Tyler Posey On Reaching Out

Transcript

Hey guys, I am Tyler Posey, and I am going to be sharing a personal story of mine with mental health. And just dealing with with awkward silences and friends helping me out through it. Almost three years ago, I lost my mother to breast cancer. She was just there for me more than anybody and I would go to her for everything. And then when she died, I felt like I didn't really have anybody to go to. I think humans need to break down and cry every now and then and I would do that with my mom. And then after she died, I felt like I had no one to do that around. My friends, I gotta be tough in front of my friends, in front of my brothers, in front of my dad. I would go to work and I would go home. There were a bunch of times where my best friends would hit me up and if I wasn't looking so well, or doing so well, they would bring it up. And be like, "Hey man, are you okay? "What's going on?" I'll be like, yeah I'm okay. I wouldn't really get into it and I realize that that didn't make me feel better. When I get depressed, I feel like I'm a burden on people and I don't wanna burden them with my problems. So once I got over that, I was able to open up more with them. And we just have these great deep conversations now whenever we're feeling sad. I even have a tattoo of two hands shaking like this and it has a lot of different meanings but to me, it means literally to reach out to my buddies when I'm in need of them. If you know somebody well enough. It's easy to tell if something is a little off. One of my buddies just recently had been going through some stuff. Whenever we have a party, he would isolate himself in the back and I could tell that he was down. Sometimes I try to let him come to me first and see if he wants to ask for help or say hey, man I'm kind of low right now. But if he doesn't, I'll usually reach out to him. It's always awkward to start that conversation. But now I think we've gotten comfortable enough with it and I've seen the good that it does. I try to get rid of that awkward feeling and just go right for it. It's easy to forget that reaching out to your friends really almost immediately makes things better. Therapy is something I discovered a few years ago then I started doing it a lot. I'm a huge fan of therapy. I use myself as an example and say hey, man I've been to therapy and it works. And just talking your feelings out, getting everything off your chest. That's therapy in itself. If you recognize that a buddy is struggling or you yourself are. I know how hard it is to reach out for your own reasons. I have my own reasons why it was hard. Just do it. It is an awkward situation and not the most natural, but think we have to get over and make it overly natural situation. So just do it, just face your fears and ask somebody. You'll save a life. Save mine.