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Volunteer shares story of acknowledging, coping with depression

By Harry Funk staff Writer hfunk@thealmanac.Net 4 min read
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They called him Smiley.

“If you ever look at a children’s book and the pictures in it, there are only two expressions that people have,” Joel Richard explained. “They’re either smiling or they’re frowning. So in my 3-year-old head, I thought: Oh, if I’m not smiling, everyone will think I’m sad. And I don’t want that.”

As a 27-year-old speaking at a recent meeting of the Youth Steering Committee of Upper St. Clair, Richard made it easy for those in attendance to picture him as an easygoing youngster who loved life and loved to laugh.

What they couldn’t quite fathom was his admission that at one point, he had decided to take his own life, with only a text to his mother and her reply constituting his saving grace.

The White Oak resident is a volunteer presenter for the National Alliance on Mental Illness’ “In Our Own Voice” program, which has the goal to “humanize the misunderstood, highly stigmatized topic of mental illness by showing that it’s possible, and common, to live well with a mental health condition.”

Pull Quote

“It wasn’t who I was. It was an illness that was affecting me and that I had become captured in the grip of.” – Joel Richard

Richard’s story has Smiley facing one of life’s harshest realities at age 12, when his father, a doctor, was diagnosed with Stage 4 brain cancer. He died a year and a half later.

“I kind of was thrown into this zombielike state. It was like being in an ocean and a tidal wave washes over you,” Richard recalled. “You don’t know which way is up or down. You just know you’re under water, and it’s a struggle.”

He managed not only to survive but thrive, at least on the surface.

At Thomas Jefferson High School, he was a starter on the Jaguars’ top-ranked football team and was captain of the mock trial team. He graduated with honors and went on to excel academically at St. Vincent College in Latrobe. Then he got a job and moved into his own apartment.

In his mind, the situation was not so good.

“All I thought was, I’m worthless,” he said. “I was in grip of this spiral of negativity. I had moved on from the grieving process of losing my father, but I stayed in this mire of self-deprecation.”

After nearly losing his own life, Richard checked into a hospital and received a diagnosis of major depressive disorder and general anxiety. He went into intensive outpatient treatment, and to this day he pursues therapy and takes prescribed medication.

“I didn’t quite buy the idea at the time that depression was a sickness,” he recalled. “I’d kind of grown up under this notion of, oh, depression is something that you just naturally feel when something bad happens to you. You get sad, but you move on, and it’s just a side effect of events in your life.

“It took constant reinforcement from therapists, doctors and fellow patients before I started to come to a point where I realized that what I was dealing with, what I was struggling with, wasn’t just that I was broken. It wasn’t who I was. It was an illness that was affecting me and that I had become captured in the grip of,” he said.

Today, Richard’s coping mechanisms include keeping a journal – he always has enjoyed writing – along with making sure he maintains an active social life and taking some “escapism” time for watching shows or playing video games. He also is involved with dialectical behavior therapy, which provides further skills to manage painful emotions and decrease conflict in relationships.

And volunteering for NAMI’s Keystone Pennsylvania helps his well-being, as he tells about all the years he suffered from mental illness before finally seeking and receiving the treatment he needed.

“All of that will be worth it,” he said, “if I can help just one person.”

For more information, visit www.namikeystonepa.org.

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