0:00:00.342,0:00:03.101
For a long time in my life,

0:00:03.101,0:00:07.692
I felt like I'd been living two different lives.

0:00:07.692,0:00:11.097
There's the life that everyone sees,

0:00:11.097,0:00:14.804
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,

0:00:17.324,0:00:19.798
who I am is a friend,

0:00:19.798,0:00:22.353
a son, a brother,

0:00:22.353,0:00:25.979
a stand-up comedian and a teenager.

0:00:25.979,0:00:27.820
That's the life everyone sees.

0:00:27.820,0:00:29.346
If you were to ask my friends and family to describe me,

0:00:29.346,0:00:31.185
that's what they would tell you.

0:00:31.185,0:00:33.183
And that's a huge part of me. That is who I am.

0:00:33.183,0:00:35.993
And if you were to ask me to describe myself,

0:00:35.993,0:00:38.915
I'd probably say some of those same things.

0:00:38.915,0:00:42.476
And I wouldn't be lying,

0:00:42.476,0:00:46.006
but I wouldn't totally be telling you the truth, either,

0:00:46.006,0:00:47.533
because the truth is,

0:00:47.533,0:00:50.705
that's just the life everyone else sees.

0:00:50.705,0:00:54.468
In the life that only I see, who I am,

0:00:54.468,0:00:56.395
who I really am,

0:00:56.395,0:01:00.830
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

0:01:11.123,0:01:12.325
or doesn't really know what that means,

0:01:12.325,0:01:13.708
that might surprise them to hear,

0:01:13.708,0:01:15.613
because there's this pretty popular misconception

0:01:15.613,0:01:18.360
that depression is just being sad

0:01:18.360,0:01:20.848
when something in your life goes wrong,

0:01:20.848,0:01:22.490
when you break up with your girlfriend,

0:01:22.490,0:01:23.881
when you lose a loved one,

0:01:23.881,0:01:25.632
when you don't get the job you wanted.

0:01:25.632,0:01:27.619
But that's sadness. That's a natural thing.

0:01:27.619,0:01:29.531
That's a natural human emotion.

0:01:29.531,0:01:33.729
Real depression isn't being sad

0:01:33.729,0:01:36.358
when something in your life goes wrong.

0:01:36.358,0:01:38.144
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.

0:01:43.898,0:01:46.023
And to be totally honest,

0:01:46.023,0:01:48.837
that's hard for me to stand up here and say.

0:01:48.837,0:01:50.558
It's hard for me to talk about,

0:01:50.558,0:01:53.321
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 it.

0:01:55.689,0:01:58.083
And no one's talking about depression, but we need to be,

0:01:58.083,0:02:01.825
because right now it's a massive problem.

0:02:01.825,0:02:03.495
It's a massive problem.

0:02:03.495,0:02:05.297
But we don't see it on social media, right?

0:02:05.297,0:02:07.385
We don't see it on Facebook. We don't see it on Twitter.

0:02:07.385,0:02:09.207
We don't see it on the news, because it's not happy,

0:02:09.207,0:02:10.836
it's not fun, it's not light.

0:02:10.836,0:02:14.431
And so because we don't see it, we don't see the severity of it.

0:02:14.431,0:02:18.190
But the severity of it and the seriousness of it is this:

0:02:18.190,0:02:19.913
every 30 seconds,

0:02:19.913,0:02:22.117
every 30 seconds, somewhere,

0:02:22.117,0:02:24.310
someone in the world takes their own life

0:02:24.310,0:02:25.387
because of depression,

0:02:25.387,0:02:27.627
and it might be two blocks away, it might be two countries away,

0:02:27.627,0:02:29.157
it might be two continents away, but it's happening,

0:02:29.157,0:02:31.727
and it's happening every single day.

0:02:31.727,0:02:34.691
And we have a tendency, as a society,

0:02:34.691,0:02:39.937
to look at that and go, "So what?"

0:02:39.937,0:02:44.592
So what? We look at that, and we go, "That's your problem.

0:02:44.592,0:02:46.995
That's their problem."

0:02:46.995,0:02:48.847
We say we're sad and we say we're sorry,

0:02:48.847,0:02:50.224
but we also say, "So what?"

0:02:50.224,0:02:54.907
Well, two years ago it was my problem,

0:02:54.907,0:02:58.964
because I sat on the edge of my bed

0:02:58.964,0:03:02.324
where I'd sat a million times before

0:03:02.324,0:03:05.140
and I was suicidal.

0:03:05.140,0:03:09.066
I was suicidal, and if you were to look at my life on the surface,

0:03:09.066,0:03:11.308
you wouldn't see a kid who was suicidal.

0:03:11.308,0:03:13.424
You'd see a kid who was the captain of his basketball team,

0:03:13.424,0:03:15.485
the drama and theater student of the year,

0:03:15.485,0:03:16.444
the English student of the year,

0:03:16.444,0:03:18.272
someone who was consistently on the honor roll

0:03:18.272,0:03:21.945
and consistently at every party.

0:03:21.945,0:03:23.586
So you would say I wasn't depressed, you would say

0:03:23.586,0:03:26.297
I wasn't suicidal, but you would be wrong.

0:03:26.297,0:03:27.736
You would be wrong. So I sat there that night

0:03:27.736,0:03:31.774
beside a bottle of pills with a pen and paper in my hand

0:03:31.774,0:03:33.762
and I thought about taking my own life

0:03:33.762,0:03:37.114
and I came this close to doing it.

0:03:37.114,0:03:38.796
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,

0:03:41.924,0:03:44.059
one of the people who gets to step out on the ledge

0:03:44.059,0:03:46.320
and look down but not jump,

0:03:46.320,0:03:48.325
one of the lucky ones who survives.

0:03:48.325,0:03:50.722
Well, I survived, and that just leaves me with my story,

0:03:50.722,0:03:53.127
and my story is this:

0:03:53.127,0:03:56.480
In four simple words, I suffer from depression.

0:03:56.480,0:03:58.910
I suffer from depression,

0:03:58.910,0:04:06.230
and for a long time, I think,

0:04:06.230,0:04:08.826
I was living two totally different lives,

0:04:08.826,0:04:10.687
where one person was always afraid of the other.

0:04:10.687,0:04:12.786
I was afraid that people would see me for who I really was,

0:04:12.786,0:04:16.028
that I wasn't the perfect, popular kid in high school everyone thought I was,

0:04:16.028,0:04:18.453
that beneath my smile, there was struggle,

0:04:18.453,0:04:20.416
and beneath my light, there was dark,

0:04:20.416,0:04:24.793
and beneath my big personality just hid even bigger pain.

0:04:24.793,0:04:27.430
See, some people might fear girls not liking them back.

0:04:27.430,0:04:29.519
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.

0:04:34.212,0:04:36.904
I feared my truth, I feared my honesty, I feared my vulnerability,

0:04:36.904,0:04:39.126
and that fear made me feel

0:04:39.126,0:04:41.483
like I was forced into a corner,

0:04:41.483,0:04:44.513
like I was forced into a corner and there was only one way out,

0:04:44.513,0:04:48.306
and so I thought about that way every single day.

0:04:48.306,0:04:49.753
I thought about it every single day,

0:04:49.753,0:04:51.424
and if I'm being totally honest, standing here

0:04:51.424,0:04:54.797
I've thought about it again since, because that's the sickness,

0:04:54.797,0:04:56.731
that's the struggle, that's depression,

0:04:56.731,0:04:57.950
and depression isn't chicken pox.

0:04:57.950,0:04:59.668
You don't beat it once and it's gone forever.

0:04:59.668,0:05:02.431
It's something you live with. It's something you live in.

0:05:02.431,0:05:06.003
It's the roommate you can't kick out. It's the voice you can't ignore.

0:05:06.003,0:05:08.264
It's the feelings you can't seem to escape,

0:05:08.264,0:05:13.337
the scariest part is that after a while,

0:05:13.337,0:05:16.217
you become numb to it. It becomes normal for you,

0:05:16.217,0:05:18.504
and what you really fear the most

0:05:18.504,0:05:21.360
isn't the suffering inside of you.

0:05:21.360,0:05:22.876
It's the stigma inside of others,

0:05:22.876,0:05:25.157
it's the shame, it's the embarrassment,

0:05:25.157,0:05:27.610
it's the disapproving look on a friend's face,

0:05:27.610,0:05:31.074
it's the whispers in the hallway that you're weak,

0:05:31.074,0:05:32.475
it's the comments that you're crazy.

0:05:32.475,0:05:34.575
That's what keeps you from getting help.

0:05:34.575,0:05:37.569
That's what makes you hold it in and hide it.

0:05:37.569,0:05:39.904
It's the stigma. So you hold it in and you hide it,

0:05:39.904,0:05:41.766
and you hold it in and you hide it,

0:05:41.766,0:05:43.442
and even though it's keeping you in bed every day

0:05:43.442,0:05:46.382
and it's making your life feel empty no matter how much you try and fill it,

0:05:46.382,0:05:48.545
you hide it, because the stigma in our society

0:05:48.545,0:05:51.460
around depression is very real.

0:05:51.460,0:05:54.662
It's very real, and if you think that it isn't, ask yourself this:

0:05:54.662,0:05:56.471
Would you rather make your next Facebook status

0:05:56.471,0:05:58.217
say you're having a tough time getting out of bed

0:05:58.217,0:06:00.366
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?

0:06:04.458,0:06:06.742
That's the stigma, because unfortunately,

0:06:06.742,0:06:09.210
we live in a world where if you break your arm,

0:06:09.210,0:06:11.884
everyone runs over to sign your cast,

0:06:11.899,0:06:14.700
but if you tell people you're depressed, everyone runs the other way.

0:06:14.700,0:06:17.200
That's the stigma.

0:06:17.200,0:06:22.166
We are so, so, so accepting of any body part breaking down

0:06:22.166,0:06:25.268
other than our brains. And that's ignorance.

0:06:25.268,0:06:27.280
That's pure ignorance, and that ignorance has created

0:06:27.280,0:06:28.844
a world that doesn't understand depression,

0:06:28.844,0:06:31.350
that doesn't understand mental health.

0:06:31.350,0:06:33.303
And that's ironic to me, because depression

0:06:33.303,0:06:35.813
is one of the best documented problems we have in the world,

0:06:35.813,0:06:37.858
yet it's one of the least discussed.

0:06:37.858,0:06:40.294
We just push it aside and put it in a corner

0:06:40.294,0:06:43.881
and pretend it's not there and hope it'll fix itself.

0:06:43.881,0:06:47.223
Well, it won't. It hasn't, and it's not going to,

0:06:47.223,0:06:49.114
because that's wishful thinking,

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

0:06:51.887,0:06:56.816
and we can't procrastinate on something this important.

0:06:56.816,0:07:00.207
The first step in solving any problem

0:07:00.207,0:07:01.690
is recognizing there is one.

0:07:01.690,0:07:04.448
Well, we haven't done that, so we can't really expect

0:07:04.448,0:07:07.633
to find an answer when we're still afraid of the question.

0:07:07.633,0:07:11.412
And I don't know what the solution is.

0:07:11.412,0:07:13.873
I wish I did, but I don't -- but I think,

0:07:13.873,0:07:15.881
I think it has to start here.

0:07:15.881,0:07:18.280
It has to start with me, it has to start with you,

0:07:18.280,0:07:21.698
it has to start with the people who are suffering,

0:07:21.698,0:07:23.115
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.

0:07:25.115,0:07:27.434
We need to be the ones who are brave for what we believe in,

0:07:27.434,0:07:30.609
because if there's one thing that I've come to realize,

0:07:30.609,0:07:34.185
if there's one thing that I see as the biggest problem,

0:07:34.185,0:07:37.224
it's not in building a world

0:07:37.224,0:07:40.973
where we eliminate the ignorance of others.

0:07:40.973,0:07:44.259
It's in building a world where we teach the acceptance of ourselves,

0:07:44.259,0:07:45.460
where we're okay with who we are,

0:07:45.460,0:07:46.960
because when we get honest,

0:07:46.960,0:07:49.756
we see that we all struggle and we all suffer.

0:07:49.756,0:07:51.708
Whether it's with this, whether it's with something else,

0:07:51.708,0:07:54.535
we all know what it is to hurt.

0:07:54.535,0:07:56.373
We all know what it is to have pain in our heart,

0:07:56.373,0:07:59.067
and we all know how important it is to heal.

0:07:59.067,0:08:02.461
But right now, depression is society's deep cut

0:08:02.461,0:08:05.022
that we're content to put a Band-Aid over and pretend it's not there.

0:08:05.022,0:08:09.526
Well, it is there. It is there, and you know what? It's okay.

0:08:09.526,0:08:13.337
Depression is okay. If you're going through it, know that you're okay.

0:08:13.337,0:08:15.999
And know that you're sick, you're not weak,

0:08:15.999,0:08:17.935
and it's an issue, not an identity,

0:08:17.935,0:08:20.688
because when you get past the fear and the ridicule

0:08:20.688,0:08:22.485
and the judgment and the stigma of others,

0:08:22.485,0:08:25.471
you can see depression for what it really is,

0:08:25.471,0:08:27.710
and that's just a part of life,

0:08:27.710,0:08:31.438
just a part of life, and as much as I hate,

0:08:31.438,0:08:33.917
as much as I hate some of the places,

0:08:33.917,0:08:37.013
some of the parts of my life depression has dragged me down to,

0:08:37.013,0:08:39.548
in a lot of ways I'm grateful for it.

0:08:39.548,0:08:41.360
Because yeah, it's put me in the valleys,

0:08:41.360,0:08:42.792
but only to show me there's peaks,

0:08:42.792,0:08:44.391
and yeah it's dragged me through the dark

0:08:44.391,0:08:46.977
but only to remind me there is light.

0:08:46.977,0:08:50.720
My pain, more than anything in 19 years on this planet,

0:08:50.720,0:08:52.979
has given me perspective, and my hurt,

0:08:52.979,0:08:55.474
my hurt has forced me to have hope,

0:08:55.474,0:08:58.005
have hope and to have faith, faith in myself,

0:08:58.005,0:09:00.550
faith in others, faith that it can get better,

0:09:00.550,0:09:02.628
that we can change this, that we can speak up

0:09:02.628,0:09:05.386
and speak out and fight back against ignorance,

0:09:05.386,0:09:07.975
fight back against intolerance,

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

0:09:09.990,0:09:12.716
learn to love ourselves,

0:09:12.716,0:09:14.895
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.

0:09:18.990,0:09:20.602
Because the world I believe in is one

0:09:20.602,0:09:24.770
where embracing your light doesn't mean ignoring your dark.

0:09:24.770,0:09:26.851
The world I believe in is one where we're measured

0:09:26.851,0:09:31.367
by our ability to overcome adversities, not avoid them.

0:09:31.367,0:09:35.591
The world I believe in is one where I can look someone in the eye

0:09:35.591,0:09:37.353
and say, "I'm going through hell,"

0:09:37.353,0:09:40.930
and they can look back at me and go, "Me too," and that's okay,

0:09:40.930,0:09:44.632
and it's okay because depression is okay. We're people.

0:09:44.632,0:09:47.062
We're people, and we struggle and we suffer

0:09:47.062,0:09:49.790
and we bleed and we cry, and if you think that true strength

0:09:49.790,0:09:51.909
means never showing any weakness, then I'm here

0:09:51.909,0:09:55.155
to tell you you're wrong.

0:09:55.155,0:09:59.052
You're wrong, because it's the opposite.

0:09:59.052,0:10:01.736
We're people, and we have problems.

0:10:01.736,0:10:03.407
We're not perfect, and that's okay.

0:10:03.407,0:10:05.621
So we need to stop the ignorance,

0:10:05.621,0:10:08.699
stop the intolerance, stop the stigma,

0:10:08.699,0:10:13.273
and stop the silence, and we need to take away the taboos,

0:10:13.273,0:10:17.812
take a look at the truth, and start talking,

0:10:17.812,0:10:22.536
because the only way we're going to beat a problem

0:10:22.536,0:10:25.870
that people are battling alone

0:10:25.870,0:10:29.633
is by standing strong together,

0:10:29.633,0:10:33.397
by standing strong together.

0:10:33.397,0:10:36.376
And I believe that we can.

0:10:36.376,0:10:38.295
I believe that we can. Thank you guys so much.

0:10:38.295,0:10:40.702
This is a dream come true. Thank you. (Applause)

0:10:40.702,0:10:42.960
Thank you. (Applause)