WEBVTT

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I was raised in a two-parent household

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in Pittsburgh
and had very supportive parents.

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My mental health journey really started

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when I began getting bullied
really seriously in middle school,

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and I was bullied really, really bad.

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And that's when I realized that,

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you know, I may be dealing with
some type of anxiety.

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It wasn't clinically diagnosed
or anything like that.

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But in retrospect,

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I was exhibiting some of the symptoms
that, that I exhibited when I started

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dealing with mental health in college
where it was actually identified.

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But I was definitely anxious, crying
a lot, you know, things of that nature.

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But I got through that time of my life

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without therapy, you know,
mainly from the support of my parents.

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At no point did they mention mental health
or anything like that,

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mental health was not a big part
of my upbringing, you know,

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it wasn't something that was really
embraced in my community being

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from the African-American community
in Pittsburgh. When it was it was just in

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a joking manner or it was in a manner of like
seeing it in movies when it was made fun

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of or, you know, calling someone crazy
because they're, you know,

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schizophrenic or dealing with this, this
condition, this disorder, or whatever.

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But it wasn't a part of my upbringing like

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my parents did teach me
about mental health.