But I remembered why I left home. I remembered why I was there, and I remembered that I had people rooting for me. I got an upper respiratory infection of an unknown strain as my program ended, and that was truly my last straw. I had endured so much in those 4 months, I didn’t understand how I was still standing. I was at the end of my program, wanting to give up badly. Mentally, I wasn’t doing well, but by the grace of God, I finished and became a DCP Alumni. I faced so much difficulty and pain during my program. I literally worked over 300 hour.s I was hungry. I barely made friends or went anywhere. It was just school and work for me. I think one of the biggest lessons I learned down there was to never let anyone trick you out of your spot. What’s meant for you is for you, and it doesn’t always rain forever. This too shall pass, I promise.
So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. What would your closest friends say really matters to you?
I think what my closest friends would say really matters to me is mental health and community. I had always struggled with my mental health growing up. When I went back to college during the pandemic in 2021 my mental health was at it’s worst. I was experiencing passive suicidal ideation, I didn’t feel like I was loved and I thought I was too damn old to be in college. Once my mental health tanked completely I put myself in therapy. I wanted to change. I wanted to be happy again. I hate that I had this dark cloud around me. While I was going through my depression I was going through all of that alone. I didn’t have a community. I damn sure didn’t have a village. My village was part of the reason why I was so severely depressed. I didn’t have anybody that I could call on when I felt like I wanted to just make it all go away. I promise if it wasn’t for God I wouldn’t be here. Because I was so determined to get the help I knew I needed and deserved, it helped strengthen the voice I already had. I created my mental health organization because I wanted to make sure that nobody that looked like me male or female went through such a dark time alone. It is so important to have people you can actually rely on when you go through something as severe as depression. Community is important and your mental health is just as important. I wanna ensure that black undergraduate students truly learn how to navigate their mental health, get them to understand what that looks like and how to help prevent them from facing their trauma alone. Nobody deserves that. It’s a terrible feeling that nobody should ever experience. I’m using my voice to help encourage others to use theirs and I believe we should all do the same.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. What light inside you have you been dimming?
A light inside of me that I think I’ve been dimming is my vulnerability. When I first got on Tik Tok I was very open about telling my story and what I was dealing with mentally. Now it seems like I’m having such a hard time with it. I was young when I first got into social media, I was like 19. I’m 26 now, almost 27 in December, and I feel those butterflies I first felt almost five years ago when I got on Tik Tok. I’m nervous and have been questioning myself, like, can I do this? Do I really wanna talk about this? Have I told my therapist this? And trust me, I see my therapist once a week for free through my university on a platform called Uwill. It’s a FREE counseling service for students in New Jersey, where you can find a therapist tailored to your specific needs. You create your own appointments according to your schedule, and I’ve been doing that for two years now. My point is my therapist knows everything, so it’s not much I have to run by her. I’m really just being in my own way, and I recognize that. Also, content creation has evolved so much since I first started. You have to step your cookies up once you pull that camera out. How I see it is I did it once, and I can do it again. I think the beauty of sharing my story now that I am older and a lot more wiser is that my telling my story isn’t about me. Yes, technically, since I’m talking about me, it is in that regard, but the reason why I started telling my story in the first place was to encourage others to tell theirs. Give them the strength I didn’t always have to be open, to be honest, and to be free from all that they’ve carried. So, I decided that I’ll be getting back to creating content more consistently in October and just using my voice like I always have. I miss my community, I miss my supporters, I miss going live, I just miss everything about it, so I’m going to get back to it. I can’t wait to share all that I’ve been dealing with. I think it will relieve me of all my worries and allow me to reconnect with my audience.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nyethebrat/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@NYETHEBRAT
- Other: Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nyethebrat?lang=en
Lemon 8: https://www.lemon8-app.com/@nyethebrat?region=us
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