The Me You Can't See (2021) s01e03 Episode Script

For me, being depressed,
it's like
being in the darkest,
coldest part of the ocean
with hundred pound weights
on my ankle.
And I'm constantly trying
to swim up,
you know,
and I'm just continuing
to go down, go down,
deeper and deeper
in a panic, you know.
And with the panic comes
frustration, anger
Aggression.
All of the emotions
that I kinda shelter
kinda all comes up
when I'm getting pulled down,
you know, and it just feel
cold, dark, and alone, you know,
and it just eats away at you
in the moment
until you figure out how to get
yourself out of them chains
and slowly swim up
and feel the pressure release
and you can gasp for air.
It will always come and go.
You know, I had it
when I was in college,
but I always told myself,
you know, I'm tripping.
You know, I always found
an excuse
or something else to sweep it
under the rug.
I grew up
in Compton, California.
We didn't have much,
but my parents was
my biggest protectors
and supporters.
I seen my mom lose
all her brothers
to gang violence.
Seeing friends, family members
lose their life at a young age.
I remember one time,
a car pulled up slow,
and now you gotta duck
and hide behind the car
because now they shooting.
Even to this day, you know,
when a car rides up slow,
I'm hesitating,
like, "Who is this?"
You know, it took a toll,
you know,
so it pushed me to run
towards something
that gave me an escape.
And it was always basketball.
Oh, DeRozan!
That was one thing
where I could feel like,
you know, I was away
from everything
and I could just feel
like myself.
DeRozan with a huge finish!
I always tried
to use that as my peace,
but never addressing
the reality of things
that was going on in the moment.
With the ninth pick
in the 2009 NBA draft,
the Toronto Raptors select
DeMar DeRozan
from the University
of Southern California.
DeRozan fires and hits!
Picks it up.
Oh, he dropped one hard!
DeRozan with the slam.
This here's slamming!
That's what
an all-star looks like, folks.
Now you looking up.
You a all-star, you winning,
you on TV,
and you got so much attention
until where
it just all hits you.
We done suppressed so much pain
throughout the years.
The dark spaces that I was in,
they would come more frequently.
You know,
instead of every now and then,
it's every couple days,
then every couple days,
now it's for a week.
It was so frequent to where
I had to just break down
and address it.
I put out that tweet.
In that little moment,
I felt like
I was getting something off.
Then I went to sleep,
but you wake up to
After that, I was forced
to address it.
You know, I know
a lot of people ashamed
to talk about it.
Athletes never talk about it,
and you did.
Several NBA players have shared
their own struggles
with mental health.
depression more common
in the NBA than we think?
mental health in the NBA.
What should the league do?
I wanna talk about the piece
Kevin Love put
on The Players' Tribune,
where he gets very honest
about his battle with anxiety
and panic attacks.
He said it best when he said
DeMar DeRozan kinda opened up
the doors for him.
I think
what DeMar DeRozan has done
in deciding to become public
about his depression and anxiety
is caused a sea change,
certainly in the NBA
and I think
in all professional sports
because it's allowed players
to be comfortable
speaking out about
critically important issues.
The NBA is reportedly looking
into revamping
its mental health policies
for the 2019/2020 season.
According to The Athletic,
the league will soon implement
new mental health initiatives
that all 30 teams
must comply with.
We don't even realize
when we get lost
in playing sports,
that's our suppression
of what's going on
in our society, you know,
and it took me
damn near till I was 30
till I realized that.
These professional athletes
are experiencing
all the struggles
that everyone else
in that time frame does
with the addition of fame
and financial success
amid all these other pieces
that go along with being
a major athlete.
But the world doesn't see it
that way.
The world sees it as,
"Hey, you have all this fame.
You have all this money.
Your problems must be
null and void."
But that is not true.
The human existence
still applies.
Going to a therapist
or engaging mental wellness
speaks to my vulnerability.
Professional athletes feel,
"My opponent will tune in
to that vulnerability,
and maybe the folks that decide
about my next contract
will tune in
to that vulnerability."
And now, specific
to the African American
community,
we don't want outsiders.
That speaks to a long held issue
within our community
of, outsiders may not help us.
So hold it.
Don't tell anybody that stuff.
And actually, we don't even
wanna talk about it much
in our family circles.
We say,
"That boy's been struggling.
He been struggling for years."
Well, those are
mental health issues,
mental wellness issues
that go unchecked.
I was head coach
in Toronto for seven years,
and knowing DeMar from,
you know, I think it was
his second year in the NBA,
maybe it had been his third,
watching him grow,
but Brenda and I and our kids
were in LA,
I was coaching
the All-Star game,
I woke up, you know, to a tweet
that he had put out
saying that he was struggling
with some situations,
depressions, and it shocked me
because you would never know.
And on a personal level,
when we heard
that he was struggling,
you justyou feel like
you've let him down.
You know, you feel like
your relationship wasn't enough
for them to feel
comfortable enough to say that,
and so, you know, I felt like,
"Man, we really dropped
the ball."
But I would say too, Brenda,
that the coping mechanism
to cover that up is so strong.
Right.
And I think a piece of it
for the individual,
the individual says,
"I'm not supposed to have
this struggle.
I shouldn't tell people that."
But I'm so proud of him
that he normalized
that it's okay to talk about it.
And it made me know
that I know what I don't know,
and I'm not qualified
and equipped
to get in that territory
of a young man's life.
Let's go, DJ.
That's why, when I first got
the job here in Detroit,
having someone like Dr. Yeager
on our staff
was one of my first things
I asked for,
was someone who could
deal with that professionally.
So tell me a little bit
how you're mentally doing.
How did you come back
from an injury that had you out?
The language
of those first few words
that you say to a person
is critical.
A lot of people are
a pop therapist
or pop psychologist.
"I think this kid's dealing
with some anxiety
and maybe some depression."
So hold on.
So tell me the difference
between depression and sadness.
Well, people don't really know.
So what's the difference
between anxiety
and being nervous?
Well, people don't really know.
So we don't have to move it
into a clinical description.
And I think that's important
for players.
The best description I give
about my version of therapy
is that it's just conversation.
No one is opposed
to conversation.
So how was this morning?
It was great. It was great.
We had a good time.
- Yeah?
- Yeah.
Corey's been amazing.
When he came in last year,
it kinda was a huge relief
'cause you could kinda see guys
kinda let their guards down
around him.
Somebody that looks like you,
somebody that just is able
to be personable,
able to talk about whatever.
When I got issues
and I come talk to you,
I know you can't fix 'em.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it relieves pressure, right?
It relieves a lot of stress
off you.
A lot of stress.
And that's what really
makes him special
because he don't want
nothing from you,
but he wants everything for you.
He wants you to be
the best you you can be.
These last three years have been
I'd probably say
the toughest three years
I've ever faced in my life.
The stressors are huge.
You know, when everything
on the court's going great,
life is great.
But when basketball takes a turn
or when things
that you can't control
kinda affect you, it shakes you.
It's like the NBA,
so everyone's watching
all of the time.
There's social media,
so there's always,
you know, a tweet,
an Instagram picture,
you know, there's a trade rumor,
you know,
someone getting traded,
someone getting cut.
His parents are getting older.
You know, he's a father now.
There's always pressure.
When DeMar said
he had depression,
it kinda shook the NBA world up
because most guys didn't know
what to think of it.
Does that mean he's soft?
Does that mean he's tough
for coming out and saying this?
How can I understand
what this means
to, like, us going forward?
Ready?
Cheese.
- Cheese.
- Aww.
Let's roll.
When we talk
about mental health,
we talk about it at the stage
in which we reach crisis.
And I think
it's really more powerful
when you realize that,
you know, work it out now,
so then when you do
approach a crises,
you've trained
and prepared for it
and you're ready.
Breaking news
in this Sunday afternoon.
Five-time NBA champion,
former league MVP
Kobe Bryant died
earlier this afternoon
in Los Angeles
in a helicopter crash.
News reports are just coming in.
Among multiple victims,
Kobe Bryant on that helicopter.
They've decided
that whoever wins the tip,
and in this case, Toronto,
they are going to let
the shot clock run out
because of the number 24
to honor Kobe Bryant.
I had to play a game that day,
and it was the hardest game
I ever had to play in my life.
Man, um
you know, words
words can't explain the pain.
Kobe's death impacted everyone,
but specifically these players
that are in the NBA.
Too often, with grief and loss,
what we tend to do is
lean away from it
'cause we don't know what to do.
So it's my task to lean into it
and support in whatever way
each individual is needing.
As we honor
the life of Kobe Bryant
So I just wanna have
a brief conversation
about how y'all doing,
how y'all feeling about things.
Grief is unique
to each and every individual.
How I do it gonna be different
and look different
than how you do it.
And I ask people all the time,
"So if we grieve differently,
which one's right?"
- They all right.
- All right.
- It's mine.
- Yeah.
It's my version.
I think that that means a lot,
just being able
to talk about it.
When, I think, probably,
like, a couple hours went by
I just caught myself
and I was just still sitting
in the same spot.
I hadn't moved.
Like, a person
that you played against,
a guy that you knew growing up,
a idol, like,
you know, it hits you deep.
It's like a open wound
that you justyou can't fix.
When I heard about it,
the first thing I said is
my reaction was almost like,
"Kobe can't die.
What you mean?"
Yeah.
- That's heavy.
- Yeah.
There's that piece
of being invincible.
Like, he larger than life.
- Yeah.
- "Kobe ain't gone."
Getting a chance
to play against Kobe,
I'm like, "All right.
This is real. Like, all right.
Like, that's my idol.
Like, this, like, a legend
right here."
I think, like,
a couple possession went by,
and then all of a sudden,
I'm checking him,
and I'm like, "Oh, shoot."
Like, I was checking Kobe.
I know all my boys
back home watching.
- Like, everybody's watching.
- Come on, G.
The league watching.
Yeah, they watching.
They like, if you don't get
this stop, like, it's over.
Like, we gon' clown you at home.
I got him to sign a pair
of my shoes after the game,
and he's like,
"Man, keep going, man.
Keep doing it."
So that means
you get to hold on to that
forever, though.
- Those memories?
- Yeah.
No one ever gets to take them.
Then Deuces be sitting
beside you when he's 12 or 14
saying, "Dad, so you played
against Kobe?"
- Right. Yeah.
- You get to tell those stories.
It's gonna be cool.
Yeah, that's pretty cool.
Taking a step back
as a parent now,
as a father, it makes me
cherish my little man
even more now
because tomorrow's
just not promised.
Mm.
It gave me a perspective of,
it's way bigger
than just the ball.
Like, that this ball's
gonna stop bouncing.
Too often,
we don't take the time
to create that space,
to understand one another,
and I think this work is
allowing me to take my time.
Travelling with the team,
being around
gives me an opportunity
to be intimate
with those conversations
and build trust.
So I think success is
continuing in this vein
relentlessly
to engage in these extremely
important conversations
around building mental health.
But we have to have first
an understanding.
I was 17
when I left for Syracuse.
I was very anxious
but also very excited.
I knew it was a good choice
at the time.
I had such a good first year
at Syracuse.
Friends, hobbies, good grades,
interesting classes.
I joined everything
that you could
possibly think of.
But in summer of 2016,
I had just come back
from studying abroad,
and my dad died
of a heart attack.
When they told me,
I didn't believe it.
And I just
catatonic, sort of.
Didn't talk to anybody.
But in my own world,
in my own paranoia,
I didn't believe it.
I thought it was a joke.
The funeral comes,
and I don't believe
what's going on
because I feel like
everybody's making fun of me.
Everybody's just in on it.
Whatever it is,
everybody's in on it,
and I'm just outside of it
because this is happening to me.
I felt like there was
something else happening
before the death of my dad,
and I think the death of my dad
sort of catapulted
everything forward.
I started isolating.
I started not talking
to anybody.
And this was right at the time
where I had started to hear
this voice.
And
I think it's real.
The voice is telling me
my thoughts.
All the insecurities.
Commenting on anything I do,
anything I think.
And I think people are
working with the voice
to humiliate me.
There's a break
in sort of reality
and your thoughts.
It makes it hard
to distinguish real life
and my paranoia.
Before everything
Ambar was so intelligent,
so alert.
When we came here,
to this country,
to get into school,
the professor came to me
and said to me,
"This girl is incredible."
When her father died
very suddenly,
everything changed.
She came back for vacation
and she stayed here,
in my house,
and she was unrecognizable.
I needed help.
I didn't believe anybody wanted
to help me at the time.
I felt like everybody was
just out to get me.
I remember that day,
I was in my house
and I was like, "I have to go.
I have to go.
I have to leave this place.
I can't stand
the subliminal messages
I'm getting all the time.
I can't stand the thinking,
the constant voice in my head
or the constant commentary
on everything I'm doing.
Like, I cannot stand it.
I wanna I wanna die."
My mom called the ambulance
and I was hospitalized.
She didn't want me to touch her.
I wanted to hug her and say,
"Ambar, I'm here with you."
That's when I got diagnosed
with schizophrenia.
They painted
me the worst picture,
that she was not going
to be able to graduate,
that statistics say
that children
at that age do not graduate,
uh, they can't get a job
because they can't concentrate,
they go from job to job.
They can't have a normal life.
And
they usually commit suicide
early.
That's what the doctor told me.
Being given a diagnosis
of schizophrenia
as a prognosis of doom
must stop.
It is not true.
That's clinical mythology.
There are so many
negative messages
that come
from the mental health system
and from our culture
about what it means to be
someone diagnosed
with schizophrenia.
There's still so much
that we don't know.
Some would argue that it's
a neurochemical brain disease.
Some would argue that it's
genetically transmitted.
The wild card in all of it
is the issue of trauma.
But what's
clearly in front of us
is a human being
who's suffering.
And treating people with dignity
and with deep, caring regard
is the first act.
While I was hospitalized,
I met a team of psychiatrists,
therapists, nurses.
With schizophrenia,
symptoms usually start
presenting in young adults
that are ages 16 to 30.
We work on a shared
decision-making model,
which is a psychiatrist
that does medication,
myself, the primary clinician,
we also have a nurse
and then a supportive
education/employment
specialist saying,
"Hey, you know,
be part of our team.
Let's figure it out.
If school's important,
let's figure out
how you can go to school
and live at home
while you kind of adjust
to your experience
and what's going on."
During that first six months,
she was experiencing
a lot of symptoms.
She had come in,
had a session with me.
You know, we followed up
with Mom
and said, "Hey,
we're feeling really worried.
You know, she says
she doesn't have a plan.
She says
she's not gonna hurt herself,
but we are worried."
I wanna be just peaceful.
And the very essence
of my illness
prevents me from that.
I can't beI can't be peaceful
when I have a voice
following me around.
This voice
kept getting stronger.
Noises just everywhere.
And how the fuck am I
supposed to ever feel okay?
I don't understand.
I was having a horrible time
at my mom's.
She didn't know how to deal
with a schizophrenic patient,
so I don't blame her,
but I am depressed as hell.
I don't know
what day it is sometimes.
I'm sleeping
through most of the day.
I sort of got manic,
and I attempted suicide
that day.
I was upset
that it hadn't worked.
That nothing
that I still had to wake up
to this, you know?
That I had to wake up
to this voice.
Personally, it felt like
sorry.
I wasn't doing my job right.
I didn't know what to do.
It took me a while
to get Angela
to feel like Angela was
on my side
because I felt like
everybody was
on the voice's side, you know?
The voice wants me
to be humiliated
and wants me to be down
and wants me to feel
attacked.
After that
second hospitalization,
that's when I decide, "Okay.
I am actually schizophrenic.
I'm gonna actually let
these people try to help me."
But it took me such a long time
to accept my diagnosis.
Something I still struggle with,
that there's no there, you know?
There's no other place
that I need to be
or need to do or will be at.
This is my life.
And I call my mom one day
in tears.
And I'm like,
"Mom, this is the last time.
Mom, this is the last time.
I am gonna get better.
I am I'm done."
We are celebrating your life.
That
you were alive.
This year,
this picture, I felt like
it was a lot of work
to get to this smile.
After she had made that promise,
the way that we were able
to get Ambar
to stick with the program is,
we focused a lot
on what's important
to a young adult.
It's feeling "normal,"
whatever that is to that person.
It's going to school,
it's relationships,
it's having a job,
feeling productive,
setting a goal
and working towards it.
The matter
of how I'm going to deal
with my symptoms
in the coming years
is critical in determining
whether or not
I'm going to spend
the rest of my life
in and out of psychiatric care,
or if I'll be able to live
a normal and successful life
like many other people
who are diagnosed
with schizophrenia do.
I've always wanted independence.
This is literally day one
of moving.
- Is it?
- It is.
You brought all this here today?
Yeah.
That shit was mad work.
It's surreal.
Like, my own room, my own space.
And it's a big step.
It's a big girl move.
This corner over here
looks a little crazy,
and I have a bunch of clothes
on my bed,
so I apologize, but here it is.
At first I was
I was so mad.
I was furious.
Yeah.
In my culture
mom and daughter
live together
- Forever.
- Forever.
Have confidence in me.
Like, just, like, understand
how much I need
that independence.
It makes me feel very proud.
And you know it does.
Thank you.
Ambar continues to experience
suicidal ideations regularly.
Not actions, not plans,
not anything like that,
but the thought is there
that, "Oh, gol,
maybe it would be easier
to have just not woken up
this morning."
There are triggers,
and I'm gonna have bad days
where I'm like, "Today sucked.
I wanna cry today."
That doesn't mean I have to go
into the emergency room.
Schizophrenia sounds
incredibly scary,
but look at Ambar.
Holding down a full-time job,
working on her master's program,
she's gonna be
in school forever,
like, that is
what schizophrenia is.
Most of the time,
what's going on in my head
doesn't make sense.
But when I sit down
and I write it down,
I'm like, "Okay,
this made more sense."
"Recovery, as I'm learning,
is not a one-stop event.
It is an ongoing,
long and tiring road."
Peace is coming to terms
with that.
I'm gonna have this every day.
Not in a battle with it,
but just walking alongside it.
It is possible
to have a full
and meaningful life
following a diagnosis
of a severe mental illness.
I'm a person who was diagnosed
with schizophrenia
while I was still a teenager,
and I went on
to make my recovery,
earned a doctorate
in clinical psychology.
But being able
to get up in the morning
and go to work
is powerful medicine.
Being able to meet up
with a friend for lunch
is powerful personal medicine.
Personal medicines are
the things that we do
to be well.
Wherever I could,
I wanted to understand
more about what was going on
and why my nervous system was
reacting the way that it was.
So four years ago,
only after meeting Meg
Yeah.
did you start the process
of trying to figure it out?
- You hadn't tried before?
- No.
And I quickly established
that if this relationship
was gonna work,
that I was gonna have to deal
with my past
because there was anger there.
And it wasn't anger at her,
it was just anger,
and she recognized it.
She saw it.
So how do I fix this?
And it was a case of,
"You need to go
back to the past,
go back to the point of trauma,
deal with it, process it,
and then move forward."
Having now done therapy
for four and a bit years,
five years now,
for me,
it's all about prevention.
That doesn't mean
we have to speak to them
every single day,
but to have someone
that can help guide us
and create that awareness
in our own life
to when we might be feeling pain
and how to get out of that,
and what the tools are
available to us
on any given day to make sure
that it doesn't snowball
into something bigger.
EMDR is always something
that I wanted to try,
and that was
one of the varieties
of different forms
of healing or curing
that I was willing
to experiment with.
And I never would've been
open to that
had I not put in the work
and the therapy
that I've done over the years.
EMDR is a relatively new form
of trauma-informed therapy.
Trauma-informed means
we are aware of what's happened
to the person
when they come to us.
We're not just looking
at the symptoms.
We are thinking,
"What were the life events
that may have caused
those symptoms?"
It's one of those
big letter therapies,
EMDR standing for Eye Movement
Desensitization Reprocessing.
And what's specific about EMDR
is that we are providing
bilateral stimulation
by either getting the person
to move their eyes
or tapping on them
or they're tapping
on themselves.
So what EMDR does
is that it pairs
the cognitive recollection
of the trauma
with a powerful memory
of being safe.
You wanna be able to think
about the traumatic event
without having
the emotional distress
associated with that.
You literally have the person
think about the bad thing
at the same time
that they're doing
pattern repetitive
rhythmic activity,
and it ultimately creates
a new default
for that memory.
Hi, Sanja.
Oh, hello.
How are you doing?
I'm good. I'm great.
So how do you feel
about us targeting
another memory today?
Let's do it.
Where do you wanna start?
So you said there were
maybe four or five memories
that are still
somewhat disturbing,
and I was wondering,
the first one was
coming to the UK on a plane.
For most of my life,
I've always felt worried,
concerned, a little bit tense
and uptight
whenever I fly back into the UK,
whenever I fly back into London.
And I could never
understand why.
I was aware of it.
I wasn't aware of it
at the time when I was younger,
but after I started doing
therapy and stuff like that,
I became aware of it.
I was like, "Why do I feel
so uncomfortable?"
And of course, for me,
London is a trigger,
unfortunately, because of what
happened to my mum
and because of what
I experienced and what I saw.
Was there a particular trip,
or does it happen every time?
Is it always the same?
Happens every time.
So can you remember
the first time it happened?
No, I can't remember
the first time it happened.
I just remember the feeling.
Almost anxiety.
Like a hollow, empty feeling
of almost nervousness, of
is it fear?
Everything feels tense.
And in that moment,
as you're starting to get
those bodily feelings,
what is the negative thought
you have about yourself?
It's being the hunted
and being helpless and not
knowing that you can't do
anything about it.
There is no escape.
There is no way out of this.
So let's say, "I'm helpless."
- Yeah.
- I'm helpless. I'm helpless.
So when you think back
on that moment
and you think, "I'm helpless,"
what would you prefer
to believe about yourself now?
I'm not helpless.
It's only for a brief moment
of time.
And you're living your life
by truth,
so there's nothing
to be afraid of.
There's nothing
to be worried about.
Just notice what emotions
are coming up now.
The decision I was feeling
was sadness.
Okay, and where do you
notice this in your body?
- Here.
- Okay.
So we'll just process this
like we did last time.
We'll cross our arms.
Go back to that.
Picture the negative thought,
"I'm helpless,"
and notice where you feel it
in your body
and just notice what comes up.
It started in my teenage years.
One of the first times
that I left the UK
to get away
from all of the fallout
from my mum's death
was to go to Africa.
I think I was out there
for at least two weeks,
and it was such a cure.
It wasI just felt so free.
It was a sense of escapism
that I'd never felt before.
And to then come back to the UK
knowing what I was gonna be
confronted with
and knowing what I couldn't
get away from was scary.
What did you notice there?
Just how, and I guess
this is the trauma of it,
is that thoughthat feeling
and those moments
of the past are so deeply
connected to the present.
Okay. Go with that.
Just letting any thoughts,
feelings, sensations,
whatever comes up.
Other memories.
Whatever comes up is good.
Well, it all just comes back
to the old
The trauma is
very much geographical.
Okay. Just go with that.
Just notice.
What's really nice is, it
I don't know whether this is
the intention,
but it, like
it cleans my hard drive.
It's literally like
every time something comes up
We're done with that.
Great.
Yeah, that's also the goal.
Great.
So let's now go back
to where we began,
where you are in an airplane.
You know,
that beginning picture.
Seat belts on.
Just tune back in
and see what comes up now.
Calmness and strength.
Strength
because of the calmness.
Even though EMDR is recommended
for big T traumas,
big events like tsunamis
or war trauma,
we are really treating,
most of the time,
adults who are having memories
of adverse childhood experience
or even life experiences
that didn't get
stored correctly.
So you are treating a child
even when you've got
a 50-year-old in the room.
One of the biggest lessons
that I've ever learnt
in life is,
you've sometimes got to go back
and to deal with really
uncomfortable situations
and to be able to process it
in order to be able to heal.
For me, therapy has equipped me
to be able to take on anything.
That's why I'm here now.
That's why my wife is here now.
That feeling of being trapped
within the family is
there was no option to leave.
Eventually, when I made
that decision for my family,
I was still told,
"You can't do this."
And it's like, "Well, how bad
does it have to get
until I am allowed to do this?"
Where she was going
to end her life.
It shouldn't have to get
to that.
Do I have any regrets? Yeah.
My biggest regret is not making
more of a stance
earlier on in my relationship
with my wife
and calling out the racism
when I did.
History was repeating itself.
My mother was chased
to her death
while she was in a relationship
with someone that wasn't white.
And now look what's happened.
You wanna talk about history
repeating itself?
They're not gonna stop
until she dies.
It's incredibly triggering to
potentially lose
another woman in my life.
Like, the list is growing.
And it all comes back
to the same people,
the same business model,
the same industry.
'Cause my father used to say
to me when I was younger,
he used to say
to both William and I,
"Well, it was like that for me,
so it's gonna be like that
for you."
That doesn't make sense.
Just because you suffered,
that doesn't mean
that your kids have to suffer.
In fact, quite the opposite.
If you suffered,
do everything you can
to make sure
that whatever experiences you
negative experiences
that you had,
that you can make it right
for your kids.
We chose to put
our mental health first.
That's what we're doing
and that's what we will
continue to do.
Isn't this all about
breaking the cycle?
Isn't this all about making sure
that history doesn't
repeat itself?
That whatever pain
and suffering has happened
to you,
that you don't pass on?
Traumatic events for children
is different than adults.
It's like, you have a storm.
The adults are a strong tree.
They have a good roots,
and the trauma just, you know,
hit the branches.
I'm not saying
that it's not a problem.
It's a big problem,
but they can overcome it.
They will have issues
and et cetera.
But for child,
a child is a small bush.
It's not strong.
And if we do not intervene,
then the roots,
when they grow up,
can't handle any kind of storm,
even, like, a nice wind.
It will hurt them in the future.
So it's more important
to focus
on the children trauma first
because the potential
for healing
and recovery is huge.
Fawzi. Hey Fawzi.
What? Did you just wake up?
Yes.
When we first came,
we landed over there.
And you, where did you land?
I did not land over here.
I came from behind that mountain
and we landed by that beach.
Three hours after we landed,
the Greeks started calling
complaining about us,
then the police came
and took us.
Once we ran out of gas
in the middle of the sea,
then we managed to go back.
You guys tried to come by sea
once or twice?
No three times.
Do you understand? If there was
a kid who is weak in something,
a Greek boy who is scared
of something,
you can help him. You tell him,
"My name is Fawzi
and I am from Syria.
I survived a war and was able
to cross a sea after three tries
in a perilous journey
on a small boat."
You should never forget
this one thing.
You are the heroes
who crossed the sea.
This is something
that is very important.
So today we will find it.
In 2015, I was witness
to one of the most horrible
refugee crisis history known.
Two or three boats become 30,
30 become 100,
and almost 1/4 million
of people arrive.
You know,
I'm almost the only doctor
in the beach,
doing CPR as people lie,
like, everyone looking at me,
the doctor who came,
like, "Hey, where are you?
Confirm death."
That's it.
I did, I think,
21 CPRs successful.
I lost six.
seven, eight, nine, ten,
11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
16, 17, 18, 19
21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26.
It's not only the body
suffering from trauma.
It's not the body that needs
only a surgeon.
It's also there is a mind
doing a journey
and needs someone to treat it.
So it took us 21 days,
me and my beautiful
and brilliant wife, Maria,
to create Humanity Crew,
and since then,
this is what we do.
We focus
on the psychological journey
to reconnect these lives back
to their soul and minds
that they left behind.
So I am going
to place cards of things.
You choose what you feel
from the card,
select that right away.
The card that made you remember
a good memory
that happened to you.
Remember things
that were at that moment,
like sounds and smells.
memories, names.
Anything.
Ok, let us put the cards
in front of us.
Take one sheet of paper each.
Stick the card anywhere you want
on the paper.
Then you start drawing around it
things you feel complete
these memories.
What did you choose?
What is it you drew?
Tell us about it.
Who wants to start?
When I was registered
in the kindergarten,
they used to walk us
to the amusement park.
They would give us
juice and biscuits.
- Whoa.
- Whoa.
Fawzi?
I remember when I was in Syria
playing chess with my cousins,
aunts, and mother,
laughing and happy.
What makes us different
is that we have
the good and the bad right?
There is joy inside of us
and there is sadness as well.
And we have to control them.
We have to kick sadness
away and keep happiness.
Correct.
To kick it out,
we have to talk about it.
Like embers sitting inside of us
and we do not know
how to extinguish them.
We have to bring it all out,
all of it
until it is out completely.
So we could pour
some cold water on it.
As you see,
we are going to put cards
that will remind you
of difficult things
that happened in your lives.
Things that hurt, things
that are sad, horrible things.
Things that we want
to extinguish.
So when one of you
sees a card that reminds him
of the difficult things
he went through.
Fawzi, look at the drawing,
then imagine your body
and tell us how you feel?
I was feeling sad
when I was in Syria
seeing the airplanes
bombing Idlib.
Once an airplane bombed
it caused our window to fall.
Stop and take a deep breath.
Is this the most difficult
memory you can remember?
The most difficult time
was the last explosion.
Most people died
from the shelling
starting every half an hour.
Who died that you know?
My brother died when they hit
the playground with explosives.
And my aunt died as well.
May Allah have mercy on her.
What is the thing that Fawzi
is scared the most
to talk about?
The thing that I am
scared to talk about
is when my brother died.
Do you want us
to talk alone later?
I am not going to be able
to talk because, if I do,
I will begin to cry.
That is not bad at all.
When you were telling us
your story, I was crying.
I feel that you are
about to cry.
Nothing will happen
to us if we cry.
Come tomorrow, we will talk.
Perfect.
Dear Fawzi, do not be afraid.
Yalla, Aboud, you hero.
Do not forget that, like they
had a safe space, we have one.
A long day is ahead of us,
as well as many other errands,
so it is very important
that we digest it.
What is the thing
that you feel now?
What is the thing that you feel
that is sitting inside of you?
Maybe we should stop working.
You know we can't stop it.
Essam, we know we can't stop it,
this work.
If we do not do this work,
who else is going to do it?
Do you imagine that these boys
have safe spots in their lives?
We also have them.
I'm trying to find my own.
If we look at children,
we have a huge opportunity
not only to ease it
or to reframe it.
We have an opportunity
to transform it.
Where do we sit?
Same as yesterday.
Would you like to sit here?
Here.
Ok, are you with me?
Yes.
Or you are with me a little bit?
No.
Are you afraid?
Not that much.
Are you afraid
that we are going to talk
about something you're scared
to talk about?
The only thing I do not like
to talk about is the bombing.
That is why we have
to defeat it.
You have lots and lots
of happiness.
You are always smiling,
so we could defeat everything.
Here it is.
You did not want to talk
about your brother
when we talked about when you
got bombed, right?
Because I am afraid
of that story.
What is the story,
what do you remember from it?
I am terrified of that story
because when my brother
was killed,
I did not see his head.
He was blown into pieces.
Did you go to where he was?
Were you with him
at the playground?
No.
When he was blown away,
his friends who were
playing ball with him told us.
So I ran to him,
but I did not see his body.
I saw nothing left of him.
How sad are you
if zero is less sad
and ten is the most sadness?
Seven out of ten, seven.
If you wanna help someone
to recover from trauma,
you need to do all you can
to do the intervention
as close as to the location
of the trauma
and the times it happened.
But if not, it's not the end.
For Fawzi,
the things he talk about
is more things that happen
in Syria.
So using cards and imagination,
we make them go back
to these moments
and then also bring it
to a safe place
where he can feel calm.
One more time,
breathe and then look at it.
Take a very good deep breath.
Is there a scene or a picture
that you may say to yourself
that you never saw?
I am trying to forget my brother
but I cannot.
What do you mean when you say,
"I am trying not to remember
my brother?"
When I say, "I am not trying
to remember my brother,"
it's because, when I do,
I cry and become sad.
Can we take this picture away?
Because I am about to cry.
What?
Now I am about to cry.
Why not?
What did you see when you went
to the playground
after the bombing
with your mother?
Me? Inside of me,
it felt like my heart stopped.
My mother cried
till she became crippled,
unable to move her leg.
Do not be afraid to talk or cry.
Inside of you there is a war.
There is a war between the good
memories versus the bad ones.
What is going to determine who
Fawzi is going to be next year,
ten or twenty years from now,
is the winner of this battle.
Therefore, in order for you
to win, you have to fight them.
Correct.
Do you want to try
and do something exciting?
Yes.
This is you.
No, for real,
this is how I see you.
I want you to draw or color
the hero that is Fawzi.
Because Fawzi is a hero.
You are stronger than Superman
and Spiderman.
You are Super Fawzi.
Super Fawzi does not dress
like the rest.
Which do you think are your
qualities that make you a hero?
For me,
courage is the only thing
that provides me with power.
My brain and my thoughts.
It's a very simple
act of prevention.
It's much easier to prevent
than to treat later.
I am going
to call him Super Fawzi.
All you need
is to be in the right place
and to take advantage
of this traumatic experience
and transform it
to something good.
We call it the golden hour.
I want to bring out any feeling
that is deep inside us.
What else do I want to get out?
I want to get anger
from inside of me.
Fawzi and his siblings
and his friends are heroes.
I really, truly believe
that they are heroes.
So our duty is to help them
process the trauma,
try to find the good memories,
and bring it back.