Every 30 seconds someone in the world decides to take their life. The main cause of this painful reality is a greatly stigmatized medical illness: major depression disorder. Captain of the basketball team, honor roll recipient, theater student of the year – Kevin Breel sounds like your typical high school student. You wouldn’t think that he was someone touched by depression. The reality of this disorder is that it is not always triggered by external events. It’s much more than feeling momentarily sad because of a failure or hard moment. It’s an almost uncontrollable feeling of worthlessness and a significant loss of energy, initiative and inspiration to go through life. Kevin Breel is doing something about this issue. He’s taking his experience and using it to provide strength for teens suffering from this disorder by openingly talking about it and getting everyone to understand that being depressed means being sick, not weak.
DoSomething.org: What do you think is the most common misconception about depression?
Kevin Breel: I would say the biggest misconception about depression is that it's just being sad when something in your life goes wrong; when you break up with your girlfriend or when you lose your job. But that's just sadness- real depression is being sad when everything in your life is going right. Real depression doesn't care about circumstances. It will come and go regardless of if your life is going great or going horribly. I think people don't realize that because if someone has a "good" life, we don't understand how they could possibly be depressed. We think "but that person is rich and good looking" how could they be depressed? Or that person has "the perfect career and the perfect boyfriend" how could she be depressed? Well because depression has nothing to do with those external things. It's all about what's going on internally inside of you. So I think that's something we as a society really don't get quite yet.
DS: How has depression affected your life? And how are you using your experiences to raise awareness?
KB: Depression has affected my life in a variety of ways, with the most extreme way being it's made me explore the darkest sides of my psyche. I've been to my breaking point where I've thought about taking my own life and wanting to hurt myself. That has drastically changed the way I look at life because I feel like I've seen my own personal rock bottom. In a way, it's extremely scary. In other ways, it's liberating because I know what my darkest hour truly looks like. But unfortunately, too many kids every year reach their breaking point and they go all the way with it and they lose their life to suicide. And that is so heart breaking. So I'm trying to use my experiences of being close to that point to raise awareness with young people around the issue. It's hard to know how to handle something if you've never been educated about it. So I speak at schools to young people to let them know what depression is and why it's okay to be dealing with it. Doing that, I hope I can have a big enough impact that I can prevent one kid and one family from having to go down the tragic path of self harm.
DS: What do you think is the hardest challenge depressed teens are confronted with?
KB: Teenagers who are depressed face so many different issues, but I would say one of the biggest is the fear of judgement. That's why a lot of kids bury their depression deep inside of them- because they don't want to be judged. I was in the exact same boat. I was a "popular" kid (whatever that means) and a big athlete at my school so I didn't want to tell anyone I was depressed because I was scared they would think I was weird. So I hid it for years. And hiding it is what drove me to being suicidal. So I think that is pretty scary where these young teenagers are battling mental health issues but are so fearful of what their peers might say that they don't get help. That's the whole stigma part of depression and that's what I'm trying to shatter by speaking up about the issue.
DS: What advice would you give to teens struggling with depression?
KB: Get help. Talk about it. Express what you are feeling. Do not hide it or try to deny it. Accept it and understand it doesn't make you weird- it actually makes you pretty normal. Do not hide it or try to run from it. That's my biggest- and really only - piece of advice. Talk about it with a friend, family member, parent, teacher, counsellor, a crisis hotline - anyone. But don't hide it and think you can handle it by yourself because that's a very slippery slope that leads to a very bad place. Don't be silent about your feelings- speak up.
DS: How can other teens support their depressed relatives?
KB: The best way to be of support to anyone going through mental health challenges is to make it very clear you are very accepting and non-judgemental about the issue. If you don't seem approachable or understanding, no one is going to feel enough trust in you to talk to you about an issue like depression. If you feel like someone you know might be depressed, it's best to work your way gently in to the subject. Ask them how they are feeling, how their last couple of days have been, etc. Be accepting and tolerant and hopefully, people will feel like they can open up to you. From there, you can direct them towards more qualified help, and that's an extremely powerful thing.
DS: How can teens take action on this issue in their communities?
KB: If you are a young person who is passionate about the mental health issues, you can get involved very easily. Firstly, we all have Facebook and Twitter and a million other social networking sites now, so you can speak up on the Internet now and be heard instantly. So that's a really amazing thing we have available to us now. And then in the community, there is likely a teen centre, or an outreach program, or a school even you could invest your time in. You could train to become a peer counsellor, you could raise money for mental health, I mean the options are endless. The most important thing is to find something you are genuinely passionate about and immerse yourself in that. It's much more effective to invest 100% of your energy into one specific cause than it is to stretch your time and energy out over three or four different things. Focus on one thing and see how much of an impact it's possible to make in that area.
Check-out Kevin's TED talk, here.
