Transcriber: Stanislava Moskalets
Reviewer: Denise RQ Ladies and gentlemen,
I welcome you here today. I'm going to share an idea with you. In order to share that idea with you, I'm going to talk to you about
a very personal experience of mine. It was a bright sunny day in June. I'm twenty one years old, and I'm sitting on the edge of my bed. A bottle of pills - in my left hand,
and a bottle of Kahlua - in my right. From the ceiling light hangs
poorly constructed noose, and my computer stands open
with an elaborate goodbye letter. I'm going to commit suicide. There is something so unexplainably heavy pushing down on me, something that I feel can only
be relieved with death. This broken record keeps playing
the same old familiar song in my head, and the lyrics go something like, "Nobody loves you. Nobody needs you. Existence is futile. You are worthless." The pain is too much for me
and too much for my family to bear, and this is why I'm committing suicide. I'm not just doing it for me. I'm doing it for my mother, for my father,
for my friends, and my family. They will understand that the world
is so much better off without me. They will understand that
committing suicide is good for all of us. That is what I was thinking, that is what I believed at that time, and that is the ridiculous truth and ultimately, the taboo of depression. Does that sound like something
a healthy person would say? Does that sound like something a person of a sound mind
and body would think? What I'm asking you, basically, is
what is health and being healthy? Is health just about
eating right and exercising, being able to run a marathon, and looking skinny enough
to wear a bikini? Or is health something more? What if I was able to do all those things and still suffered
from cancer or diabetes? You wouldn't go and say,
"Yeah, she's in full health." Probably not. But what if I was able to run a marathon,
but still suffered from depression, would that make me healthy in theory? Just think about it. And why is that? In the vast world of modern social media I constantly raised awareness that the issue of mental health still
somehow stays under the covers. Why is it, when I open my Facebook page, I scroll through endless pictures
of flexed muscles, and a constant stream of healthy recipes, people boasting and bragging about how far they ran
or how much they benched. But nobody ever texts
to Facebook to tell the world they are in a good mental health, that they are stable
and taking care of themselves. Why is it we never see check-ins
from therapists' offices, or selfies from psychiatric clinics, status updates about the latest cognitive
behaviour treatments and therapy crisis? Why is it so easy for us to admit that we can heal our broken bones but not our broken souls? When talking about depression
and feeling depressed, I am not referring to the gloomy feeling
of a tired Monday morning. I'm talking about the medical factor,
like a broken leg. So let's use the metaphor. Let's say my leg is broken,
and it hurts really bad. In fact, it hurts so much
that it's on the verge of killing me. But what I do is
I tape it together myself, and I just walk on it broken,
gradually just breaking it more. And when people tell me, "You know, there is
something wrong with your leg," "Oh no, it's fine. It's not broken.
It's just a little bit crooked today. I'm fine." For three years I walked around
on that broken leg, lying to people and lying to myself
that everything is fine, everything is OK,
nothing is wrong with me. Every time I think about calling
the doctor or seeing someone, I can't; because the shame
washes over me, and I start thinking
that I can't call the doctor because people will know
that I can't heal my own broken leg. This is the survival of the fittest. They will know you can't do it yourself,
and they will cast you out. Doesn't that scenario sound
completely ridiculous to you? It does, doesn't it? So why is it that we are
so easily ready to admit that we can fix our bodies
but not our souls? Being depressed is not easy. It's something that you have to
battle with your whole entire life. When I've given lectures
to teenagers about depression, I always start off by asking them, "What is the first thing
that comes to your mind when I say the word 'depressed'?" And they most frequently say
things like, "You're sad," "You're lonely", "You hate yourself," "You feel really bad,
AND you don't know why." I tell them in response, "You all are
absolutely right. That's all correct." But I'm always holding
my heart out for this one kid to raise his or her hand
and say, "It's an illness." Because that is exactly what it is. The social taboo surrounding
depression crystallizes in the way people talk about it. Admit it: everyone in here has either said
something or heard people say, "Oh, yeah, he is on crazy pills," or "Yeah, I heard
she is seeing a psychiatrist" like it's something bad, like it's something
you should be ashamed of and the reason that I walked around
on broken legs for so many years - and so many people still do - is because society
still doesn't fully grasp the concept of mental illness
being an illness not a choice. Because I can assure you
I didn't wake up one morning and think, "Oh, yeah, that depression thing!
I heard that's cool. I'm going to try out. I'm going to do that." Much like a cancer patient,
I didn't stroll up to the hospital and just sign up for
chemotherapy and struggle. It's an illness. It's something that I cannot control. Because what happens
when talking about depression is that I'm talking about
the medical factor like the broken leg. But in my case,
my legs are completely fine; It's my mind that's broken. My broken brain doesn't produce the right amount of happy
hormones into my body, and that's what's wrong with me. So it's those hormones, or lack thereof, what would make me think that I'm useless, worthless,
pathetic, and small. It's what makes me twist
every single word, every glance, every comment, every mistake
into something catastrophically bad. It is what makes me unable
to move out of bed in the morning, and it is what makes the automatic task of breathing
an uphill mountain climb. So, what do we have to do to change this?
What do we have to do? We have to talk about it. We have to talk about everything
that happens to us, everything that goes on in our lives, everything that happens
to us as human beings; whether we like it or not,
good or bad, is going to affect us. Our feelings are the most
purest form of expression, and we should never have to hide them. When I first started telling people
that I was depressed, their reactions completely baffled me, because, all of a sudden,
everyone was a doctor, everyone kept telling me, "There is no way you can be depressed
because you're always so happy. You're the life of every party. You have friends and family.
You do well at school. You're the head of the drama club.
You're part of the debate team." And somehow, a depressed person isn't supposed to have
and be able to do all those things, and still be depressed. That is the misunderstanding that constantly feeds
on the taboo of depression because we don't talk about it. The misunderstanding is that not all mentally-ill persons
are strapped down in straight jackets, locked away in asylums. This actually happens to "normal people." It's happened to someone in this room. It is going to happen to someone
in this room or someone that you know. I'm here to tell you
things are going to get better; because I'm here talking about it, you're going out,
and you're going to talk about it, and things are going to get better. So, as I said, when I first started
telling people that I was depressed, the reaction I received was ridiculous. But after three years
of struggling with myself, struggling with my self-identity, smoking too much,
drinking too much, eating too much, one night standing and parting
my way out the of pain to try to make people
think that I was happy, to try to look happy on the outside, putting on this huge,
heavy mask for all this time, so people wouldn't realize
that my leg was in smithereens. And then I woke up
one day, and I thought: "This is not the person that I want to be. This is not who I was born
on this Earth to be." So I picked up the phone,
and I called the therapist, and that was the hardest thing
I've ever done. In my first session, my therapist
told me, "You know what? You are going to feel a lot worse
when you leave the session because you are ripping off a band-aid that has been sitting on your soul
for I don't even know how many years." But I ripped off that band-aid,
and I'm proud of myself for doing so. I ripped it off, and I gradually started
working out my problems. Then, after several months of treatment
and help from the people closest to me, I was able to put my problems behind me. For the first time, in such a long time, I was happy -happy! A feeling that I had completely put off, a feeling that I thought was reserved
for some exclusive country club upstate, something I was never
going to be able to feel again. I was, in all essentials, happy; healthy and happy. So, let's go back to that day
I was talking about earlier. Let's go back to that bright,
sunny day in June 2013. I'm 21 years old, I have my whole life ahead of me, but, alas, the pill bottle now
occupies my stomach, and so does the Kahlua. The pain that I'm experiencing I will never be able to explain. If you've never truly
experienced depression and actually wanting to take you own life, I sincerely hope you never will. This is a feeling I wouldn't wish
upon my worst enemies. All of sudden, this little voice, this devil that's been sitting
on my shoulders, starts talking, "You know what?
You are going to mess this up. You are going to fail like you failed
everything else in your life. You're going to fall from the noose
and break your spine, damage your kidneys,
and wake up a miserable vegetable, and you are a loser
that can't even do this right. You can't even kill yourself right." And that was the thought
that made me reach for the phone. I wish I could say it was the image
of my parents weeping at my coffin, or the thought of a happier life
in the future, but it wasn't. It was this thought,
the thought that I was a failure. And I didn't want to fail this. So, in some kind of a frenzy,
I pick up the phone, I dial my best friend's number, and from that point on
everything becomes a haze. I am rushed into an ambulance,
they're pushing me around in gurneys, they're pumping the drugs out of me, and much like a patient
with broken legs or infected gums I am at the hospital to get help. And there are professional people
here to take care of me. I understand why people
that have never really experienced this and don't know what depression is, tend to say that suicide is a selfish act. But I'm here to tell you that it's not. You couldn't have told me simply just to suck it up
or change my attitude because I was way too far gone,
I am sick, and I need help. By saying things like this,
by saying, "Just suck it up! or "Change your attitude", you are constantly
contributing to the taboo. You would never say this
about any other patient. You would never call cancer patients
weak, pathetic people for being sick because you know they didn't choose to be. They just got unlucky. What if I just got unlucky too? I'm at the hospital. I'm here to get help. I was reluctant at first, but I realized that I was just
like a cancer patient; I was just like a person
with a broken leg, and this was the place
I was supposed to be. Here are people to take care of me. So, a second battle in my life begins. I start struggling with myself again,
trying to get out of the psych ward to just live a normal life
with this burden on my back. But I was able to do so. The social taboo surrounding
depression, as I said, crystallizes in the way people talk about it. I decided, when I came out
of the psych ward, that I was not going to be
one of those people. I was going to be the person
who will change the world. I was going to use this
to help other people. What we need to do is we need to deconstruct these padded walls
surrounding mental illness, and we need to do it together. We need to climb these walls
whether our legs are broken or not. I believe that we can do that. I stand here before you today so thankful
that my friend picked up the phone; I'm so thankful for
all the help that I received, and ultimately, I am thankful
for being depressed because it's a part of me, just as much as my ten toes or the freckles I get on my nose
during the summer. This is me. This is who I am. I encourage you to walk out of here today and break this social taboo
that surrounds mental illness because we need to grasp the concept that mental illness is
an illness not a choice. I also stand here
before you today to tell you if you're feeling depressed,
things are going to get better. Things always get better. Talk to the people around you,
talk to your friends, your family. Our feelings are our most
purest form of expression. We should never hide them. I'm not going to lie to you: being depressed and feeling
suicidal is the worst. This is a lifelong battle,
an endless struggle, a daily war you wage against yourself. But the secret is that it is a war where anyone
can prove to be a hero. It is a war where anyone can stand up
and be a winner. Much like a cancer patient who has fought
and struggled his or her entire life, depressed people can do that too, and we can come out on the winning side. What I want for all of us
to walk out of here today with is that I want us to walk into a world where there is no difference made
between physical health and mental health, where those things are just as important. And I want us to live in a world where there is no social distinction made between calling your doctor
and calling your psychiatrist. I believe that together
we can make that happen. Thank you. (Applause)
