- What does mental health mean to you?
- I think it's about feeling balanced.
It's an aspiration.
I think a lot of people think it's something
you can kind of just check off and be like "I did it,"
and I'm like actually it's something
that is constant and in flux.
- Our mental health is as broad as our physical health.
- We constantly pretend that
there's this distinction between the mind and the body,
between mental and physical,
but that's just like not how reality works.
- Or the idea that mental health in and of itself
is only true if someone has a mental illness,
when it's like no, everyone has mental health.
- I think about how expansive the vocabulary is
for like acts of physical violence,
but how flat a word like sad is.
There are like millions of forms of sadness,
and it's actually about not making assumptions,
because people who are struggling with mental health
can look like anything or anyone.
- I'm interested in what said to you, you know,
you wanted to explore mental health, mental healthcare.
- I don't think it was a specific symptom for me,
it was just the reality.
I'd lost my mom when I was 10 years old,
and my grandmother had become my legal guardian.
She started getting sick, she started having seizures,
going in and out of ICU, and I ended up 21,
literally first like experience as an adult
having to make end-of-life decisions for someone.
So I was losing a mom all over again,
but I was kind of expected to jump right back into life
to get through graduation,
to do all the things I was suppose to.
I couldn't, I couldn't cope.
I was having anxiety attacks
and I was having all these things
that were triggered by my grief,
and that's when I went into therapy,
and thankfully I started therapy right in the middle
of my grandmother getting sick,
and so that helped carry me throughout.
But it was honestly just my lived experience
of having no other out that led me to the fact that
I had to sit somewhere where someone validated
the fact that this was really hard,
because no one else around me was.
- That speaks to me so much,
like I grew up in a very small, conservative town in Texas
this fabulous, so imagine. (they giggle)
People could not deal, so some of my earliest memories
were just constant and severe harassment,
and there was absolutely no space that I could speak
about it because when you are a young LGBTQ person
and you speak about the harassment you're experiencing,
it outs you, and so what that resulted in for me
was a suicide attempt when I was a teenager.
I didn't understand why there was no space
within my family or within my community
to speak about these issues.
Prior to being able to even access any formal services,
I, like so many LGBTQ youth in this country,
made magic happen.
My writing practice became my care,
and I don't want to romanticize that
because I wish that there was infrastructure.
I wish that there had been school counselors
that were LGBTQ comprehensive,
I wish that there had been protocol to actually hold people
accountable for harassing me, but there wasn't.
For me what I love about art is that
it's been such an incredible modality for healing for me.
When I'm able to write about it
or make an image about it or perform about it,
and also when I'm able to be witnessed in it.
- When I was working on All The Bright Places,
I was writing about someone I knew and loved
that I was never able to talk about
because of the way he died,
but then getting to put that out there
and hear from readers and talk to readers
and hear from all these people who feel alone,
like we all do.
- Right, people always want to say,
like the mental health community,
and I'm like "you mean the entire world?"
- Exactly.
So when and why did you decide to start sharing your story?
- I always understood that what I went through
didn't have the be the case,
and I wanted to create world where people like me
wouldn't have had to endure what I experienced,
because it's so unfair and unjust.
I didn't anticipate how hard that was.
People want to exceptionalize people like me
as like on the fringe or as an artist,
and I'm actually like no, this is about everyone, you know?
And also I feel like there's a way in which
people expect you to constantly retraumatize yourself
to make a point, and I think that's something
I really wanted to touch upon.
In order to be taken seriously,
I have to prove to people that what I went through is real,
and that's not the case for a lot of other people.
- I think my journey came when I was writing
All The Bright Places.
I loved and lost a boy years ago to suicide,
and I carry that around with me,
and the thing I've quickly learned
is that no one wanted to talk about it,
and then finally about 10 years later,
I thought you know what?
I have to talk about it,
and it has to be okay to talk about this.
It never escapes me that it started
with this boy I loved and me, just us.
I didn't think about impact or outreach
or anything like that, and then to hear from readers
who just say "thank you for letting me know I'm not alone,"
it's something that I didn't anticipate, but as you said,
we have to keep putting that message out there.
At some point, I kind of had that moment of what am I doing?
Like I didn't actually mean to become
a mental health advocate.
It's not that I don't want to be,
it's just a lot, and I was at a panel
and this reader got up in the audience for Q&A
and said "I just want to know if you're going to
"keep writing books like this for people like me
"who feel like they don't have a voice,"
and I thought if I only write for that one person,
that's enough.
- I don't think any of us go into it
being like "that's what I want to be."
It's by nature of existing that you end up
becoming this point person for that,
and then you end up having to retraumatize yourself
for the sake of keeping it up
because at least someone is looking at you
and that makes it okay for someone else.
But it is a lot of hard work,
and it comes with like the ups and down
of having to acknowledge how that ends up
impacting your mental health, and it's like all circular.
But also, the more you get comfortable
with the work that you're doing,
the more you realize I really wouldn't have it
any other way because this is where I feel like I'm actually
making the impact that I want to make in the world.
- I want to know from both of you
what does the word diagnosis mean to you?
- This is where we start projecting
the physical nuances of health onto mental health.
It took me months in therapy to figure out
where I was even started,
and it was like in peeling back the onion
that I actually got to a place where I could say like
I am comfortable with the labels that I'm using
that identify my mental health,
but understanding that it doesn't mean
that I am limited to that either.
I never want anyone to feel like
just because they don't have a formal diagnosis
for something yet or now, that it means that
their reality isn't something that they're actually
going through because it can be.
- Speaking specifically about this boy I loved,
he was diagnosed with many different things,
and they did feel like labels to him,
and I think he did feel kind of contained in a box,
and like he was the label after a while.
It wasn't him, and he kept saying
"I'm so much more than that,"
and I think society can see people as
once you're diagnosed as this, that's what you are.
You're this, you're that.
- That's when it gets tricky and wrong,
because the person can change.
- Within each of us is an ever-evolving story,
and sometimes a diagnosis, a word, a category
might be helpful, but sometimes you have to sit down
for a three-hour performance to figure out
even one second of what I am.
- What do you think about adding more voices
to this conversation?
- I think it's so important.
- Let's do it.
- [Woman] We're meeting on camera.
(laughing)
- Hi, how are you? - Vivian, nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.
- I was listening in the other room with the volume up.
- Any thoughts on the conversation so far?
- I love what you were saying about
in order to feel validated,
you have to retraumatize yourself.
I think that's a really interesting concept.
- About the word sad,
that sad seems so meaningless to people.
- Yeah, and how when you go through something,
it's like you can't ever get better,
especially if you're a public figure,
because you have to keep proving yourself as credible
to speak on that by reliving
those horrible things that you went through.
I just thought that was really well-said.
- What attracted you to the roles of Violet and Finch?
- I was 14 when I read the book for the first time.
Now I'm 21 and you know, they don't talk about
mental illness in school.
It was never brought up at my high school,
there was no classes about it,
so weirdly, your book was kind of,
not my introduction to mental illness,
but also like someone else out there writing about it.
It's so odd that it's not talked about more
and there's just this horrible stigma around it.
To me, it's about compassion.
- So I was diagnosed as being in remission
of bipolar II when I was 16,
and I was on medication until I was 19.
The script and the book felt so close to home.
I wanted to kind of shed light on how difficult it is
for someone to view themselves as needing of help
when they have internalized how abnormal
other people have made them feel.
I mean, I'm lucky that I pushed through that
and I had people in my life to help me through that,
but there are so many people who are still
in the thick of it, and I just thought it was
such an important story.
I just thought it was necessary.
- Thank you.
- What did you guys think of the movie?
- The lens I was watching the move through
was like the mental health part,
but it was very much also like the grief experience part,
then when I read the book,
that was the first thing that drew me to it.
It was incredible to see on film
both the dynamics of every time Violet
was up against someone who was like
"why aren't you getting through this already?"
Like why aren't you moving on,
or like you should have moved on already,
and the expectation and the pressure of that,
and then also how good of an ally Finch was in helping,
like no, hey, you're going through this,
you need to figure out, yes, like how to live again
for yourself, but that can happen in a way that
doesn't remove the grief.
Because then you're able to say like
this is a thing that is here,
but also I can still learn how to date
and I and still learn how to live my life
and I can go to college and I can do all the stuff,
and I'll give it permission to show up when it needs to.
It was the first time I saw representation
in that movie that looked like
little me growing up without a mom
and understanding how the dynamics of that
even played out in relationships.
- Everyone has a very different grief journey.
You know, this is just one person's experience.
- It was so great to see how Violet and Violet's mom
and Violet's dad experience that same
specific loss differently.
- When I was thinking about the film,
one of the things that I appreciated the most
was like Violet's character loses her sister
and then has another extreme loss.
It's like life isn't just one loss and now the other,
it's like you're routinely just going through
so many different things,
and when you're dealing with that kind of complex
and constant trauma, for me at least,
humor's been such a great way to like,
well, here we go again, you know?
And that's how you get the kind of ability
to rally through it.
- I just want to learn how to be happy
even if the bad things are happening.
Like that's what I'm looking for.
The same idea, right, life is gonna happen,
so if I can keep the humor or some version of myself
within that, that's what I'm really looking for.
- People said well, writing All The Bright Places,
like how could you make it funny?
Like how could you write it without crying?
I'm like, first of all, I cried and cried and cried
while I wrote it, but I also laughed, because that's life.
I mean, as we're saying, life is always going to happen,
and if I count the losses, the number of people I've lost,
it's just devastating, but you know, I'm here,
and I'm going to, you know, we have to laugh.
We have to be able to.
And cry.
- What I wish people knew about mental health was that
it's something you're gonna deal with for your entire life.
Certainly there are moments that it's gonna be
more concentrated or intense,
but there's no actual before and after.
I feel like so much of the crisis is that
we're shocked when something bad happens.
Like one of the only things that we know
for sure in our life is death,
and yet we're continually surprised by it.
Why don't we actually rather than being surprised,
begin to equip ourselves?
- Having the unique experience is a given,
but it doesn't mean you have to be alone.
The paths we are walking are alongside each other
in different ways, shapes, or form,
and they're made up of different things,
but it doesn't mean that I have to walk through it alone,
it doesn't mean that you have to walk through it alone.
- What I wish people knew, they matter,
they deserve love, compassion, and empathy.
So many readers I think don't feel that way.
There's so many young people
I've talked to around the world.
It always takes me by surprise
because that should just be inherent.
You're not alone.
- I think inner fitness should be prioritized
the same as outer fitness.
We were talking about school,
about how we don't really learn mental health in school,
but we have PE classes and that's a requirement to graduate.
I think once we acknowledge that,
then we can work on eradicating the stigma.
- Anyone who's watching this feeling extremely alone
or like they don't have an ally,
there are people out there feeling exactly like you are,
you're not alone in this.
- You just have to keep doing more things like this.
- Yeah exactly, we have to keep talking,
keep the conversation alive.
What I wanted to say, just to close this,
and the reason that we're all here,
honestly because of you, Jennifer,
because you wrote this book All The Bright Places,
and it touched all four of us in different ways
at different times in our life,
and now I hope that the film and the book
continues to just open up the conversation
about mental health and puts it out into the universe.
We need more of these stories, so thank you for that.
- Thank you, oh my gosh, thank all of you.