Transcription
Hi everyone. Hi, my name is Tasha. I want to start out with a little content heads-up: part of my talk is about mental illness, and there is an audio clip that may be disturbing. I will warn you before I play it. So, we good? Great. Okay.
So, I'm 29 years old, and I grew up in a Pakistani Muslim family. Apparently, with a full head of hair—this is me at two days old. I was a really, really happy baby, and I loved learning, especially reading. I started reading when I was two, using computers when I was three, and in second grade, my teacher called my mom to tell her that I could type faster than she could. And this all went to my head because when I introduced myself, I would say, “Hi, I’m Hafsa, and I am gifted.” Yeah, I’m much more humble now. Overall, I call that the era of happy, healthy, and adorable Hafsa.
Unfortunately, when I moved to a new school, I was bullied. People were really mean to me. In sixth grade, I found the slam book where I was voted dumbest and ugliest girl in school, and I went home crying. And I thought, “I want to die.” And at the age of 10, I attempted suicide. That was number one. Now, I recognize that I told you something pretty horrible with a smiling picture behind me, and that is on purpose. Because so often we’re struggling and deep down, but we don’t talk about it; we just post pictures like these on Facebook, so no one ever knows, which can be a huge problem.
Thankfully, when I moved on to middle school and high school, I came out of my shell again. In fact, I was voted both teacher’s pet and class clown. Someone asked me, “How did you pull that off?” And I said, “I, you know, I’m gifted.” I also excelled academically, and I moved on to an engineering college in Claremont, California, known as Harvey Mudd College. Now, Harvey Mudd is where I found my people. I was in love with the school, the learning environment, and everything else. I was even freshman class president. But the thing is, like, oftentimes during college is when mental illness comes out, and that’s what happened to me. I started to get really depressed; then I would have mood swings and become manic. I had some psychosis, and I developed a delusion that I didn’t have any friends—literally. I would cry about it for hours, and my friends would surround me saying, “No, we’re your friends, we’re your friends,” but the delusion was so pervasive, I just couldn’t see past it. They diagnosed me with a mental illness that eventually became schizoaffective disorder, which is a mood disorder with psychotic components. And there’s something called stigma, which means the shame associated with mental illness. And I said, “I’m not crazy; I’m not gonna take medication.” But things got worse. One night, I was on the third-floor balcony of a dorm when I heard something say to me, “Hafsa—climb from one balcony to the other balcony over and over again.” And I was crying because I didn’t want to, but I was sitting on the ledge with one leg over when my friend came out and stopped me. All this was just terrifying. I watched my life fall apart, and at the end of my freshman year, again, I attempted suicide. Again, this audio clip—it’s actors really creating what happened—and it made me disturbing. [Applause] No, that was number two.
The next day, I had to talk to the Resident Advisor, Jason, and I told him, “Yes, I do want to die.” And in that moment, I never felt so ashamed in my entire life. But you know what he did? He looked me in the eye and he said, “Hafsa, you are destined for greatness.” In my absolute lowest moment, which it meant so much. But I dropped out of college, got on medication, went to therapy, and picked up my beautiful bass guitar, and I returned. Became student body president and graduated from Harvey Mudd College. I’ll show you some love. Okay. It was hard. Thanks.
Unfortunately, the story gets sad again. After college, I was very depressed and symptomatic. I got fired from three jobs in one year. I lost my connection to science and my identity, and I became very, very depressed. I had suicidal ideation every day for three years, and I also had these horrific hallucinations where I’d feel something cut my wrist, and I would see a butcher, and I’m doing it at the same time. And I would feel something rip off my toenail. And I was in so much mental, emotional, and physical pain that every day I would get down on my knees and I would beg to God, “Please kill me now. I can’t do it on my own.” That was number three. There’s something else I heard, though: “Hafsa, you are destined for greatness.” As Jason, in another one of my lowest moments, I heard him say that, though I didn’t believe it, it meant something. I found the organization called NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, which helped me get back up on my feet as I learned that mental illness is not my fault; it’s not something to be ashamed of; it’s chemical; it’s not personal. And I’ve met other people with mental illness that, through that peer connection, I learned that I’m not alone. Recovery is possible. Slowly, slowly, I started to volunteer, then work, then advocate, and two years ago, I won an award for my advocacy efforts. I reached the zenith of my career. Then, one week later, I was psychiatrically hospitalized for the first time in my life. That was number four.
Now, I just told you the story of my life in eight minutes, assuming I’m on time, which I’m not, but that’s okay. And I told you about four things, and those four things were the lowest points in my life, which I call relapses, because whether it’s the first time I felt—or if I got better and I fell back—it had the same effect. Yes, I suffered greatly, but I gained something from every relapse: one, empathy—what is it like to live with mental illness? Two, I saw how much my friends cared about me, something I was so delusional I couldn’t see on my own. Three, I witnessed what the illness took away from me, but I also saw what I could gain from it. And for that, relapse is part of recovery. That I will fall over and over again, but the important thing is to be proactive about relapse, not reactive to it; to stay vigilant and take care of myself. Because my relapses, my struggles, have made me the person I am today. If I did not struggle, I would not have found my passion to serve as a mental health advocate and smash the stigma of mental illness. Relapse is part of recovery, and the phrase I’m borrowing from addiction and applying to mental health. But relapses occur in all areas of life: there are relapses in careers, relapses in relationships, relapses in societies. And that’s one thing I realized last year when I was quite depressed, and I was watching a movie called Sing, and in the movie there is a main character who is a koala named Buster Moon, who loses his prized theater and everything else, so he resorts to washing cars with his tiny furry body. He has relapsed. When his friend comes and reminds him of something Buster always said: “You know what’s great about hitting rock bottom? There’s only one way to go—and that’s back up.” I cried when he said that because in that moment I fully identified with the koala. I realized that I was gonna get better, and I was gonna be stronger. I decided to interview 50 people to see if “Relapse is part of recovery” goes beyond me and a koala, and I can say that it does.
Now, first and foremost, I’m a counselor, right? And people just pick up on it, which makes them more open. The other day, I went to the car dealership, and the staff member just starts venting to me for no reason, and I didn’t know what to do, so I just provided active listening, and he stopped. He says, “Man, you are such a good listener; you should be a counselor.” I said, “I actually am a counselor.” “Man, you must send out these counselor vibes or something.” And I’m thinking, “How do I turn those vibes off?” Hey, at least I got great tires.
One story stands out to me: Stephanie. She’s been to me, the American, and her whole life she wanted to be a doctor. She applied to medical school twice, didn’t get in. She applied a third time, then figured she didn’t want to be a doctor, and three days after that, she got into medical school, and she turned it down. Her parents were extremely disappointed in her, and she sunk into a depression; she no longer knew who she was. She experienced a relapse in identity. However, the exploring she experienced forced her to figure out what is it that makes her happy. She decided she still wants to help people, but as a wellness coach. She started a business six years ago, and this is her here today, doing quite well. People were so open about their stories: “I lost my career, but then I found my passion. I was in the worst relationship of my life, but I learned so much about myself. I relapsed over and over and over again, but every relapse moved me closer to sobriety.” And there was so much insight. I learned that life is precious and not something to be thrown away. I learned that my time is not necessarily God’s time, and I need to put my faith in Him. I learned to embrace adversity because I know in the end I’m going to be a better person.
Let’s recap what we learned today: one, relapse is part of recovery; two, relapses occur in all areas of life; three, we gain insight from relapse, and for that, we need to be supportive when a person relapses. So often, my interviewees said they felt like failures; people walked out on them, or they walked out on themselves. But how wrong is that? If we gain insight from relapses, that means that relapses are opportunities for growth, not something to be ashamed of. And yes, it does up to the individual to see that opportunity, to accept that there’s a problem, to ask for help, to work through it. Yes, and it is equally important for the people around them to provide support. We must trust and believe in people, or life becomes impossible. Support does not just fall on the shoulders of families and friends; everyone needs to be supportive: schools need to be supportive, workplaces, clinics, communities, governments, and societies. We all need to work together to support the person or people who relapse because we all realize support doesn’t have to take much. It starts with encouragement and hope and belief in the person. It grows to expanding much-needed mental health and addiction services, and it could be something as simple as telling a young and terrified girl that she is destined for greatness. All support is so powerful. I’m so lucky for the support I’ve had; that’s why I’m here today. I have had my fair share of discouragement, which seemed justified: “You need to transfer to an easier school. You can’t work. You need to live on disability benefits.” Extremely justified. But I’m pretty happy with what I did. I didn’t listen, and I had people supporting me on the other end, telling me to pursue my dreams. And you know what? I’m a strong social worker and have worked in mental health and addiction for six years. I have won two awards for my advocacy. I’ve raised $20,000 for NAMI. I’m on the board for the Dayle McIntosh Center for the Disabled, and the only person with a mental health condition, and I’m vice president. And I have struggled with alcohol abuse, and I’m happy to say that I have six years sober. So if you’re out there right now and you’re struggling, you’re relapsing, I don’t care how bad it is, what it looks like, I’m telling you right now, you can get better. Thank you, my actors, for creating that horrifying scene that hopefully I never have to replay. Good. I want to end with my signature phrase: “Stigma smash!” It’s the phrase I say whenever I hear something combat the stigma of mental illness, and I think we as a whole have combatted some stigma today. So I want us all, on three, to go, “Stigma smash!” And I want—I want to hear it loud. Okay, you got there way too quiet. I want to hear loud. I want to hear some thunder. Okay, one, two, three, stigma smash! All right. Thank you guys so much. [Applause]