When I was
young, I was never told such thing called mental
health existed. I was never told to take
care of it or prioritize it. And even to
this day, people tell me, oh you're at
that stage of life where you're gonna
have to deal with stress more just calm
down and breathe. Wow would you look at
that I'm curating. But here's the thing, about a year and a half ago
from a personal project, I chose to do
psychological disorders in adolescence.
Personal
project is when I
Now I'm not
winsome mango but I tried it and well
you see there are five dolls in the
dollhouse, but these all represent just
one person going through borderline personality
disorder. And it wasn't just a disorder
that was…. that that represented. it
also isn't all the other things that
came along with it. The fact that the
character the doll represented had
insomnia binge eating disorder was a
self-harm activist and although and like
I said there are five different dolls but
this is just five stages and in the end
I showed that it could either lead to
death or just a better life. Now, there
was a particular reason I wanted to do
that and it had to do with some people
in my life and particularly one whose
experience resonated with me.
A friend of
mine let's name them Laura had severe
depression and had been… had a lot of
anxiety attacks and later on she did a
get disordered, get diagnosed by a psychiatrist
with a clinical depression and panic
disorder. But you see time leading up to
that nobody recognized it. She tried
reaching out but it was really hard for
her to and so she decided to put
herself out of her misery and she attempted suicide. Fortunately
though, she did survive but after that
things got better. she… she got help
medically but what you need to understand
is that not everything in her life
didn't magically start being better. She
didn't feel calmer, she didn't feel happier.
What it just did was it, she asked for
help and she reached out. But one more
thing I need to tell you guys before I
continue is that I've never met Laura in
real life. She was an Internet friend
and of course we're the Millennials so
that's how things work these days. We’re
Facebook friends, we have friends all
over the world and we never met them and
that's who she was.
And I hope
you found the two significant things
that were wrong in the situation. One she
felt like she can ask for help until she
harmed herself only then did she feel
like it was legitimate and serious
enough of an issue to speak to others
off. And two she felt more easier, she
felt it was more easier to talk to a
stranger which was me at the time than
to her own parents. Doesn't that strike
you as something wrong and this whole
situation reminds me of one, what a
TEDTalk member said about depression. His
name was Kevin Bill and he said if you ever break your arm and
you have a cast, everyone runs towards
you to sign it but if you say you have
depression they run the other way and
that essentially sums up what's how
society perceives mental health.
You see
major depression is one of be for men
before biggest mental disorders that are,
that …that for mental disorders…. that
that's around the world and that's the
diagnose the most however, in the psychology
and psychiatry field it's said to be
one of the best documented disorders
yet. But to the people out of the
field like us, the society, it's often misunderstood
a lot. If I go up to somebody
in this and I tell them I'm having a depressive episode. As a good
friend, they might or a good family member
they might look up the symptoms to try
help me. But here's where the problem
lies, you can apply general symptoms you
see for depression and apply to every
case because there were different
severity levels, there are different
types of depression. And if you take it
out of context, it's not just depression,
it applies to every mental illness and
what you need to understand is that not
recognizing mental illnesses as a legitimate
issue can be very fatal. As of now, the
suicide rates are just going up and
5,000 approximately 5,000. There are more
people in between the age ranges of 12 to
18 attempt suicide every day in the
United States. That's about a million every
year and only in those age ranges and
United States. Can you imagine the world?
Can imagine a third world country in which medicine hasn't developed that
much yet and especially for mental health.
See if Laura hadn't been constantly
being told that other people have a
worse or it's just hormonal changes, see
that's perhaps the most infuriating myth
hormonal changes in adolescence. It may
be so in few cases but tell me does it
make it any less life-threatening if
somebody sits in their room every
single day wondering why they're never
happy and you …what you need to
understand is that when one in ten
adolescents are diagnosed with one mental
disorder every year. And that's one in
ten and that to one mental disorder
which means like I said in for my
personal project, you've learned that many
mental illnesses can co-occur with each
other and and Laura wouldn't have been
in a torn state of mind if people haven't
told her. Other people have it worse
and it's okay you know, it'll get better you might
if she got in professional help before, but why take it to that stage.
And what most people… what when they
say other people how worse they're referring
to people in Africa who don't get food
and that's completely out of context and
even then, yes those are issues that
need to be… that they need to be focused on
but if someone you saying I have pain recognized
me, why do we compare it to others and
that's like saying oh yeah stage
two cancer is worse than stage one. Yeah but
cancer is cancer. And so beauty have changed
the theme of old event or the entire
event and so I think maybe there is
change that can be made by everybody and
if society and that is both you and me
can start being a little more open-minded
about the fact that mental illnesses can
come in every age, gender or race,
culture. It doesn't matter, we're all humans
right in the end, then it would make it
easier for people dealing with it.
A lot of
times, the social stigma is harder to
deal with than the disorder
itself but do not keep in mind that it's
only the social stigma that's affecting
the person so the mental illness…. So what
I'm trying to say is that maybe it's not
possible for us to have a quick to get
rid of our quick negative impulse but
maybe if we could just be not quick to
compare and just listen to what the
other person is trying to do when
they're reaching out for help, it will
help everybody in the society and
ourselves as a person thank you
[Applause]
x
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