Confessions of a depressed comic | Kevin Breel | TEDxKids@Ambleside

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED conferences.

In this emotional talk, Kevin Breel speaks from the heart about his story with depression, how it's impacted his life, and why he is ultimately grateful for it. As a rising young stand up comedian in Canada, Kevin is also extremely involved in mental health work, actively speaking at schools and organizations.

For a long time in my life

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

There's the life that everyone sees,

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

And in the life
that everyone sees who I am

as a friend, a son, a brother,

a stand-up comedian, and a teenager,

that's the life everyone sees.

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

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

If you were to ask me to describe myself,

I'd probably say
some of those same things,

and, I wouldn't be lying,

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

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

In the life that only I see,

who I am, who I really am,

is someone who struggles
intensely with depression

I have for the last six years of my life

and I continue to every day.

For someone
who has never experienced depression,

or doesn't really know what that means,

that might surprise them to hear

because there's a popular misconception

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

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

when you don't get the job you wanted.

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

that's a natural human emotion.

Real depression isn't being sad

when something in your life goes wrong.

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

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

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

It's hard for me to talk about it.

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

So much so that no one
is talking about it.

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

because right now it's a massive problem.

It's a massive problem.

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

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

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

But the severity of it,
the seriousness is this:

every 30 seconds, somewhere,
someone in the world

takes their own life
because of depression.

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

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

And we have a tendency as a society

to look at that and go,

"So what? So what?"

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

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

Well, two years ago is was my problem

because I sat on the edge of my bed,

where I'd sat a million times before,

and I was suicidal; I was suicidal.

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

you wouldn't see a kid who was suicidal,

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

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

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

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

I sat through that night
beside a bottle of pills,

with a pen and paper in my hand,

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

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

That makes me one of the lucky ones,

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

One of the lucky ones who survives.

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

four simple words,
I suffer from depression.

I suffer from depression.

And for a long time,

I think I was living
two totally different lives,

where one person
was always afraid of the other,

afraid people would see me
for who I really was,

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

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

and beneath my big personality
just hid even bigger pain.

Some people might fear
girls not liking them back.

Some people might fear sharks, or death,

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

I feared my truth,
my honesty, my vulnerability,

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

and there was only one way out.

And so I thought about
that way every single day.

I thought about it every single day,

and if I'm being totally honest
standing here,

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

That's the struggle. That's depression.

And depression is not chicken pox,

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

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

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

And the scariest part is,

after a while,

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

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

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

the disapproving look on a friend's face,

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

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

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

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

and it's making your life feel empty,

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

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

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

would you rather make
your next Facebook status say

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

or you're having a tough time

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

That's the stigma.

Because unfortunately, we live in a world

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

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

That's the stigma.

We are so, so accepting

of any body part breaking down
other than our brains.

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

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

that doesn't understand mental health,

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

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

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

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

Well, it won't.

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

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

And we can't procrastinate
on something this important.

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

Well, we haven't done that.

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

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

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

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

The ones who are hidden in the shadows.

We need to speak up
and shatter the silence.

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

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

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

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

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

When we're OK with who we are

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

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

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

and we all know
how important it is to heal.

But right now depression
is society's deep cut

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

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

And you know what? It's OK.

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

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

And it's an issue, not an identity,

because when you get past
the fear, the ridicule,

the judgment, and the stigma of others,

you can see depression
for what it really is.

And that's just a part of life.

Just a part of life.

And as much as I hate some of the places,

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

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

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

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

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

has given me perspective.

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

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

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

And speak out and fight back
against ignorance.

Fight back against intolerance.

And more than anything,
learn to love ourselves.

Learn to accept ourselves for who we are,

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

Because the world I believe in

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

The world I believe in is one

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

The world I believe in

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

"I'm going through hell."

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

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

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

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

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

Because it's the opposite.

We're people, and we have problems.

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

Stop the intolerance. Stop the stigma.

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

Take a look at the truth
and start talking.

Because the only way

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

is by standing strong together.

By standing strong together.

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

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

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)