F**k skateboarding. I hate it.
Everybody’s f***ing cool, you know,
and I’m f***ing part of it.
Stupid.
Hey, this show is about skating and talking about mental health.
We did an episode on how pro skater Ben Kramer’s tragic death
sparked a mental health movement
and decided we should let more skaters talk about
the struggles in their minds.
This film is about a Polish guy called Gonzi,
a great skater and artist
who’s been vocal about his mental health
and how he has managed to come back from the brink of schizophrenia.
I found skateboarding when I was about five or six.
Whenever I heard the noise of the wheels,
I was going to the window
and just checking out those guys, cool.
I want to try it.
Gonzi got picked by older skaters quite quickly
because of the energy he had.
He stood out. He immediately had his own style.
He resembled a Colombian skater, David Gonzalez,
and that’s why his nickname is Gonzi.
I think art and painting
is a big part of Gonzi’s escape from his darker moments.
I smoked my first joint when I was 13 or 14,
and after that, it was more about getting wasted
than going out skating.
I didn’t know that I’m in the process of preparing myself
for a mental breakdown.
[SKATING AND TALKING]
Łódź is my hometown.
There’s plenty of homeless people.
Mostly people describing the city as gray and ugly.
It’s like a Polish Detroit or something.
Gonzi, let’s do it.
OK, heelflip and frontside Smith.
I don’t describe myself as a good skateboarder...
F***ing hell.
but I think I do have intuition for interaction with the spot,
and that’s my way of skating.
He likes to find the spots in those corners of our city
where other skaters would never skate.
I really fell in love with our city
because of skating and him, Gonzi.
Let’s do something else on the flat.
Let me do the heelflip.
It will be a cool line
with a funny heelflip.
Yes, but you haven’t made it to the ledge even once.
OK, but the Smith is, you know, it’s chill.
I’m getting angry.
-F**k, I’m really close, man. -I know.
Just this f***ing heelflip.
F**K, F**K, F**K!
F**k.
This is how much pride he puts into skating.
And when I see a trick doesn’t work, I’m going to change it,
and he will just go deeper and deeper into this.
So he will just act spontaneously,
get angry, break the board, and then...
walk home to get another board
because he doesn’t really feel about consequences at...
at the moment.
That’s how he is, I guess.
I think the pressure comes from the f***ing internet.
I hate it, man, because you’re, like, observing those rippers,
but real life not look like that.
It was f***ing great.
Yes?
The best heelflip and the best Smith.
Yes?
I’m sweaty.
Yes, man.
I think Gonzi’s really famous for breaking boards
and being mad at a skateboard,
and I love it.
I would rather see him do this than drink, smoke, get in fights.
Breaking a board doesn’t hurt anyone.
He just lets this tension to just break while we are skateboarding.
I think Gonzi was the first person
that really approached me with depression.
He started to share his dark sides
and those thoughts that are going through his head.
It was difficult to comprehend that he has a problem
if he’s such a cheerful guy.
There was a situation in our house.
After some joints, after some beers,
suddenly he started some monologue.
He was repeating it and repeating, started screaming and crying,
and he left with his girlfriend.
When we woke up in the morning and he was still asleep,
I remember sitting on the couch thinking to myself,
“What the f**k are we going to do about it?”
I felt I had no tools to take care of it.
So that’s the studio I own.
Basically I paint,
but I like to just experimenting with the materials.
Art, of course, is a form of therapy
but works really similar to skateboarding
because you can express yourself through the tool.
I cannot imagine how the person can function without expression.
It’s at the bottom of my existence, I guess.
That’s my newest experiment.
I am basically doing everything from the bottom,
constructing all of it.
The most beautiful thing about art is just pure freedom.
Maybe I’m naive, but I, you know, I’ve experienced a lot of bad s**t,
so I do have, like, a background.
In fact, it’s not a studio, it’s an ordinary basement, so...
My works are in that room.
Linocut, that’s my dad’s general technique.
Dad’s the “OG” of the technique.
What?
Dad’s the OG of the technique.
What is “OG”?
Original gangster.
I discovered it’s totally not my aesthetic,
but still my roots are located somewhere in that area.
Imagine you’re a goddamn four-year-old kid,
and that’s one of your first images.
Why didn’t I paint pink princesses and unicorns and flowers and clouds?
Yeah, I guess my life would be much easier.
It’s all my fault, my son.
You f***ed it all up, Pop.
He did some incredible drawings.
I think he was seven, maybe eight.
He was five then.
Tomek was a happy child, and he’s smiling on every photo.
Because he was smiling from morning to night, was one of the kids.
I had a beautiful childhood.
I was always this kind of kid who was exploring
and open for everything.
I was always next to my dad and next to my grandpa
and just spending the time with them.
Then I found skateboarding, and that involved me totally.
Since I started skateboarding,
I was always hanging out with older guys.
It was naturally to just start doing stuff what older guys do.
I think I smoked my first joint when I was 13 or 14.
New doors opened.
I think the breaking point was when I was 15 and my grandpa passed away,
and after that I've been so smashed that I started doing it more.
When we were chatting, we were kids,
he was telling me those stories
from the parties with the other skaters
that I really found surreal for my age back then.
It was more about getting wasted than going out skating.
I just didn’t know that
I’m in the process of preparing myself for a mental breakdown.
It was about seven or eight years ago, when I was 17.
I was hanging out with my school buddies.
We smoked some joints,
we ate some crystal,
we were having beers,
and suddenly something clicked.
I had permanent déjà vu effect,
and I just like was like, you know, watching my my colleagues.
My heart started beating stronger and stronger.
That was f***ing crazy, man.
I went back home.
After two or three days,
flashback just came,
and it kept me for a few months.
One morning I went to school,
but I felt so bad the ambulance took me from the school,
and I found myself in a psychiatric hospital.
We got a phone call from school
that an ambulance was taking him because he’s in a state of dementia.
When he was in hospital,
he saw what kind of state people can get themselves into.
It was a closed ward,
and nobody could enter, parents couldn’t enter.
It was a shock for us,
but we tried to stay together in this,
to not reject him.
And I have been in the psychiatric hospital
for, like, a month or something.
They detoxed me.
they gave me medicines,
and they told me that I am one step before schizophrenia.
My first impressions of Tomek’s mental state
were of a serious progressive
and intensifying unrealism,
a bit of a schizotypal disorder, shall we say.
In my opinion, the greatest danger at the time when he came here
was the threat of developing paranoid schizophrenia,
which, by the way, is still present today.
There was a period of time where he doubted his own strength.
His friend took him to the mountains.
There they spent a week in complete isolation.
She’s 18 years older. Her name is Agnieszka.
I was afraid he would hurt himself.
I too, a year earlier,
had lived through the loss of someone,
someone close from the skate community,
and I didn’t want for someone else
to disappear from this world, simply.
During that time, I had a lot of suicidal thoughts.
I think it was the defining moment
when I realized that
he just needs to be helped.
That if I don’t help him...
I don’t know if anyone’s going to help him.
After a bit of time, I shared similar things with Paweł,
but she was the first... person.
She acted like a... like a second mother.
She was so close to me.
And after that I just felt, “OK, she saved my life.”
I fought for Tomek to survive.
What’s up?
-Have you managed? -Of course.
-Did you cry? -I cried.
After that, I isolated from the party buddies,
and now I cared about the relations
with the closest people I’ve still got.
I'm really thankful for the medicines.
I'm really thankful for my passions.
And of course, number one,
I’m really thankful for all those guys that are next to me.
When they meet, they all hug,
and you can feel the bond between them.
I guess maybe my story shows how important it is to talk.
Everything’s, “Can we figure it out?”
It’s not an end of the life. Be direct.
I think the most important part of getting treatment
with any mental illness, if it’s depression
or schizophrenia or anything,
is just not to be alone.
And that’s what we wanted to make sure that he gets.
The addiction can still pose
a serious threat to the realization of his talent.
I think Gonzi definitely should
stay away from any psychoactive drugs.
I totally understand that it’s not for me
because I don’t want to have schizophrenia.
I think I’m not worried about him.
He’s standing firmly on his feet
and not fighting with reality, just trying to talk to it.
It’s crazy how people mind their own business.
And I think it’s important to remember that
there’s a few of them that actually mind your business too.