ReSPARK - Bringing Light to the Darkness of Depression | Rob Peck | TEDxEasthamptonWomen
[Music] full name is Judith Ellen Steinberg Peck I called her mom my friends called her the witch with good reason one time my pal Douglas Helen invited our whole first grade class to his birthday party Doug only lived four blocks away so I told my mom I did not need a ride she told me the party ended at 4:00 and she expected me home at 4:30 at the latest I picked out my best clothes it worked Beth Johnson said I looked handsome yes after the party me and Beth and a bunch of other boys and girls got in a big game of kickball the bottom of the ninth I came to the plate with bases loaded and a chance to kick a Grand Slam suddenly I saw Beth bolt off third-base and barreling right behind her was Judith Peck shrieking all the way to home plate I was frozen she was furious she grabbed me screamed at me and dragged me off the field bawling my eyes out if Judith was a witch Arthur was a wizard my dad was my rock my mom went ballistic he made it safe to speak up and when I told him the story he said he could understand how much it had to hurt to be humiliated in front of all your friends and I could tell no bad for me 23 years later I'm in a personal growth workshop and the leader tells us close your eyes and imagine you're sitting alone on a wooden bench in a beautiful peaceful park now picture something coming to sit next to you not just anyone the one person you feel the most at ease with instantly I saw a face and felt warmth is radiating kindness they're sitting down beside me was Judy Peck what how is that possible how could the woman who was shaming me and the bane of my childhood have come this far the bridge one word kindfulness just like it sounds kind fulness is a practice of nurturing self kindness in a very mindful way a way that helped Judy to increase her self-awareness and her self compassion and to decrease her dark movies and her depression a practice of forgiveness that gradually restored her self-worth and got her to get treatment go on meds ease her anxiety by learning how to shift her thoughts from self-loathing to self my time I started junior high Judy was going to parent effectiveness workshops I was dubious and I stayed on high alert but my middle sister spilled grape juice all over the prize white rug I was sure my mom would explode Judy silently surveyed the stain stayed centered and stayed kind I still kept my guard up but over the years Judy's consistency began to win back her children's trust slowly I eased my suspicions and I took down my sheep my mom was safe so much so a decade later when I graduated from Penn I got the Maverick idea to use juggling to put poetry to motion Judy Peck was my biggest fan her encouragement helped me carve out a career running pieces like this white flies pass so fast and our long to-do lists just get so out of hand even while we bend over backwards I drop no disgrace when I'm at the top of my game there's no place for blame I just let it go and get right back in the flow even when we bend over backwards we can just feel like we got too many balls in the air are you with me good cuz now I want to go from the universal down to the personal and use this style of 3d storytelling to provide you with a sort of sneak peek into a part of my psyche that I seek to hide and ignore a visual guide we can help you to see what it's like to be me when I start to soar I mean when all my ideas are clicking and my imagination is chicken into high gear but whizzed by so fast it's tough to explain the sheer synergy between the right and left hemisphere of my brain but oh the high when my neurons are firing and my imagination is inspiring and the talent agents are hiring and it's like I've got the world on a string I can do anything and when fear steps in and tries to steer I just say go away and I make it flat out disappear like magic when my flip hip rap is totally out of sight I have such command it's like it's all in the palm of my hand my mind shines with levity and light and my mania I hide behind this mask morning noon and night therein lay my fatal slip but I could captain my own ship of fools and all caution deny and the perils of hubris defy and forgotten one of life's cardinal rules pride goeth before a fall and took my eye off the ball and that's I was 30 years old I didn't understand and I overreacted I quit juggling I stopped exercising and my mood sank I stayed in I stood and I said no to every friend's invitation I was pissed at myself and my inner critic was punishing me by preventing me from pleasure and pulling me away from everything in everyone I loved no one had ever told me that isolation and anger turned inward is a textbook definition of depression a mental illness that strikes one out of every five adults and twice as many women as men half of whom are too ashamed to ask for help I was the same way but the more I tried to think my way out the deeper I'd sink into the mental quicksand that is depression a toxic psychics - they caused a sit-down strike in my head appetite sex drive willpower wouldn't work confidence connectedness humor oh all called in sick the foreman fell down on the job and shut down the whole plant the generator went out the engine light flickered and my spark the darkness doesn't run in just my mom's DNA my dad's brother Morton suffered from clinical depression I had no idea he kept it a secret until it got so bad and he became so cut off he took his own life so years later when his widow my aunt Thelma caught wind of my condition she came over and she would not leave and so she got me to agree to be admitted into the psychiatric institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital I was diagnosed borderline catatonic they say talk is cheap when you're mentally ill silence isn't gold silence my first visitor was my mom she took me for a lock on the hospital grounds led me to a wooden bench beneath the gnarled pine we sat down and neither one of us said a word then Judy broke the silence with a stark question she said Bob can you give me one reason why you want to stay alive I didn't answer I couldn't think of a single thing and lowered my head and remained commute gently my mom's fingers turn my face towards her tears streaming down her cheeks she said Bobby I love you so much son I work so hard to bring you into this world please son please I want you to promise me no matter how hard it gets I want you to promise me you will not take your own life I had no idea how hard we got back to the room my dad was waiting he himself is a psychiatrist and he'd been conferring with the other doctors and he assured me I was in good hands he also told me the hospital had a pool I shook my head I'm not interested in exercise you're not it's and I understand son ordinarily that's the way it goes you got to be interested to get involved but in your case it works the other way around I stared like he smoked food look normally interest leads to involvement but when you're depressed involvement precedes entry I didn't get the logic but I trusted the source and I meekly followed him to the pool but grudgingly I swam one lock I hate him but that night a little speck in my psyche liked me for trying and the next day and the day after that I went back and the little speck became a scene each day I tried to swim a little further and the pool watered the seed and it sprouted into self-respect my dad was right I had to get involved to be interesting swimming gave me back the feeling of having something to look forward to my mom taught me to practice kindfulness as a way to heighten my self-awareness and widen myself except slowly I began to pick up the pieces over time learning to be more kindly help me tame my inner critic and turn it into an inner coach kindfulness is the bridge then let me accept I need to be on lithium and that doesn't make me a bad person I'm on a mood stabiliser because I'm bipolar there I said it aloud in public I'm bipolar I'm not proud of it but I'm breaking my silence cuz I'm sick of being scared of a stigma and hiding in a shame closet speaking out because I found out the stigma of mental illness is a box that's built on four essence shame secrecy silence and separation when the separation becomes too much to bear like it did for my uncle morning then you add a fifth s and the box becomes a coffee this is a light all the lives lost and for all the lives that we can save a flickering ember of hope that can help a hurt psyche Reese Park a candle of kindfulness the Kindle the healing connection that gives us the strength to dismantle the stigma of depression up ending the stereotypes that force us into labels lock us into little boxes that confine us is at all or and to pull it off which seemed to take sheer magic when you've got a solid network of support it turns out you don't have to really believe in magic because the real magic is in believing that we can break the silence and build a bridge of kind fulness that borders on the miraculous I will now swallow the boxes you