WEBVTT

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For a long time in my life

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I felt like I've been living
two different lives.

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There's the life that everyone sees,

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and then there's the life that only I see.

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And in the life 
that everyone sees who I am

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as a friend, a son, a brother,

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a stand-up comedian, and a teenager,

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that's the life everyone sees.

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If you were to ask my friends and family,
that's what they would tell you,

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and that's a huge part of me,
that is who I am.

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If you were to ask me to describe myself,

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I'd probably say
some of those same things,

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and, I wouldn't be lying,

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but I wouldn't totally be telling you
the truth either

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because the truth is
that's just the life everyone else sees.

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In the life that only I see,

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who I am, who I really am,

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is someone who struggles 
intensely with depression

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I have for the last six years of my life

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and I continue to every day.

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For someone
who has never experienced depression,

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or doesn't really know what that means,

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that might surprise them to hear

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because there's a popular misconception

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that depression is just being sad
when something in your life goes wrong.

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When you break up
with your girlfriend, lose a loved one,

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when you don't get the job you wanted.

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But that's sadness,
that's a natural thing,

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that's a natural human emotion.

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Real depression isn't being sad

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when something in your life goes wrong.

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Real depression is being sad when
everything in your life is going right.

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That's real depression,
and that's what I suffer from.

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And, to be totally be honest, that's hard
for me, to stand up here and say.

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It's hard for me to talk about it.

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And it seems to be hard
for everyone to talk about it.

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So much so that no one
is talking about it.

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And no one is talking about
depression, but we need to be

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because right now it's a massive problem.

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It's a massive problem.

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But we don't see it on social media,
we don't see it on Facebook, on Twitter,

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we don't see it on the news because
it's not happy, not fun, not light.

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And so, because we don't see it,
we don't see the severity of it.

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But the severity of it,
the seriousness is this:

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every 30 seconds, somewhere,
someone in the world

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takes their own life
because of depression.

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And it might be two blocks away, it may be
two countries away, two continents away,

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but it's happening,
and it's happening every single day.

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And we have a tendency as a society

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to look at that and go,

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"So what? So what?"

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We look at that and we go, "That's
your problem, that's their problem."

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We say we're sad, and we say 
we're sorry, but we also say, "So what?"

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Well, two years ago is was my problem

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because I sat on the edge of my bed,

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where I'd sat a million times before,

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and I was suicidal; I was suicidal.

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And if you were to look
at my life on the surface,

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you wouldn't see a kid who was suicidal,

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you'd see a kid who was captain
of his basketball team,

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the Drama and Theater Student of the Year,
the English Student of the Year,

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someone who was consistently
on the Honor Roll and at every party.

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So you would say I wasn't depressed
or suicidal, but you'd be wrong.

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I sat through that night
beside a bottle of pills,

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with a pen and paper in my hand,

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and I thought about taking my own life,
and I came this close to doing it.

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I came this close 
to doing it. And I didn't.

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That makes me one of the lucky ones,

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one of the people who gets to step out
onto the ledge and look down but not jump.

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One of the lucky ones who survives.

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Well, I survived, and that just leaves me
with my story, and my story is this:

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four simple words,
I suffer from depression.

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I suffer from depression.

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And for a long time,

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I think I was living
two totally different lives,

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where one person
was always afraid of the other,

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afraid people would see me
for who I really was,

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that I wasn't the perfect, popular kid
everyone thought I was.

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That beneath my smile there was struggle,
and beneath my light there was dark,

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and beneath my big personality
just hid even bigger pain.

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Some people might fear 
girls not liking them back.

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Some people might fear sharks, or death,

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but for me, for a large part
of my life, I feared myself.

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I feared my truth,
my honesty, my vulnerability,

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and that fear made me feel
like I was forced into a corner,

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and there was only one way out.

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And so I thought about
that way every single day.

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I thought about it every single day,

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and if I'm being totally honest
standing here,

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I've thought about it again since,
because that's the sickness.

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That's the struggle. That's depression.

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And depression is not chicken pox,

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you don't beat it once and it's gone
forever, you live with it it.

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It's something you live in,
it's the roommate you can't kick out,

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the voice you can't ignore, 
the feelings you can't seem to escape.

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And the scariest part is,

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after a while,

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you become numb to it,
it becomes normal for you.

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And what you really fear the most
isn't the suffering inside of you,

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it's the stigma inside of others;
the shame, the embarrassment,

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the disapproving look on a friend's face,

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the whispers in the hall that you're weak,
the comments that you're crazy.

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That's what keeps you from getting help,
makes you hold it in and hide it.

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It's the stigma. 
So you hold it in and you hide it.

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And even though it's keeping you
in bed every day,

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and it's making your life feel empty,

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no matter how much 
you try to fill it, you hide it

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because the stigma in our society
around depression is very real.

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

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would you rather make
your next Facebook status say

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you're having a tough time getting
out of bed because you hurt your back,

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or you're having a tough time

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getting out of bed every morning
because you're depressed?

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That's the stigma.

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Because unfortunately, we live in a world

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where if you break your arm,
everyone runs over to sign your cast,

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but if you tell people you're depressed
everyone runs the other way.

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That's the stigma.

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We are so, so accepting

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of any body part breaking down
other than our brains.

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And that's ignorance.
That's pure ignorance.

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And that has created a world
that doesn't understand depression,

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that doesn't understand mental health,

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and that's ironic to me because depression
is one of the best-documented problems

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we have in the world
and yet it's one of the least discussed.

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We just push it aside, put it in a corner,

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pretend it's not there,
and hope it will fix itself.

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Well, it won't.

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It hasn't, and it's not going to
because that's wishful thinking.

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And wishful thinking 
isn't a game plan, it's procrastination.

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And we can't procrastinate
on something this important.

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The first step in solving any problem
is recognizing there is one.

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Well, we haven't done that.

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We can't really expect to find an answer
when we're still afraid of the question.

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And I don't know what the solution is.
I wish I did, but I don't.

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But I think it has to start here.
It has to start with me.

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It has to start with you. It has to start
with the people who are suffering.

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The ones who are hidden in the shadows.

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We need to speak up
and shatter the silence.

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We need to be the ones 
who are brave for what we believe in,

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because if there's one thing
that I have come to realize,

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if there's one thing that I see
is the biggest problem,

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it's not in building a world where
we eliminate the ignorance of others.

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It's in building a world where we teach
the acceptance of ourselves.

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When we're OK with who we are

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because when we get honest,
we see that we all struggle and suffer

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whether it's with this, something else,
we all know what it is to hurt.

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We all know what it is
to have pain in our heart,

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and we all know
how important it is to heal.

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But right now depression
is society's deep cut

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that we're content to put a Band-Aid over

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and pretend it's not there;
well, it is there.

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And you know what? It's OK.

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Depression is OK if you are going
through it know that you're OK,

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and know that you're sick,
you're not weak.

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And it's an issue, not an identity,

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because when you get past
the fear, the ridicule,

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the judgment, and the stigma of others,

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you can see depression
for what it really is.

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And that's just a part of life.

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Just a part of life.

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And as much as I hate some of the places,

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some of the parts of my life
depression has dragged me down to,

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in a lot of ways I'm grateful for it.

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Because it's put me in the valleys,
but only to show me there's peaks.

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And yes it's dragged me through the dark,
but only to remind me there's light.

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And my pain, more than anything,
in 19 years on this planet

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has given me perspective.

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And my hurt, my hurt's forced me
to have hope.

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To have hope and to have faith.
Faith in myself. Faith in others.

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Faith that it can get better,
can change this, that we can speak up.

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And speak out and fight back 
against ignorance.

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Fight back against intolerance.

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And more than anything,
learn to love ourselves.

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Learn to accept ourselves for who we are,

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the people we are, not the people
the world wants us to be.

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Because the world I believe in

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is one where embracing your light
doesn't mean ignoring your dark.

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The world I believe in is one

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where we're measured by our ability
to overcome adversities not avoid them.

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The world I believe in

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is one where I can look 
someone in the eye and say,

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"I'm going through hell."

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And they can look back at me
and go, "Me too, and that's OK."

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And it's OK because depression
is okay. We're people.

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And we struggle, and we suffer,
and we bleed, and we cry,

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and if you think that true strength
means never showing any weakness,

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then I'm here to tell you you're wrong.

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Because it's the opposite.

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We're people, and we have problems.

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And we're not perfect, and that's OK.
So we need to stop the ignorance.

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Stop the intolerance. Stop the stigma.

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And stop the silence. And we need
to take away the taboos.

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Take a look at the truth
and start talking.

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Because the only way

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we're going to beat a problem
that people are battling alone,

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is by standing strong together.

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By standing strong together.

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And I believe that we can.
I believe that we can.

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Thank you guys so much, this is
a dream come true. Thank you!

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(Applause)

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Thank you.

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(Applause)