The House that Delilah Built: A Space for Healing
Meet Aidee.
“Aidee is a compassionate AI companion designed to support the unique mental health needs of Black female college students … Get personalized help with emotional support, coping strategies, and finding the resources you need. From creating a self-care plan to interpreting your dreams, Aidee offers a range of tools to help you manage stress, improve focus, and achieve your goals.”
Aidee is the AI brainchild of Delilah Null, 30, founder and CEO of the Black Girl’s Healing House: Holistic Wellness for Black Women (BGHH), an “online oasis” for mental health and wellness resources.
In 2017, Null, a recent University of Alabama fashion design graduate and a newlywed, relocated with her husband to Birmingham, Alabama. However, she says, “I didn’t have my friends or family around, and I was getting lonely.”
Null had hoped to find opportunities for work in fashion design but realized that “Alabama is not really a state for fashion.” Instead, she took a position in the corporate offices of a popular retail chain. “The job was causing me a lot of stress and anxiety. Being the only Black woman in a corporate space, dealing with racism, racial microaggressions, and ageism.”
She headed up a team of “over-sixty” staffers, who she says, “felt they did not have to listen to me. They felt I was not qualified for the job. They thought I was a diversity hire … and, of course, I was paid less than the other managers. On the customer end, there was even more stress.”
However, when Null sought mental health services, they were not covered under her health insurance. “When I finally got to speak with a therapist, he was an older white male, but “I didn’t feel seen. I didn’t feel heard. A lot of my feelings were dismissed. I spent the majority of the session just explaining blackness. I wanted a Black female therapist who I could identify with, however, a lot of them didn’t take my insurance.”
In an interview with WVTM 13 News, Null talked about embarking on her wellness journey by taking yoga and Pilates classes and attending wellness fairs. “A lot of the experiences … weren’t the friendliest; I felt isolated because I was the only Black girl in those spaces. I felt a lot of racial prejudice.”
In 2018, Null turned to Facebook (FB) to find other Black women. She theorized that “If I was going through it and having issues with this, there had to be more people like me … “I created a FB group to connect women to these resources, get advice, and have community. It took off.”
Her goal: “Connect Black women to culturally competent holistic care.” The FB group began with 250 women from Alabama. “Then it grew outside of Alabama …within one year I had about 10,00 members” Two years later, she had 20,000. “When the pandemic hit, we had 50,000 members. We’ve capped off at about 60,000,” reaching Black women in the U.S., Canada, and the UK.
Null recalls that during the pandemic, “I didn't have a job to go back to. I had just had my baby, so I was at home on maternity leave … (and) the company I worked for … let me go. My husband was the only one working at the time. I was told that I needed to monetize my group.”
Her first opportunity to monetize the group occurred when someone inquired about advertising within the group; this prompted her to create various ad packages. “One of the things that I did with the FB group was build an email list, so I also had an email list that I could leverage. I had this group audience to leverage as well.”
Null created several marketing packages. “Within one day I had made about $500 … I set up subscriptions. Eventually, I replaced the income that I earned from my corporate job. I knew that I needed to set up a website to do what I wanted to do. I wanted to build a directory where (Black women) could find healers, therapists, life coaches—all these in one area. They would pay a subscription to be on the list.”
In 2021, FB accepted Null into its program to assist group administrators. “They focused on monetization and taking groups from groups to actual businesses. That’s where I learned all my business acumen, FB gave us a grant, tools, and support to help us grow our group,”
Eventually, Null formed BGHH as an LLC to “have this framework to service a lot of people. To service a lot of people, you would need lots of manpower, a lot of funding, and resources that we don’t have. The best way to serve everyone was through AI.”
Consequently, Aidee was born. “When I first built her, it was a chatbot built on the chat GPT. Now we've moved on to another iteration, utilizing a software called Hume. Hume is an emotionally intelligent AI software … Students can call Aidee on their phone, (and) don't have to download anything. It literally sounds like they're talking to a real person. (Aidee) has the mental health first aid training and framework to service a lot of people.”
“The reason we shifted to the demographic to college women was because during the pandemic, college campuses were the hardest hit. Black women were dropping out of college at faster rates due to mental health issues. Colleges were looking to help their students so they could retain their numbers and their intake … (and) one of the biggest issues was that people can’t afford mental health services. If I'm selling mental health products, they need a way to afford them.”
She decided that “The best way to generate income was for colleges to pay for the service, so it’s free for students … Colleges promote (Aidee) through their mental health clinics.” When mental health clinics can't take on new students, they refer them to outside resources.
For those in need of more intensive, long-term professional help, BGHH continues to expand its directory of therapists.
BGHH’s online apothecary, the Healing House Collection, features bracelets, sage products, crystals, tote bags, quartz, sterling silver pendant, mugs, and a beanie. The Black Girl’s Guide to Crystals is available for free.
Null, the author of The Black Girl's Guide to Starting an Online Boutique, is working on two books, one for women “in the thick of the entrepreneurial journey looking for ways to get their businesses started.” The other is for “a Black woman who needs to find balance in her life.”
What has been her greatest personal challenge?
“Balancing it all. It’s what I stress about … what I think about every day when I go to sleep.” Wisely, she surrounds herself with a support team and mentors, including her number one mentor, her mother. She also has a life coach.”
On WVTM 13, Null revealed that her mother had once faced mental health issues. She explained that her cohort of younger women observed how previous generations of Black women dealt with their stressors and trauma.
“We saw how our moms and our aunts and other women in our lives dealt, or didn’t deal, with their mental health … (we saw) them go through life wearing the ‘strong Black woman” cape and hurting. A lot of women in our generation want to break those curses. We don’t want to continue the strong Black woman narrative anymore.”
Null shares wellness wisdom on social media sites, including Instagram and clubhouse.com.
Her latest venture is the “Black Girl’s Healing House” a twice weekly podcast on Spotify, currently featuring an 8-week series to help listeners, “thrive through fall and winter with productivity hacks, mindset shifts, and self-care tips …”
Null says that she embarked on her entrepreneurial journey because “One of the gaps I’ve noticed in the mental health, wellness, and self-help spaces is that our voices aren’t represented. It is a very white, male dominated space.”
Undeterred, she has successfully created a space for Black women to access mental health and wellness resources.
© 2024 wistajohnson.com (Reprint by permission only.) Photo: Courtesy of Delilah Null