hey abraham how are you
i am great glad to be here
you talked about being off
a certain point of your life
and uh
do you want to talk about like what was
it the feeling of feeling off and what
was the turning point where you realized
you needed help
and what did you do to do that like what
were the processes that you followed
um for me when it comes to the turning
point
uh there were a couple of things at play
um one was that i grew up in a jamaican
household so i had two jamaican
immigrant parents growing up
and i also grew up in a christian family
and so there was this dynamic or this
unspoken rule of
uh we don't talk about our feelings our
emotions and and so i kind of grew up in
that environment where there wasn't
necessarily a safe space to talk about
anything related to mental health yeah i
didn't even know what mental health was
when i was younger so fast forward to
leaving home and being the first in my
family to go off to college in 2014
i started to experience stress because i
was a full-time student i was a
i had a full-time job i was trying to
have the full experience of what it's
like as a college student
and it became overwhelming and it was
stressful and i just
continued to push as if nothing was
wrong
um so that wasn't helpful and it led to
me having
um challenges mentally and emotionally
to the point where i went from being a
motivated
student to
not being able to get out of bed
so i knew that something was off because
normally i would be able to motivate
myself
to do things i would be able to get up
and exercise and feel better but for
some reason the motivational music
wasn't working the videos weren't
working the the friends weren't helping
and i just was i felt stuck so that at
that point i knew i i needed some sort
of help whatever help looked like at
that point yeah
and was there like
a moment where you were like juggling in
your mind that do i need help and i'm
still okay because you know there were
moments where you were not feeling so
bad but you were feeling bad
enough was there any friend or anybody
like you said your family did not
believe in like you know anything
related to mental health and you grew up
in that thing but was there any friend
who kept like pestering you like you
know
yeah you said the right word she was
pestering me
and i shared a little bit about this in
my presentation that you attended but um
yeah i had a friend and at the time i
did not like this friend because she
kept bothering me is what i call it
bothering me but now i'm so grateful for
that friend because
if it wasn't for that friend checking on
me and continuing to check on me i don't
know where i would be today and honestly
i don't know if i would be here today
because it got really dark for me and i
got to a really low point in my life
but um i had this friend so i'll give
you the the quick story yeah um i had
this friend and we met during during uh
undergrad
uh my first year
and we quickly developed a fast
relationship because we enjoyed doing
the same things and we both came from
immigrant
families and and so there was a
connection there so we became friends
pretty quickly yeah and and um
and again i went from being this
motivated enthusiastic go-getter to
isolating myself and this friend
um realized that i started withdrawing
myself and she knew something was off
because that's not the way i normally
operate
so she saw the signs and she saw that
something was off and so she would check
in on me but i would ignore her phone
calls ignore her text messages because i
didn't feel like myself yeah i didn't
want her to see me like this like i'm
known to be the strong friend the one
who's supportive but now i'm i can't
even support myself so he wants to show
the multiple side right of anybody
yeah i felt very shameful and
embarrassed with what i was experiencing
um but like you mentioned this friend
kept pestering me and
i remember i remember one weekend i was
at i was at home
and it was a beautiful day outside so i
live in florida and it was a beautiful
day outside the sun was shining the
weather was nice
but i found myself locked in my
apartment in my bedroom
underneath the covers with the blinds
closed
and
i was in between crying
and being
like
extremely upset
because i didn't know what was going on
and i didn't know how to fix it and it
just so happened that my best friend
decides to call me when i'm in this
situation and so she calls me
uh i decide to pick up the phone this
particular day and i remember she said
something that changed my life she says
i'm not getting off the phone
until you tell me what's really going on
and i remember when she said that i knew
that
she wasn't just asking out of courtesy
she wasn't just checking in on me
because that's what friends are for like
she she was really genuine about
supporting me and because i felt that i
decided for the first time to open up so
i opened up with her and i told her
everything i told her how i wasn't
sleeping at night because of the
negative racing thoughts i told her how
i didn't have an appetite so i wasn't
eating i told her how i didn't have any
motivation to go to classes to go to
work and i just didn't want to do
anything
and that's when
you know i felt safe for the first time
in my life because she listened to me
and then she says you know it sounds
like you're depressed
and i was like depressed because
remember
yeah why would i be depressed and
remember growing up we didn't talk about
things like that so i didn't even know
what depression was yeah like for me can
i be honest with you rubali absolutely
so
so
so for me when i thought about
depression i thought it was a white
person's issue
privilege right person yeah i thought
depression only affected a select group
of people who couldn't handle adversity
and so i thought it was for weak people
so when she said the word depression
actually took it as an insult i was like
how could you be calling me depressed
i think that is such a great point
abraham
the label right
yeah called depressed
right like how in our mind we say that
we are not that person
mm-hmm that's somebody else yeah yeah
and i battled with stigma i battled with
those negative perceptions i like to
call them lies right i battled with all
of these lies and um it finally got to a
point where i was sick and tired of the
same thing over and over again and my
best friend who called me that day
recommended that i see a counselor
yeah and um i ended up seeing a
counselor weeks later and that started
me on on my journey to getting treated
for depression uh and recovering so
and then you started this organ this uh
speaks speaks to inspire i see it right
behind you tell me a little bit about
that and what you're trying to achieve
with that
uh speaks to inspire is the mental
health solution for young adult
suffering and silence and so we work
primarily in colleges and universities
and we help institutions to develop
programming
that supports the mental health and
well-being of their students and that
also reduces stigma
