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Comedian talks depression

Mental health awareness and comedy: two things that you wouldn’t think to pair up together, but 21-year-old stand-up comic Kevin Breel makes it work.

On Wednesday around 80 students gathered in Marty Theater to listen to Breel talk about his struggles with depression while incorporating a quirky comedic twist.

Breel’s story began early on with an unstable home environment and alcoholic father. He said he felt that the enormity of his pain and suffering officially began the summer before high school when his best friend Jordan died in a car accident.

“The paradoxical thing is that I was doing more acting in real life than on stage with my improv and theater groups in high school,” Breel said. “I tried to run away from pain and leave it in the past, but it caught up to me. I couldn’t wrestle with the lies anymore.”

On February 26, 2011, Breel said he reached a sense of hopelessness that resulted in him writing a suicide note. He said he knew he had two options: to end his life or begin a new one where he was honest with himself and the people around him.

Breel said he began seeing a therapist on a weekly basis, but his world was rocked again when a local high school senior took her life. It opened his eyes to the stigma associated with mental health and how it is a topic that is widely documented but often ignored in daily conversation.

At 19, Breel started sharing his story and was overwhelmed with the number of responses and messages he received with people expressing experiences similar to his. He partnered with To Write Love On Her Arms, a non-profit based in Melbourne, Florida in order to have assistance in responding those seeking help with available services.

Bradley’s To Write Love On Her Arms chapter was formed in 2010 and current president Alex Giordano got involved his freshman year.

“I was familiar with the organization from high school and what it did, and that was an organization that meant a lot to me,” the senior health science major said. “[Breel] did a great blend of mixing humor with the message we were trying to promote.”

According to Breel, the misconception with mental health is that someone struggling internally believes that reaching out for help signifies weakness, whereas if someone physically broke their arm, they wouldn’t be afraid to go to a doctor.

“I thought the presentation was really eye opening because he talked about something I never really ever thought about before,” sophomore electrical engineering major Brian Roskuszka said. “So many people actually struggle with depression and all they really need to know is that they’re not alone.”

Breel lives in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada and has made quite a name for himself there. His TED talk “Confessions of a Depressed Comic” went viral and now stands as one of the most watched TED talks ever. Additionally, he’s a national spokesperson for the Bell Let’s Talk Campaign, which has raised over 70 million dollars for mental health services.

Breel’s influence does not stop there. He has been a guest of honor at Ivy League schools, as well as billion dollar companies and featured on NBC, MTV, CBC, CBS, The Wall Street Journal, Mashable and The Huffington Post.

Breel’s debut book with Random House will be in stores this September.

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