When it comes to people
talking about their mental health issues,
one of the really relatable things
that I believe that so many people go through
is, firstly, the admittance that something is wrong
and the need to ask for help.
Now, everyone's different,
but what I've learned from that is,
it's not what's wrong with you, it's what's happened to you.
And I think that is such an important point,
because there is no shame in this.
And actually, I can use any part of my own experience
that might assist or help other people
who have similar issues, similar traumas.
You know, my life gets better
when I think I can help other people in any way,
and I've sort of spent a career, a lifetime,
a purpose doing that.
What brought me to this deep, heartfelt desire
to do something
is my experience with my girls.
The first time I brought my girls
from my school in South Africa to go to college over here,
the first girl, freshman year in an Ivy League school,
was feeling very alone and isolated.
I thought I could talk it away, spend time,
and then I get a call that she's tried to kill herself.
Then I had another girl, then I had another girl,
then I had another girl, and another--
and so I'm like, "What is going on?"
And the truth is, Harry,
I've spent too many nights in a psych ward.
And that's when I started to understand.
There's something we're not doing,
there's something I'm missing, there's something I--
I didn't, in the beginning, even underst--
"What do you mean, you're depressed?"
You know, coming from someone
who had done lots of shows about depression...
You've been depressed this time for how long?
Since last July.
Anxiety, I've had anxiety my whole life.
I'm hearing this voice. What is this?
I was sexually abused when I was five years old.
I wanted to use my voice
to help people figure out mental illness.
I have bipolar depression.
...lost my family due to alcoholism.
...and I just don't feel that I can cope with life.
Go ahead. We cry every day here.
But in the beginning,
I didn't understand how serious this was.
On the famous day that we gave out all the cars,
what was important to me was not just to give out cars,
but to be able to give out cars to people who needed them.
Open your boxes. One, two, three.
You get a car! You get a car! You get a car!
Everybody gets a car!
People were there 'cause a car meant
the difference between being able to keep a job,
or the car meant the difference
between being able to pick up their kids at school.
You know, a car was an essential need.
And Alex was one of those people.
Alex was a homeless girl
who, in spite of everything that life had thrown her,
in spite of family problems,
the thing that had impressed me the most
is that she had been able to finish school.
It felt like I was in a dream.
It felt like a Cinderella story.
I had just come from being on the streets
to, like, all of this.
I grew up with my dad being in prison most of my life,
my dad beating the crap out of my mom,
chaos in my house all the time.
Fights, physical abuse.
I'm so proud of you.
You've been through hell,
and we believe that all you need--
I believe all you need is somebody who believes in you,
and I do.
I do.
I believe in you.
I saw myself in Alex.
The way I was raised by my grandmother,
whipped at three and four
and five and six years old.
And so I've always thought, the reason anybody makes it
is because if you just have one person
that says, "I see you.
I truly see you. I get you."
For me, it was my teachers. Mrs. Duncan.
She was my comfort.
She was where I saw value in myself.
I want to be able to give to somebody
what Ms. Duncan did for me.
What I saw in Alex was that she needed encouragement,
she needed support,
she needed somebody to believe in her,
get her a scholarship to college.
I had to prove to her that...
I was gonna make right
with the decision in her
in believing in me.
Unfortunately, I entered into college
with the education level of a 12-year-old.
I failed my first semester. F, F, F, F, F.
Early on in college, she was having problems.
I recommended a therapist.
She says, "This therapist is the wrong therapist,"
so then I went and found another therapist.
After college, as the years passed,
I was always just trying to be a supportive friend
and mentor.
But there was always an issue.
"This didn't work out,"
or "I'm gonna apply for this job,"
and then that doesn't work out.
Finally, what I thought was going to be the job,
that felt like full circle for her,
was going back where I had first met her,
Covenant House.
I was so excited.
This is Covenant House,
a homeless shelter for youth 18 to 21.
I stayed here for 11 months when I first came to Hollywood.
- Buenas. - Buenos días. Cómo estás?
Working for Covenant House,
when I would hear a lot of my kids
talk about their stories,
it was really triggering for me.
The job at Covenant House
lasts for six months,
and then I noticed her starting to unravel
in a way that I had not experienced before.
I need help.
It feels like I have to help myself
because no one has solutions.
No one knows.
Many a day, I was saying to myself,
"What in the world is this?"
And that's when I recognized that, wow,
I have now stepped into something
that I really don't understand.
It frightened me.
I'll be sitting there thinking, like,
"I wanna kill myself."
But why? I don't wanna die.
I don't... I love my life.
I don't love my past. I love my current life.
And it pisses me off
that my past is still a part of who I am today.
But I don't get a choice in it.
She starts telling me that she...
has been banging her head against some concrete wall.
I was not equipped to handle
all that came in the package of this young woman.
So I found a spot for her
at The Meadows Psychiatric Treatment Center.
I've kept all my journals.
Some goes back to when I was in grade nine,
when I wrote, "My dad is always in jail on my birthday
because he abuses my mom a lot.
My whole life is messed up.
I think of death. It scares me.
I scare myself."
It's crazy
that my mental health goes back to that far.
Like, being 13, 14.
Okay. Alex.
Your day to present your first step.
I'm nervous!
You can do it.
All right.
So part one.
"My father was abusive towards my mother
and he was an alcoholic.
My mother was very abusive towards me
and she tortured me as a child.
She would physically, emotionally, verbally abuse me.
Not being able to cry, not being allowed to cry.
I hate that I had to live with PTSD my entire life
and had no skills.
It felt like a lost battle,
like I was standing alone in a battlefield,
defeated, just waiting to be taken out,
but nothing was killing me."
I remember the first time she told me
that she had PTSD...
...I-I think I didn't have any reaction to it
because I thought, "Well, that's what soldiers have."
It didn't even register
as something that was really real.
Post-traumatic stress disorder
was originally used
with people who were combat veterans.
And one of the things that we've learned
over the last 30 years studying trauma,
when two things co-occur, you know, a sight and a sound,
your brain connects them,
literally makes physical connections.
It makes a memory.
But the lower part of the brain can't tell time.
And so people who have developmental trauma
when they're younger,
they've got all these little land mines
in lower parts of their brain.
Certain evocative cues, any reminder of the event,
will make them feel anxious and overwhelmed,
and they're very hard to get around.
Part of the dilemma of treatment
is that you're not gonna get
these simple, linear interventions.
Whether it's PTSD or depression
or anxiety disorder or schizophrenia,
they all have this sort of two step forward,
one step back.
One step forward, two steps back.
Which makes it very hard
for family, friends trying to help.
The past four months have been intense.
But I'm transitioning out of The Meadows,
and it's a big world out there.
So I'm taking the training wheels off,
but I know I can pedal.
You know?
- Hey, Alex. - Hey.
Oh, look at your braids. I love your braids.
Do you love 'em?
Yeah, I do. They're great.
Thank you.
So what's your plan? What's happening?
When are you being released from there?
So I kind of have, like, one week left.
Okay.
So how are you gonna take care of yourself?
What's the plan for that?
I wanna get a new job.
What is that job?
That's a really good question.
That's what I need to figure out.
That's what I need to start job searching for, you know?
- I need to-- - Well, that's 101.
Yeah.
I know.
So when you leave this facility,
where are you going to stay?
You've got a few days.
You're gonna leave here,
and then you're gonna go where?
I don't know.
You've got to be able to figure out
how you're going to take care of yourself.
You don't think I've been
taking care of myself my whole life?
I know that.
I just need to learn
to take care of myself after treatment now.
I get that.
Before I entered into my depression,
I had a job.
I've been taking care of myself, you know?
I know how to take care of myself.
Right now, I'm just starting all over.
I'm not talking about the past.
- I'm just talking about now. - I know that.
But if I could do it then, I can do it now.
I just--it's gonna take me some time.
- That's it. - I believe that.
- I believe that. - Yeah.
I believe you will.
And I will.
I will.
All right. Take care of yourself.
- You too. - Bye.
Bye.
It's really hard
'cause sometimes I feel like she just doesn't get it.
I just don't want her to be disappointed in me,
because PTSD is not curable,
so just to have more understanding
of where I'm coming from.
I've now known Alex 16 years.
She is so generous of spirit.
Has such a big, loving heart.
Wants to do well.
My goal is to help her get to the point
where she can stand on her own.
But I've made mistakes.
I recognize that my expectation was faulted.
I wasn't taking into account the mental illness at all.
My journey with Alex caused me
to look at mental health
in a very different way
than I had approached it before.
It's not the first time her and I have had
a conversation like that.
I know that she comes from a place of love.
We're both learning.
For her, she's never been with somebody that has PTSD
and who's struggling with nightmares.
It's not just gonna be something that--
you know, in four months, six months, one year.
It's a lifelong journey.
Therapeutic change isn't about therapy.
It's never about, "I got the right medication."
It's never about, "I got the right diagnosis."
It's never about that.
It is invariably
all about relationship.
There was this person.
There was a teacher.
A coach. A family member.
It's about feeling like you belong,
felling like you're connected.
Hey, you get these guys.
You had these guys, and I'll take these guys.
I had a happy childhood.
I was a child of divorce.
I had two nuclear families.
But there's a lot of joy in my life
from a very early age,
and when it came to my dad,
as a parent, he was like a great friend.
Please say hello to Robin Williams.
Here's a picture of my son, if we...
Aww. What's his name?
His name is Zachary.
Zachary, you just missed him in person.
- How old is he? - He's four.
Oh, okay. Your daddy's a great guy.
This is for my son.
- Can we take a picture? - Oh!
He was away a lot.
But when I did get an opportunity
to spend time with him...
...we got to bond around shared hobbies.
Computer games, video games, science fiction,
and, you know, toy soldiers that he collected.
I was just-- I was so into that.
I thought it was the coolest thing
that that's what my dad was into.
Why?
Gotta take those guys to the hospital.
Gotta have Koala Bill rushed to the hospital.
Because Koala Bill is very careful.
He's been... wounded.
I certainly grew up feeling loved.
But my dad was experiencing
mental health issues
for a good portion of his life.
A whole lot of anxiety and depression
and addiction.
There's a generational issue going on.
I've experienced mental health issues
my entire life.
I had obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Having to count out certain actions
before I went to bed at night.
Obsessing over things.
I didn't sleep very much as a kid.
I had really bad insomnia.
I had a lot of energy and a racing mind,
and I inherited that to some degree.
God, it's incredible!
And I try and do sweet things for him.
I try.
I said, "I'll take him to Disneyland.
That'll be fun.
Mickey Mouse for a three-year-old.
Yes, Mickey Mouse for a three-year-old.
That'll be incredible."
Mickey Mouse to a three-year-old
is a 6-foot fucking rat.
There's Mickey going, "Hiya, little buddy!"
"Aah!
Aah!"
Good morning, Zachary.
As I became an adolescent,
I found using alcohol and drugs
helped me calm my mind.
It became a very normal part of my experience
to rely upon alcohol and drugs and things like that
to manage the racing mind.
I started to realize elements of myself
that were like him.
My anxiety, my bouts of depression,
OCD, drugs, drinking, like him.
When I wasn't self-medicating,
things felt completely overwhelming for me.
You add the alcohol into the mix,
and then suddenly, it becomes very singular in the thinking.
It's like, "Oh, I'm drinking," and suddenly the mind calms.
I think--
Slow down now. Slow down. My heart's going, "You fool."
You know, people see you and they probably think
you experiment
with foreign substances in your body.
- Medication, you mean? - Yes.
No, not me.
And it just became part of my identity.
I'm just like, "I can do this
so I can get through the day."
And the weird thing for me, I would take uppers.
I would use cocaine and the like to calm down.
I talked to my dad about it. He was similar.
Let's really make the cameraman mad now.
He would use uppers
as a way of focusing and relaxing.
Is my lipstick on?
I think where we really started to have
a deeper, more profound understanding of one another
is when he decided to stop drinking,
which was around the time that I first realized
I had a problem.
So we engaged around that.
I wanted to be able to get to know him better
because I didn't really understand
what he had been through.
When he received a diagnosis that was Parkinson's...
I was worried for him.
But I was confused.
He felt like his ability to do the things he loved doing,
which involved entertaining and performing,
was slipping away.
What I saw with my dad is
an enormous amount of frustration.
He was slowly drifting.
I was still drinking at the time.
I was becoming overwhelmed,
becoming exasperated,
because I wasn't sure how I could help my dad.
I talked to him nearly every day,
if not every day,
throughout the final stage of his life.
Actor Robin Williams is dead at the age of 63
from an apparent suicide.
Robin Williams has died on the West Coast.
He was 63 years old.
I've been thinking about Robin Williams.
This is absolutely shocking and horrifying.
I was shocked.
His passing created this worldwide event.
I was publicly grieving.
I didn't know how to grieve privately.
I just wasn't equipped
to be able to be still by myself
and experience all this.
But what did the bullet do?
Pierced his armor and hurt him.
But wasn't dead.
He's not dead, no, but that's why Tom Cat
and Aardvark Al are taking him in.
There was just things I wanted to tell him.
And things that I wanted to talk through with him.
And I did get an opportunity to do some of that,
but not to the level that I wanted to.
And my life became unmanageable as part of that.
I was just angry and sad
and didn't wanna feel anything, and...
And so it just created wreckage.
I was drinking to excess,
damaging my relationship with my family.
I was experiencing psychosis.
It was difficult for me to have
just normal engagements with people,
just have a normal conversation with people,
because I felt so broken and so isolated.
For many people who are having
very difficult times with their grief,
clearly, addiction is a major vulnerability.
Addiction is a big crisis in America now,
but we have come to see this as a biological vulnerability
instead of a moral failing.
So we no longer call it substance abuse disorder.
We call it substance use disorder.
It's very important.
You have a biological vulnerability,
and your behavior influences it.
In this way, this is precisely like diabetes
or illnesses that we don't have
these moral judgments about.
Every person is different.
What I've come to really appreciate
is the uniqueness
of the recovery journey for each person.
I needed help.
And I was diagnosed
with post-traumatic stress disorder.
And that was a wake-up call.
I needed to change my life.
I also had to cut out the self-medicating
and experience things in the way
that I needed to experience them and just feel,
despite how painful it all felt.
I needed to find a way
in which I could share my experience
and be vulnerable
and give back.
That led me down the path to mental health advocacy.
Robin William's oldest son Zak
is part of a group called Inseparable,
which supports increased access
to affordable, high-quality mental health care.
Welcome, Zak Williams.
Thank you so much for being with us.
I think we need to shift our mindset
from thinking about it as weakness
to thinking about it as a strength.
It's become very clear that I need to continue
to focus on...
...service, in order to continue
to feel the sense of fulfilment.
Probably because I can't sit still.
I knew Zak was so ready to be a dad.
I was really impressed with the self-work
that Zak was committed to.
And I wanted a partner who was into growing together,
to willingfully change ourselves
to become better, and I found that in Zak.
Olivia really helped nurture healing
and enabled me to open up.
I'm committed to being sober,
and I'm continuing to treat the underlying symptoms
that led me to addictive behavior.
And that's a journey.
It's only in hindsight that you see these things
and you say, "Wow, there's a generational issue going on."
I love being a parent.
It's been the best thing ever.
Do I feel that there's an opportunity
to break a generational cycle?
Yeah, I think there's a major opportunity.
To show up for my son clear-eyed and focused.
To be there for him.
There are times my son looks at me
and gives me that look in the eyes like,
"Well?
What's it gonna be?"
"Hey, Zakka, it's...
...I don't know.
But maybe along the way, you take my hand,
tell a few jokes, and have some fun.
Hey, how do you get to the Met?"
"Money."
"Yeah. Come on, pal.
You're not afraid, are you?"
"Nah.
Fuck it."
Everybody has some form of pain.
You can think you're the most successful,
happiest person.
That doesn't mean that your life is sorted.
So was there a moment, was there a single moment
or a series of experiences
or encounters, happenings,
that forced you to say, "I need help,"
"Maybe I'm drinking too much," "I'm doing this to my"--
was there an incident?
No, it was only when a couple of people close to me
started to say, you know, "This isn't normal behavior.
Perhaps you should, you know, look into this,"
or, "Perhaps you should go and seek help."
Now, immediately, I was like... like, "I don't need help."
Course not.
And now in hindsight, looking back,
it's all about timing.
Towards my late 20s,
everything became really hectic for me,
but to the point of exhaustion.
I was traveling all over the place
because, you know, from the family's perspective,
I guess I was the person who, like--
"We need someone to go there.
Nepal. Harry, you go."
I was always the yes man.
I was always the one willing to say yes.
But that "Yes and yes and yes, yes, of course, yes, yes, yes,"
led to burnout.
And it was like someone had taken the lid off.
All of the emotions that I had suppressed
for so many years suddenly came to the forefront,
and I saw GPs, I saw doctors, I saw therapists,
I saw alternative therapists, I saw all sorts of people,
but it was meeting and being with Meghan.
- Really? - I knew that if I didn't
do the therapy and fix myself,
that I was gonna lose this woman
who I could see spending the rest of my life with.
There was a lot of learning
right at the beginning of our relationship.
She was shocked to be coming backstage
of the institution, of the British royal family.
When she said, "I think you need to see someone,"
it was in reaction to an argument that we had.
And in that argument,
not knowing about it,
I reverted back to 12-year-old Harry.
The moment I started therapy,
it was probably within my second session,
my therapist turned 'round to me and said,
"That sounds like you
reverting to 12-year-old Harry."
I felt somewhat ashamed and defensive.
Like, "How dare you? You're calling me a child."
And she goes, "No, I'm not calling you a child.
I'm expressing sympathy and empathy for you,
for what happened to you when you were a child.
You never processed it.
You were never allowed to talk about it.
And all of a sudden, now,
it's coming up in different ways
as projection."
That was the start of a learning journey for me.
I became aware that I'd been living in a bubble
within this family, within this institution,
and I was sort of almost trapped
in a thought process or a mindset.
Within the first eight days
of our relationship being made public
was when they said, "Harry's girl:
almost straight outta Compton."
And that her exotic DNA
would be thickening the royal blood.
We would get followed, photographed,
chased, harassed.
The clicking of cameras and the flashes of cameras
makes my blood boil.
It makes me angry.
It takes me back to what happened to my mum
and what I experienced when I was a kid.
That's enough.
But it went to a whole new depth
with not just traditional media,
but also social media platforms as well.
I felt completely helpless.
I thought my family would help.
But every single ask, request,
warning, whatever it is
just got met with total silence or total neglect.
We spent four years trying to make it work.
We did everything that we possibly could
to stay there and carry on
doing the role and doing the job.
But Meghan was struggling.
And people have seen the photograph
of us, you know, squeezing each other's hands
as we walked into the Royal Albert Hall
in London for a charity event.
She was six months pregnant at the time.
What perhaps people don't understand is,
earlier that evening,
Meghan decided to share with me
the suicidal thoughts and the practicalities
of how she was going to end her life.
The scariest thing for her was her clarity of thought.
She hadn't lost it.
She wasn't crazy.
She wasn't self-medicating,
be it through pills or through alcohol.
She was absolutely sober.
She was completely sane.
Yet in the quiet of night,
these thoughts woke her up.
The thing that stopped her from seeing it through
was how unfair it would be on me
after everything that had happened to my mum,
and to now be put in a position
of losing another woman in my life
with a baby inside of her, our baby.
I'm somewhat ashamed of the way that I dealt with it.
And of course, because of the system that we were in
and the responsibilities and the duties that we had,
we had a quick cuddle,
and then we had to get changed
and had to jump in a convoy with a police escort
and drive to the Royal Albert Hall
for a charity event
and then step out into a wall of cameras
and pretend as though everything's okay.
There wasn't an option to say, "You know what?
Tonight, we're not gonna go."
Because just imagine the stories
that come from that.
While my wife and I were in those chairs,
gripping each other's hand,
the moment the lights go down, Meghan starts crying.
I'm feeling sorry for her,
but I'm also really angry with myself
that we're stuck in this situation.
I was ashamed that it got this bad.
I was ashamed to go to my family.
Because to be honest with you,
like a lot of other people my age
could probably relate to,
I know that I'm not gonna get from my family
what I need.
I then had a son
who I'd far rather be solely focused on,
rather than every time I look in his eyes
wondering whether my wife is gonna end up like my mother
and I'm gonna have to look after him myself.
That was one of the biggest reasons to leave.
Feeling trapped and feeling controlled
through fear,
both by the media and by the system itself...
...which never encouraged
the talking about this kind of trauma.
But certainly now, I will never be bullied into silence.
Sophomore year of high school,
I felt, like, really lost.
I have this feeling, and I don't know
exactly what it is, but I might know what it is,
but, like, is this really happening,
and how do I bring this up
to the people around me?
The moment where I was like, "Okay,
like, maybe I am depressed,"
was freshman year of college.
I was excited to play Division 3 tennis,
but I think I just had the wrong idea
of what college was gonna be like.
Being away from home for the first time
was like a big change.
I was just dragging myself through campus.
Having a hard time finding the energy to leave my room.
Going to college changed the way
that I navigated depression
because you're always around people,
so there was a lot of, like, compartmentalizing.
Like, "This is not the time to have a breakdown.
Do it from, like, 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.,
and then you go to class,
and then maybe at 8:00 p.m., you can have another breakdown
when your roommate's not in the room."
"My mind is in a jumble, and I can't focus on anything.
I can't even remember when I genuinely felt happiness.
I feel myself hurting so much, and it won't stop.
Sometimes I think, 'Am I amplifying my own problems?
Am I just not resilient?'
I don't know."
3/4 of all mental health conditions
occur before age 25.
When you're in those years,
you're trying to figure out who you are.
Being handed an additional challenge,
a condition that you have to integrate
into your identity,
is, I think, one of the biggest challenges people face.
Is this who I am?
Is this a piece of who I am?
Can I learn to live with this?
Will this ever come back?
And colleges and universities vary tremendously.
There is no coordinated mental health system.
It can be very difficult to find professional help.
When I needed help,
I apply for academic accommodations.
It was frustrating because it felt like
I had to prove that I was depressed somehow.
Which I don't really know how you do.
There were a lot of midterms
and there was a lot of pressure from tennis.
So after coming back from nationals with my team,
I think I just had, like, a breakdown.
So I went home.
My parents immigrated from Taiwan.
We were raised in a way that's like,
if you know how to deal with your own problems,
you're stronger for it.
Mental health in my family
was never a conversation that anyone had.
So as a first-generation Asian American,
I had to start the conversation.
And it wasn't like, "Oh, like,
you've started questioning things,
and it's okay.
Like, I've felt this way before,"
or, like, "Let's talk about it."
It was more like panic.
More panic than I would have liked.
I felt like I couldn't face the situation, accepting that my child is depressed.
I was worried that once I admitted that she was sick,
she would just keep being sick forever.
That's why I delayed taking her to the doctor.
I was worried that it would become a long-term problem.
Her sister said she needed to see a doctor.
That's how we finally faced the problem.
Mom and I have definitely had
the same conversations over and over.
So it's hard to make progress,
in terms of our relationship, when we're still stuck
on the fact that it's okay for Mom to express
her concern through crying and stuff like that.
I mean, have you told her that, "When you do that,
then it makes me feel like, now I have to take care of you,
but when I'm trying to open up
so you can understand and take care of me"?
Have you expressed that to her?
I think--yes, I have a couple times.
What'd she say?
"Oh, my God, I'm so sorry."
And then just, ah! I don't know.
- Oh. - It's just, like, not--it--
Mom and I talk about this.
Like, she's supposed to be the mom, right?
She's supposed to be there for us.
So for her to show weakness, and it's like,
she thinks, like, "Oh, no, like, the foundation is rocky,"
and, like, "How can my kids, like, lean on me
if I can't be there for them and be strong," you know?
And for some reason, in Asian culture,
strong means you don't show your emotions.
I felt like I was trying to lead
my mom through something when I needed help.
I still have to learn how to deal with it.
Especially when I don't know how to communicate with you.
Or when you don't want to talk about it.
Or when you say you're fine, but I feel you're not fine.
Usually we just hug each other and cry. Then just--
Okay.
But the problem is still there.
But, like, I think...
Every time you talk to her, you want to solve the problem,
You want to make sure she's happy.
But that's not the case.
Mèimei, when she reached out to us,
she just wants just to vent...
to let out her emotions, to share her emotions.
You know, and then we just need to just be there,
like, "Oh, hey, yeah, okay. We're here for you.
What do you need?"
There's nothing you can do.
Yeah?
Except for that.
- Oh. - That's your only job.
- Okay. - Just be there.
- You're not my therapist. - I know, but--
I'm not trying to figure something out with you,
you know what I mean?
You're reminding me that I had similar struggles.
Do you think we're similar?
I don't know.
You never told me your story.
But maybe.
I mean, we're kinda similar sometimes.
People around me used to say I thought too much.
"You think too much."
"You own everything. Why do you think..."
But still you feel empty inside.
There was a lot of stress in my life, especially as an immigrant.
I would just cry and cry in my car.
It wasn't that I felt sad about anything. I just felt helpless.
But I never told my children.
I feel like it's so unfair to her.
I'm the one who brought them here.
I should have had everything set up for them.
I should have given her a good life.
Sorry, I don't know how to say that.
Let me... wait a minute.
I just feel like I'm not a mother who's able to help.
I try to help but I can't.
I really can't help her.
I feel very guilty.
I don't want you to think... that I don't care about you.
But I didn't pay enough attention to what you were going through.
Maybe we don't make progress after every conversation.
You know what I mean?
At least, like, we're always, like, trying.
And I think because we try...
we learn new things.
You know what I mean?
I realize that she is much stronger than me.
Crystal also encouraged me to go to therapy.
Since I'm home,
we've had a lot of conversations.
It's definitely brought us closer
trying to figure this out together.
I have friends.
I have my therapist.
I have my dog.
Talking about depression makes it more manageable.
I'm taking this semester off.
And there's more that I'm working on
in therapy now.
There's no right way of processing something.
It's just gonna be part of your story.
That's it.
Give it a jab. Jab.
There you go. Come on, come on.
Good. Work, work.
I've been working for ten years almost
to make it to the Olympics.
Work.
Everybody's looking at me to get gold.
That's it.
Time. Good job.
But I'm struggling with my OCD.
At the beginning, I didn't want help
'cause I didn't think I needed help.
Then I had a very bad kind of mental breakdown
and realized that I needed more professional help.
I was just in this vicious cycle,
it seemed like: clean my face, wash my hands,
take the trash out, bam, bam, bam, nonstop.
The feeling of getting clean is not changing.
I couldn't stop, and so I'd get so frustrated
and, like, hit the sink or the wall next to me.
Like, pacing back and forth.
My muscles tighten
and I'm, like, breathing so hard.
I went three days, maybe two hours of sleep.
You get delusional. You can't think straight.
I kinda had thoughts like, "Man, it would just be easier
just to not live like this."
And how not to live like this? Then don't exist.
Later that night,
I just kinda, like, fell to the floor,
picked up my phone, called my coach.
I open the door, see a bunch
of cleaning supplies everywhere
and stuff like that.
She's sitting in her room and she's shaking
and she's on the floor and I'm like,
"Oh, what's going on?" You know what I mean?
And I'm like, "Come on, Gin, stop playing," you know.
She's like, "No, no, this is serious.
No, it's--I can't do this no more.
I don't wanna do it anymore." You know what I mean?
"I think this is the end for me."
I'm like...
"Ginny, you sound like you're talking
about killing yourself."
I had to hold her.
I'm like, "Ginny, come here, man.
Like, come here.
Like, you know, we're not gonna do this, man.
Like, I can't see you kill yourself."
And I told her, I said, "We're not gonna die,
because if you try to hurt yourself,
I'm gonna get in the way."
How did you know how to deal with that?
Were you just--did you just go from your instinct,
or were you...
She's trying to make me cry, Ross.
She's trying to make me cry, but she's not gonna do it.
Well, no, that night was really touching for me
because it was just like--
I'm sorry to say it made me think death.
You know, I've had a lot of people kill theirselves
or do stuff like that, yeah.
Because of what I said. I remember 'cause I was like,
"I don't wanna live like this anymore."
Yeah, and it was like, you know, when I hear
those words, I'm just like, man.
I've had friends die like that.
I've had friends kill theirselves.
I've had people that I've known,
their friends kill theirself, and I was just like, "Oh, no.
This is something serious right now."
And it was like, "I can't call nobody.
I gotta get there."
And that was the first thing is just, you know, get there
and just let you know I'm there.
Like, you know, if we're gonna hurt,
we're gonna hurt together.
That's when I knew, like, "Man, boxing's out the window.
Your life has to come first.
I don't care about world championships.
I don't care about nothing. No gold medals.
Let's get you home as soon as possible.
Let's get you into, you know, therapy."
You know, and I love you for coming to me
and, you know, reaching out to me and saying,
"Hey, Coach Kay, I really need you right now."
- Man! - Yeah. Yeah.
Some mental health conditions
are temporary.
Some ebb and flow.
For others, symptoms can be managed
but aren't cured.
One of the big questions with mental health conditions
is, "How well can you live with it?"
Some people thrive with it.
Some people thrive because of it.
It's a very individualistic phenomena.
Every person is different.
A lot of people are suffering, and the best outcomes happen
when you combine the best of medical science
with a recovery framework.
The actual making a life part,
the journey towards getting better.
Hey! How are you?
Good.
All right, so...
Just put it here.
There you go. Make your magic.
Why can't you just put it on here, you know?
Oh, my God, I literally just cleaned this
before you came here.
- I literally just cleaned. - Okay.
- I just cleaned. - I know. I know.
It just makes me feel better.
The only way I'm able
to have a friendship with Ginny
is if I can tell her what I think
when I think it.
We just have this friendship.
I could not talk to anyone else I know
like the way I talk to Ginny.
But that is what sort of allows our friendship to exist,
because if I was holding everything in
and just, like, feeling some type of way
and, like, felt like I couldn't say it to her,
I would be like, "I can't do this.
I can't do this."
So you're worried about the cart,
but not all the pesticides that are on this cucumber?
No, I would wash it regardless,
but I wouldn't have to worry about soap
'cause it was in the plastic bag.
I'm her best friend. I can put up with this.
We can fight and scream and we're gonna be okay.
That's just our relationship.
We're soul mate best friends, and we're gonna figure it out.
Could you get some ripe avocados?
- Damn. - No, that was--
dude, that was the ripest I found.
- What do you mean? - What does that mean?
You're talking about--
What does that mean?
Fuck!
Sorry.
Oh, my God.
So I gotta buy these, but I'm not gonna eat 'em.
You throw them away,
even though you don't eat the peel?
Don't worry about it.
You don't eat the peel of the avocado, Ginny!
I know you don't. Just shh.
Well, I mean, there's, like, a system.
You chop this way...
After the Olympics, things are gonna change.
She's not gonna have that stability
that going for the Olympics has given her.
I do worry about her.
No, the only thing that's kind of gotten worse again
is, you know, how I, like, take the tissues out or gloves out.
That's kinda gotten really bad.
She's going to have to pay for rent,
pay for her own food,
pay for her own health insurance.
She was spending $300 a week
at the store on supplies.
That's $1,200 a month.
All your bills are gonna skyrocket.
No, I know. I've thought about that.
Thank you for reminding me.
And you can't live here with me.
- Okay. - You know you can.
Yeah.
Her breakdown, it was a good moment
because everybody needs to have that moment
where they're like, "Okay, I can't do this on my own.
I do need help."
I know she's not gonna get rid of this OCD overnight,
but let's get it back to where it's manageable.
She's been fighting this since she was 12.
Probably earlier than that.
When she was eight years old, nine years old,
and having to take a shower for 30 minutes.
You know, like, when you're talking to an eight-year-old,
"Get out of the shower. Go to bed."
And she couldn't do that.
I mean, and I was probably a horrible dad,
in that I'd go turn the water off on her
to make her get out of the shower.
That didn't help, obviously.
Yeah, it didn't really work, but--
It was causing more issues.
You know, you don't want your kids
to have anything but the perfect life, right?
So it's not perfect.
Not even close.
So this is Ginny's bathroom.
The shower curtain she takes down
at least once a week,
takes all the hooks off,
and wants me to wash 'em through the dishwasher.
And here's one of her trash cans
full of supplies from Walmart.
Here's another big one.
Two more bins full of stuff.
I think the better she's got at boxing
and the more stress it puts on her,
you know, to stay number one and everything
definitely makes it worse.
Brushing my teeth can take 30 minutes,
sometimes longer just depending
on how I feel that day or just my anxiety level.
When I pull things out of a package,
if it doesn't feel right when I'm pulling out,
it means it's contaminated.
Similar to other mental health conditions,
a combination of factors contribute to the development
of obsessive-compulsive disorder,
including biological, environmental,
and psychological factors.
For some people with OCD,
they're going after this "just right" feeling.
Ginny would do a ritual
in order to get a feeling that she likes.
Sometimes she gets the feeling that she wants,
and so then, it's reinforced,
and that's what keeps the cycle going.
Fuck.
So both of these two brushes feel contaminated to me,
and this is all I have left,
so what I would do now,
'cause I have no obligations for the rest of the day,
is just go to the store and buy more toothbrushes.
We're trying to break that cycle.
Should we go out and get your hands dirty?
Okay.
Oh, I'm gonna look so good.
So what will we do to get your hands dirty?
You can always start with the trash.
The most effective behavioral treatment
is called exposure with response prevention,
where you are approaching, rather than avoiding,
the things that bring up the uncomfortable feelings.
- Okay. - What is your goal here?
To get 'em as dirty as possible.
Why are we doing this?
So I can be comfortable with feeling dirty,
and not...
...have the urge to go, like, wash it off immediately.
- Does it feel dirty? - Yeah.
- What do we do with these? - Okay.
- Okay? - Yeah.
'Cause we wanna make it
where it's not so easy just to wash it away.
- Yeah. - You wanna put it on my face?
I know you don't want me to put it on my face.
Exposure therapy's so freaking hard.
That, to me, is ten times harder
than going eight rounds with my sparring partner.
Okay, I--I'll do this.
- Okay. - A little bit.
Yeah.
I'll be committed to that.
A really important component
of exposure therapy is collaboration.
The goals for the treatment are set by the patient.
The clinician is following their lead.
So it's not so easily gotten rid of.
Yeah.
My patients are doing
really difficult things
that cause significant emotional distress.
What else could you touch?
I guess touch that trash.
- Just pick it up. - Okay.
- This thing. - Okay.
Mmm, they had doughnuts.
Yeah!
I'm wanting them to learn
that this emotional distress will not harm them.
Good, Ginny. Breathe.
It's okay to feel
not okay in this way.
She's got a good support group around her.
Yeah.
She couldn't function without that support group.
You have good friends 'cause you're a good friend.
I've never seen such a loyal friend.
I mean, you are so loyal to your friends.
Thanks, Mom.
But again, because you were honest.
- Well, yeah. - That's what I told Ross.
"Well, she just came out and said, 'Okay, here it is.
You may think it's weird. I have OCD.
This is who I am,' and they were like, 'Okay.'"
Mikaela didn't know how to deal with it for the longest.
- She would, you know-- - Who?
She would make my anxiety worse.
- Mikaela. - Oh.
She'd be like, "Just stop. You need to stop. Stop."
I was like, "Mikaela, you're not helping.
You're not helping." She's like, "What?"
She didn't know how to help.
I mean, she's still learning.
She's definitely still learning.
Which I didn't either.
Like, you've helped me because I would say, "Ginny"--
if she was doing something, I'd say, "Ginny, stop."
She goes, "Mom, that makes it worse.
I have to start all over again."
So I've learned just to leave her alone.
I have to leave her alone.
- That's tough. - Even if it drives me nuts
'cause she's using so much soap and water.
I have to step back
because if I say something, it's just gonna escalate it,
and if it escalates her, it's gonna escalate me, so...
Yeah, basically, we just--yeah,
not only teach the person struggling with it,
but the people around them the skills to help.
But I love you guys, you know.
I feel so guilty about everything.
See, I don't want her to feel guilt.
That's what pains me.
I mean, I know you don't want to, but I do.
I just do.
Guilt for what?
For putting y'all through it.
Giving you all anxiety for my anxiety.
All of it.
We're the luckiest people on the Earth.
Bar none.
Was she an easy child? No.
Was she a difficult child? Yes.
Luckiest person on the Earth.
Aww, thanks, Pops.
Her life, because of OCD,
is ten times
more difficult.
But she has a goal,
and will win
a gold medal.
Good. Good left hand.
Never be ashamed of yourself
because of your struggles.
'Cause we all are struggling with something.
Nobody's perfect. Except me.
I'm just joking.