A career built around storytelling, strategy and the creative arts has now turned inward for Dr Nobulali Dangazele, who has opened up about her mental health journey and her decision to admit herself to a psychiatric hospital.
A deeply personal admission
Award-winning producer, strategy consultant and academic Dr Nobulali Dangazele has revealed that she recently admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital as she confronted the impact of years of grief, loss and declining mental health.
Dangazele, who is also known professionally as Lali, shared the revelation as part of a series documenting her personal experience during Mental Health Awareness Month.
In the posts, she reflects on the death of her mother and the losses that followed, describing the experience as something that happened gradually rather than as one dramatic breaking point.
“My mom passed away at 49 years and 51 weeks old. One day I was at her bedside, the next I was holding her death certificate. We buried her on her 50th birthday,” she wrote.
She says the losses that followed affected her slowly, comparing the experience to an elevator descending without her immediately realising how far she had fallen.
“The losses that followed took me down slowly, like an elevator. I didn’t notice I was falling until the doors opened at ground zero,” she said.
Her decision to seek psychiatric care comes as she speaks publicly about depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, while making it clear that she is sharing her experience rather than offering medical advice.
From child star to academic and strategist
Dangazele has spent much of her life in the public eye, first establishing herself as an actress before building a career across theatre, television, production, education and strategy.
She became widely recognised for her performance as Mangi in the award-winning SABC1 mini-series When We Were Black. She later appeared in productions including Rhythm City, Home Affairs, Izingane zoBaba, Safe as Hauser’s and Tjovitjo.
Her career eventually expanded beyond acting. She became an award-winning theatre and television producer and founded ShakeXperience, an applied theatre company known for its African adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm and innovative approaches to teaching and learning.
Academically, Dangazele holds a Master of Dramatic Arts from Wits University, for which she received the Mandela Rhodes Scholarship, and completed doctoral research at Warwick Business School. She has also worked as a lecturer at the Gordon Institute of Business Science, with interests spanning strategy, leadership, the creative economy and diversity and inclusion.
Her work has placed her at an unusual intersection of the arts, business, behavioural science and education.
The grief behind the fall
In opening up about her mental health, Dangazele connects her current experience to a history of profound loss.
The death of her mother appears to have been a defining moment in that journey. The circumstances surrounding her mother’s death – including the striking detail that she died just days before turning 50 and was buried on her 50th birthday – remain central to the story Dangazele is now telling.
Rather than presenting her experience as a single episode, she describes an accumulation of losses that gradually affected her.
She also explains the language she is using around her experience, describing depression as a prolonged low mood or loss of interest and PTSD as something that can develop following trauma, including a sudden or traumatic loss.
“If it’s easier, the story you can tell yourself is that you were sad for a very long time,” she wrote.
Choosing to ask for help
Dangazele’s decision to speak publicly about being admitted to a psychiatric hospital also challenges the perception that professional achievement necessarily protects people from mental health struggles.
Her career has included scholarships, awards, academic research, teaching, television and theatre production, and work as a strategy and communication specialist. Anthro-Analytics describes her as an applied social scientist specialising in organisational strategy, qualitative research, diversity and inclusion, and communication strategy.
But behind those achievements, she says, was a personal struggle that eventually required more support.
By documenting the experience, Dangazele is also making space for a conversation about what seeking help can look like – including reaching a point where hospitalisation becomes necessary.
She stresses that she is not a mental health professional and that her posts should not be treated as professional advice.
Instead, she is telling her own story.
“If you’re struggling, please reach out,” she said, directing people in South Africa to the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG) for support.
For Dangazele, the story is therefore not simply about being admitted to hospital. It is about recognising how long she had been carrying grief, acknowledging that she was no longer coping alone and allowing herself to seek help.
After years of telling stories through theatre, television and academia, she is now telling one of her most personal stories – her own.
