0:00:00.342,0:00:02.732
For a long time in my life,

0:00:02.732,0:00:07.692
I felt like I'd been living two different lives.

0:00:07.692,0:00:10.236
There's the life that everyone sees,

0:00:10.236,0:00:14.804
and then there's the life that only I see.

0:00:14.804,0:00:17.324
And in the life that everyone sees,

0:00:17.324,0:00:19.675
who I am is a friend,

0:00:19.675,0:00:22.353
a son, a brother,

0:00:22.353,0:00:25.626
a stand-up comedian, and a teenager.

0:00:25.626,0:00:27.820
That's the life everyone sees.

0:00:27.820,0:00:29.823
If you were to ask my friends and family to describe me,

0:00:29.823,0:00:31.893
that's what they would tell you.

0:00:31.893,0:00:33.907
And that's a huge part of me. That is who I am.

0:00:33.907,0:00:36.067
And if you ask me to describe myself,

0:00:36.067,0:00:38.915
I'd probably say some of those same things.

0:00:38.915,0:00:42.200
And I wouldn't be lying.

0:00:42.200,0:00:45.653
I wouldn't totally be telling you the truth, either,

0:00:45.653,0:00:48.241
because the truth is,

0:00:48.241,0:00:50.490
that's just the life everyone else sees.

0:00:50.490,0:00:54.468
In the life that only I see, who I am,

0:00:54.468,0:00:56.734
who I really am,

0:00:56.734,0:01:00.830
is someone who struggles intensely with depression.

0:01:00.830,0:01:03.507
I have for the last six years of my life,

0:01:03.507,0:01:08.626
and I continue to every day.

0:01:08.626,0:01:11.123
Now, for someone who has never experienced depression

0:01:11.123,0:01:13.126
or doesn't really know what that means,

0:01:13.126,0:01:14.971
that might surprise them to hear,

0:01:14.971,0:01:16.906
because there's a pretty popular misconception

0:01:16.906,0:01:18.976
that depression is just being sad

0:01:18.976,0:01:21.071
when something in your life goes wrong,

0:01:21.071,0:01:23.046
when you break up with your girlfriend,

0:01:23.046,0:01:24.928
when you lose a loved one,

0:01:24.928,0:01:26.786
when you don't get the job you wanted.

0:01:26.786,0:01:28.620
But that's sadness. That's a natural thing.

0:01:28.620,0:01:30.531
That's a natural human emotion.

0:01:30.531,0:01:32.837
Real depression isn't being sad

0:01:32.837,0:01:35.866
when something in your life goes wrong.

0:01:35.866,0:01:38.144
Real depression is being sad

0:01:38.144,0:01:41.413
when everything in your life is going right.

0:01:41.413,0:01:43.898
That's real depression, and that's what I suffer from.

0:01:43.898,0:01:46.047
And to be totally honest,

0:01:46.047,0:01:48.837
that's hard for me to stand up here and say.

0:01:48.837,0:01:50.974
It's hard for me to talk about,

0:01:50.974,0:01:53.321
and it seems to be hard for everyone to talk about,

0:01:53.321,0:01:55.689
so much so that no one's talking about.

0:01:55.689,0:01:58.073
And no one's talking about depression, but we need to be,

0:01:58.073,0:02:00.933
because right now it's a massive problem.

0:02:00.933,0:02:02.911
It's a massive problem.

0:02:02.911,0:02:05.297
But we don't see it on social media, right?

0:02:05.297,0:02:07.478
We don't see it on Facebook. We don't see it on Twitter.

0:02:07.478,0:02:09.515
We don't see it on the news, because it's not happy,

0:02:09.515,0:02:11.452
it's not fun, it's not light.

0:02:11.452,0:02:13.601
And so because we don't see it, we don't see the severity of it.

0:02:13.601,0:02:17.729
But the severity of it and the seriousness of it is this:

0:02:17.729,0:02:20.160
every 30 seconds,

0:02:20.160,0:02:22.117
every 30 seconds, somewhere,

0:02:22.117,0:02:24.031
someone in the world takes their own life

0:02:24.031,0:02:25.695
because of depression,

0:02:25.695,0:02:27.675
and it might be two blocks away, it might be two countries away,

0:02:27.675,0:02:29.835
it might be two continents away, but it's happening,

0:02:29.835,0:02:32.022
and it's happening every single day.

0:02:32.022,0:02:34.291
And we have a tendency, as a society,

0:02:34.291,0:02:39.537
to look at that and go, "So what?"

0:02:39.537,0:02:44.731
So what? We look at that, and we go, "That's your problem.

0:02:44.731,0:02:46.519
That's their problem."

0:02:46.519,0:02:48.771
We say we're sad and we say we're sorry,

0:02:48.771,0:02:51.021
but we also say, "So what?"

0:02:51.021,0:02:54.554
Well, two years ago, two years ago it was my problem,

0:02:54.554,0:02:57.095
because I sat on the edge of my bed

0:02:57.095,0:03:01.248
where I'd sat a million times before

0:03:01.248,0:03:04.803
and I was suicidal.

0:03:04.803,0:03:07.697
I was suicidal, and if you were to look at my life on the surface,

0:03:07.697,0:03:11.278
you wouldn't see a kid who was suicidal.

0:03:11.278,0:03:13.209
You'd see a kid who was the captain of his basketball team,

0:03:13.209,0:03:15.485
the drama and theater student of the year,

0:03:15.485,0:03:17.353
the English student of the year,

0:03:17.353,0:03:19.288
someone who was consistently on the honor roll

0:03:19.288,0:03:21.716
and consistently at every party.

0:03:21.716,0:03:23.833
So you would say I wasn't depressed, you would say

0:03:23.833,0:03:26.297
I wasn't suicidal, but you would be wrong.

0:03:26.297,0:03:28.244
You would be wrong. So I sat there that night

0:03:28.244,0:03:31.544
beside a bottle of pills with a pen and paper in my hand

0:03:31.544,0:03:33.762
and I thought about taking my own life

0:03:33.762,0:03:36.468
and I came this close to doing it.

0:03:36.468,0:03:38.796
I came this close to doing it.

0:03:38.796,0:03:41.924
And I didn't, so that makes me one of the lucky ones,

0:03:41.924,0:03:44.091
one of the people who gets to step out on the ledge

0:03:44.091,0:03:45.997
and look down but not jump,

0:03:45.997,0:03:48.479
one of the lucky ones who survives.

0:03:48.479,0:03:50.722
Well, I survived, and that just leaves me with my story,

0:03:50.722,0:03:53.062
and my story is this:

0:03:53.062,0:03:56.088
in four simple words, I suffer from depression.

0:03:56.088,0:03:58.091
I suffer from depression,

0:03:58.091,0:04:05.461
and for a long time, I think,

0:04:05.461,0:04:08.734
I was living two totally different lives,

0:04:08.734,0:04:10.995
where one person was always afraid of the other.

0:04:10.995,0:04:13.054
I was afraid that people would see me for who I really was,

0:04:13.054,0:04:15.275
that I wasn't the perfect, popular kid in high school everyone thought I was,

0:04:15.275,0:04:17.900
that beneath my smile, there was struggle,

0:04:17.900,0:04:20.416
and beneath my light, there was dark,

0:04:20.416,0:04:24.363
and beneath my big personality just hid even bigger pain.

0:04:24.363,0:04:27.292
See, some people might fear girls not liking them back.

0:04:27.292,0:04:29.519
Some people might fear sharks. Some people might fear death.

0:04:29.519,0:04:34.212
But for me, for a large part of my life, I feared myself.

0:04:34.212,0:04:37.135
I feared my truth, I feared my honesty, I feared my vulnerability,

0:04:37.135,0:04:39.126
and that fear made me feel

0:04:39.126,0:04:41.222
like I was forced into a corner,

0:04:41.222,0:04:44.513
like I was forced into a corner and there was only one way out,

0:04:44.513,0:04:47.738
and so I thought about that way every single day.

0:04:47.738,0:04:50.037
I thought about it every single day,

0:04:50.037,0:04:51.994
and if I'm being totally honest standing here,

0:04:51.994,0:04:54.459
I've thought about it again since, because that's the sickness,

0:04:54.459,0:04:56.731
that's the struggle, that's depression,

0:04:56.731,0:04:58.689
and depression isn't chicken pox.

0:04:58.689,0:05:00.668
You don't beat it once and it's gone forever.

0:05:00.668,0:05:02.862
It's something you live with. It's something you live in.

0:05:02.862,0:05:05.788
It's the roommate you can't kick out. It's the voice you can't ignore.

0:05:05.788,0:05:08.116
It's the feelings you can't seem to escape,

0:05:08.116,0:05:10.603
and the scariest part is,

0:05:10.603,0:05:12.876
the scariest part is that after a while,

0:05:12.876,0:05:16.217
you become numb to it. It becomes normal for you,

0:05:16.217,0:05:18.335
and what you really fear the most

0:05:18.335,0:05:21.545
isn't the suffering inside of you.

0:05:21.545,0:05:23.677
It's the stigma inside of others,

0:05:23.677,0:05:25.650
it's the shame, it's the embarrassment,

0:05:25.650,0:05:27.749
it's the disapproving look on a friend's face,

0:05:27.749,0:05:30.921
it's the whispers in the hallway that you're weak,

0:05:30.921,0:05:32.922
it's the comments that you're crazy.

0:05:32.922,0:05:34.975
That's what keeps you from getting help.

0:05:34.975,0:05:37.008
That's what makes you hold it in and hide it.

0:05:37.008,0:05:39.643
It's the stigma. So you hold it in and you hide it,

0:05:39.643,0:05:41.766
and you hold it in and you hide it,

0:05:41.766,0:05:43.827
and even though it's keeping you in bed every day

0:05:43.827,0:05:46.244
and it's making your life feel empty no matter how much you try and fill it,

0:05:46.244,0:05:48.269
you hide it, because the stigma in our society

0:05:48.269,0:05:50.845
around depression is very real.

0:05:50.845,0:05:54.097
It's very real, and if you think that it isn't, ask yourself this:

0:05:54.097,0:05:56.257
would you rather make your next Facebook status

0:05:56.257,0:05:58.341
say you're having a tough time getting out of bed

0:05:58.341,0:06:00.366
because you hurt your back

0:06:00.366,0:06:02.358
or you're having a tough time getting out of bed every morning

0:06:02.358,0:06:04.458
because you're depressed?

0:06:04.458,0:06:06.435
That's the stigma, because unfortunately,

0:06:06.435,0:06:09.021
we live in a world where if you break your arm,

0:06:09.021,0:06:11.361
everyone runs over to sign your cast,

0:06:11.361,0:06:14.886
but if you tell people you're depressed, everyone runs the other way.

0:06:14.886,0:06:17.200
That's the stigma.

0:06:17.200,0:06:20.890
We are so, so, so accepting of any body part breaking down

0:06:20.890,0:06:25.053
other than our brains. And that's ignorance.

0:06:25.053,0:06:27.619
That's pure ignorance, and that ignorance has created

0:06:27.619,0:06:29.553
a world that doesn't understand depression,

0:06:29.553,0:06:31.612
that doesn't understand mental health.

0:06:31.612,0:06:33.519
And that's ironic to me, because depression

0:06:33.519,0:06:35.598
is one of the best-documented problems we have in the world,

0:06:35.598,0:06:37.858
yet it's one of the least discussed.

0:06:37.858,0:06:40.187
We just push it aside and put it in a corner,

0:06:40.187,0:06:43.989
pretend it's not there, and hope it'll fix itself.

0:06:43.989,0:06:47.050
Well it won't. It hasn't, and it's not going to,

0:06:47.050,0:06:49.114
because that's wishful thinking,

0:06:49.114,0:06:51.887
and wishful thinking isn't a game plan, it's procrastination,

0:06:51.887,0:06:55.632
and we can't procrastinate on something this important.

0:06:55.632,0:06:59.207
The first step in solving any problem

0:06:59.207,0:07:01.814
is recognizing there is one.

0:07:01.814,0:07:04.156
Well, we haven't done that, so we can't really expect

0:07:04.156,0:07:07.295
to find an answer when we're still afraid of the question.

0:07:07.295,0:07:10.490
And I don't know what the solution is.

0:07:10.490,0:07:12.583
I wish I did, but I don't, but I think,

0:07:12.583,0:07:15.497
I think it has to start here.

0:07:15.497,0:07:18.028
It has to start with me, it has to start with you,

0:07:18.028,0:07:21.268
it has to start with the people who are suffering,

0:07:21.268,0:07:23.115
the ones who are hidden in the shadows.

0:07:23.115,0:07:25.115
We need to speak up and shatter the silence.

0:07:25.115,0:07:27.512
We need to be the ones who are brave for what we believe in,

0:07:27.512,0:07:30.441
because if there's one thing that I've come to realize,

0:07:30.441,0:07:33.986
if there's one thing that I see is the biggest problem,

0:07:33.986,0:07:36.164
it's not in building a world

0:07:36.164,0:07:41.065
where we eliminate the ignorance of others.

0:07:41.065,0:07:43.983
It's in building a world where we teach the acceptance of ourselves,

0:07:43.983,0:07:46.008
when we're okay with who we are,

0:07:46.008,0:07:47.853
because when we get honest,

0:07:47.853,0:07:49.957
we see that we all struggle and we all suffer.

0:07:49.957,0:07:52.094
Whether it's with this, whether it's with something else,

0:07:52.094,0:07:54.120
we all know what it is to hurt.

0:07:54.120,0:07:56.358
We all know what it is to have pain in our heart,

0:07:56.358,0:07:58.530
and we all know how important it is to heal.

0:07:58.530,0:08:01.893
But right now, depression is society's deep cut

0:08:01.893,0:08:05.010
that we're content to put a band-aid over and pretend it's not there.

0:08:05.010,0:08:09.173
Well, it is there. It is there, and you know what? It's okay.

0:08:09.173,0:08:12.953
Depression is okay. If you're going through it, know that you're okay.

0:08:12.953,0:08:15.723
And know that you're sick, you're not weak,

0:08:15.723,0:08:17.935
and it's an issue, not an identity,

0:08:17.935,0:08:20.165
because when you get past the fear and the ridicule

0:08:20.165,0:08:22.440
and the judgment and the stigma of others,

0:08:22.440,0:08:24.765
you can see depression for what it really is,

0:08:24.765,0:08:27.071
and that's just a part of life,

0:08:27.071,0:08:30.064
just a part of life, and as much as I hate,

0:08:30.064,0:08:33.394
as much as I hate some of the places,

0:08:33.394,0:08:36.184
some of the parts of my life depression has dragged me down to,

0:08:36.184,0:08:39.548
in a lot of ways I'm grateful for it.

0:08:39.548,0:08:41.607
Because yeah, it's put me in the valleys,

0:08:41.607,0:08:43.531
but only to show me there's peaks,

0:08:43.531,0:08:45.454
and yeah it's dragged me through the dark

0:08:45.454,0:08:47.470
but only to remind me there is light.

0:08:47.470,0:08:50.459
My pain, more than anything in 19 years on this planet,

0:08:50.459,0:08:52.979
has given me perspective, and my hurt,

0:08:52.979,0:08:55.229
my hurt has forced me to have hope,

0:08:55.229,0:08:57.805
have hope and to have faith, faith in myself,

0:08:57.805,0:09:00.550
faith in others, faith that it can get better,

0:09:00.550,0:09:02.767
that we can change this, that we can speak up

0:09:02.767,0:09:05.186
and speak out and fight back against ignorance,

0:09:05.186,0:09:07.975
fight back against intolerance,

0:09:07.975,0:09:09.990
and more than anything,

0:09:09.990,0:09:12.044
learn to love ourselves,

0:09:12.044,0:09:14.895
learn to accept ourselves for who we are,

0:09:14.895,0:09:18.990
the people we are, not the people the world wants us to be.

0:09:18.990,0:09:21.071
Because the world I believe in is one

0:09:21.071,0:09:24.863
where embracing your light doesn't mean ignoring your dark.

0:09:24.863,0:09:27.039
The world I believe in is one where we're measured

0:09:27.039,0:09:30.921
by our ability to overcome adversities, not avoid them.

0:09:30.921,0:09:33.885
The world I believe in is one where I can look someone in the eye

0:09:33.885,0:09:36.954
and say, "I'm going through hell,"

0:09:36.954,0:09:40.654
and they can look back at me and go, "Me too," and that's okay,

0:09:40.654,0:09:44.248
and it's okay because depression is okay. We're people.

0:09:44.248,0:09:46.770
We're people, and we struggle and we suffer

0:09:46.770,0:09:49.329
and we bleed and we cry, and if you think that true strength

0:09:49.329,0:09:52.109
means never showing any weakness, then I'm here

0:09:52.109,0:09:54.909
to tell you you're wrong.

0:09:54.909,0:09:58.114
You're wrong, because it's the opposite.

0:09:58.114,0:10:01.752
We're people, and we have problems.

0:10:01.752,0:10:03.900
We're not perfect, and that's okay.

0:10:03.900,0:10:05.960
So we need to stop the ignorance,

0:10:05.960,0:10:08.699
stop the intolerance, stop the stigma,

0:10:08.699,0:10:11.551
and stop the silence, and we need to take away the taboos,

0:10:11.551,0:10:15.736
take a look at the truth, and start talking,

0:10:15.736,0:10:21.460
because the only way we're going to beat a problem

0:10:21.460,0:10:25.332
that people are battling alone

0:10:25.332,0:10:28.665
is by standing strong together,

0:10:28.665,0:10:31.982
by standing strong together.

0:10:31.982,0:10:36.010
And I believe that we can.

0:10:36.010,0:10:38.296
I believe that we can. Thank you guys so much.

0:10:38.296,0:10:40.351
This is a dream come true. Thank you.

0:10:40.351,0:10:42.119
(Applause)

0:10:42.119,0:10:42.960
Thank you. (Applause)