Denfeld senior talks mental health in mom-daughter podcast – Duluth News Tribune

DULUTH — Every episode of Ileini Hirt’s podcast starts with a warning: The topics that are discussed over the course of each episode might be difficult for people to hear — and that’s OK.

“This episode talks honestly about mental health and includes mentions of suicide. If you need to pause, breathe or come back later, please do,” Ashley Hirt, Ileini’s mother and co-host on “Mom & Me: Climbing Mountains Together,” narrates during what she has come to refer to as the “mom disclaimer” that opens each episode.

Funded through a grant from the Ann Bancroft Foundation, a St. Paul nonprofit organization, the mother-daughter duo’s unscripted podcast is a very personal exploration of mental health advocacy and access that unpacks their own story following Ileini’s struggles with mental health at the start of high school.

“I wanted to get the whole experience sort of out and on paper, per se,” Ileini said, “for people to hear and know — like bad things will happen, but you can find other people along the darkness, to help you get out of the hole.”

Now a senior at Denfeld High School, Ileini, 17, has grown into an advocate for mental health awareness and other social issues, even as she continues to navigate her own somewhat complicated relationship with the subject.

“It is always ongoing,” Ashley said, “that’s part of how we picked the name, because it is a climb, and there are lows and there are highs, but it just doesn’t ever really stop.”

With 10 episodes planned, the “Mom & Me” podcast premiered its first segment Nov. 3 on

Spotify

, delving into a series of events that took place four years prior, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, Ileini was still in middle school.

It’s an already difficult time, and adding in a cross-country move, a new school and a global pandemic that saw a

massive negative impact

on mental health didn’t make it easier.

“I know, I’m not the only person who had a really hard time then,” Ileini said. “It wasn’t easy; I’m not alone with struggling through it.”

At the end of her eighth grade year, Ileini was hospitalized after attempting to harm herself and telling a therapist that she had plans to end her life.

It was May 2022 and Ashley, her husband, and their three kids had only settled in Duluth in September 2021. It was a lot of change at once, Ileini said, especially since, just a year prior, the Hirt family had moved from Washington to Mississippi.

That day, Ashley drove Ileini from the therapist’s office straight to the emergency room. From there, Ileini went to in-patient care and was placed on a mandatory hold.

“There was a time where I really feared that she was unsafe, and that I was going to come home and see her lying on the floor,” Ashley said. “That’s a scary thing to go through — for her, for me. And she’s come so far and I am so proud of her, but it was frightening for a while.”

Over the course of the first several episodes, Ileini and Ashley recount the experience of Ileini’s first hospitalization; there would be a second hospitalization following the completion of her first year of high school. The pair talk about that, too. They talk about all of it.

Contributed / Ileini Hirt

Throughout conversations about her past and ongoing mental health journey — Ileini is being treated for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and ADHD — other themes often come up.

Ileini talks about navigating the world as a young woman of color, the pressures that come with being a multisport athlete and the importance of maintaining advocacy for others, even when it’s not popular among her peers.

There’s a raw quality to the conversations, Ashley said.

While she and Ileini created an outline of topics they wanted to address ahead of time, the actual episodes are unscripted, and they get vulnerable. There are things that they talk about that they have never before. There are points where they stop, correct each other and get choked up.

“We wanted to get to the right way, an effective way, to actually have these conversations,” Ashley said. “We sort out the miscommunication and show parents and teens how to do that together, even when it is hard.”

That was part of the goal when the idea behind their podcast was forming. Highlighting both of their perspectives — and how this journey had impacted them — is something that the mother-daughter duo hope will help not just them, but anyone going through similar struggles.

“There was this plan to create a podcast focusing on both the adolescent and also the parent perspective when it comes to mental health, which I think is quite brilliant,” said Ethelind Kaba, director of the Ann Bancroft Foundation.

Ileini had previously been awarded a $1,000 grant from the Ann Bancroft Foundation in 2023. The goal of the foundation, explained Kaba, is to help young girls achieve their dreams.

Contributed / Ann Bancroft Foundation

Ileini’s first grant went toward paying for hockey camp, but the grants are awarded to hundreds of girls every year, Kaba said, with hundreds of different goals in mind.

In 2024, Ileini applied for the Ann Bancroft Foundation’s Trailblazer Fellowship, which is open to previous grant recipients. It’s a more competitive grant, with multiple rounds of interviews after the initial application.

“Ileini just stood out right away,” Kaba said. “I have always been struck by her vulnerability and her honesty. … She is taking something that is a struggle for her, and learning how to leverage that into a powerful tool for herself, and then also for the broader community of young people.”

Contributed / Ann Bancroft Foundation

Ileini was one of 10 girls selected for the fellowship across the state of Minnesota. She was also invited to speak at the inaugural Ann Bancroft Girlhood Summit in 2024, hosted in St. Paul. There, in front of more than 200 girls, Ileini told her story.

She spoke about the struggles and pressures of being a female athlete, and navigating sports, mental health and high school — all themes that would reappear when she began recording the “Mom & Me” podcast.

While Ileini and Ashley wrapped up recording in November, the remaining podcast episodes will be released over the next few weeks. In the back half of their 10-episode season, the podcast features guests who talk about mental health resources and the intersection of sports, physical and mental health, among other topics.

“To have the opportunity to talk about mental health — and to feel like I am doing something bigger with my story — has been so impactful,” Ileini said. “But also, so many people helped to make this happen and told me they believed in me and what I wanted to do with this. That too, that’s been very therapeutic.”