Hope Starts With Us
Hope Starts With Us
Shining the Spotlight on Youth Mental Health Featuring Da’Vinchi
Actor and mental health advocate Da’Vinchi joins NAMI CEO Daniel H. Gillison, Jr. for a conversation about making waves in mental health. As an advocate, Da’Vinchi uses his platform and voice to have widespread conversations about mental health stigma within Black and Brown communities, as well as the loneliness epidemic and rising rates of depression and suicide for youth. Throughout this conversation, hear from Da’Vinchi about why he advocates for mental health, what is changing in Hollywood, and what youth need to feel supported.
You can find additional episodes of this NAMI podcast and others at nami.org/podcast.
"Hope Starts With Us" is a podcast by NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. It is hosted by NAMI CEO Daniel H. Gillison, Jr.
Episode production is provided by NAMI staff, including Traci Coulter and Connor Larsen.
It's so much news that's just compiled, one after the other, that is just giving you so much anxiety. They choose to make it extremely negative, and that's what's destroying us. We're exposed at a rate that no other generations are exposed with that much news before. Welcome to Hope Starts With Us, a podcast by NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. I'm your host, Dan Gillison NAMI's CEO. NAMI started this podcast because we believe that hope starts with us, all of us. Hope starts with us talking about mental health. Hope starts with us making information accessible. Hope starts with us providing resources and practical advice. Hope starts with us sharing our stories, and hope starts with us breaking the stigma. If you or a loved one is struggling with a mental health condition, have been looking for hope, we made this podcast for you. Hope starts with all of us. Hope is a collective. We hope that each episode, with each conversation brings you into that collective so you know you are not alone. So, audience, we are honored to have Da'Vinchi with us. Da'Vinchi is a rising star in acting. He has appeared in BMF, produced by Curtis"50 Cent" Jackson, All American, Grown-ish, and Marvel's Jessica Jones, just to name a few. He is lending his passion, his voice, and presence to the mental health movement. So we just want to say, Da'Vinchi, good afternoon. Welcome or excuse me, depending on where you are in these United States listening to this, it could be morning, afternoon, or evening. So hello to you, Da'Vinchi. Thank you. And I want to start out by saying--asking you-- what inspires you to shine your light on issues about mental health and wellness? Thanks for having me. It's great to be a part of this organization. And to start off this amazing question that you asked, what have inspired me to speak and use my platform and align with the mental health movement? It's because I started noticing just the depression rates, the anxiety rates skyrocketed and it started hitting home. It started hitting close to my immediate family. I had siblings that was directly affected, cousins, and great friends, and I started realizing that the matter is just getting bigger than what we understand. So I started doing research and diving deep into it, and I started realizing certain things that causes it. So I was like, you know what? I want to dedicate just a portion of my life to really just try to help alleviate suffering. And this cause was the first call that really stood out to me because this is one of the most difficult causes. You know, you don't really see it until it gets to a certain point that it's like, oh my God. But people don't realize that you could prevent it early on, and most people aren't born with mental health issues, and it just happens over time. Thank you, Da'Vinchi. And I may even say 'D' a few times, so just excuse me in advance if I do that. Back in June, when we met at the American Black Film Festival panel, it was incredible for us to hear from both you and Shameik Moore, who was also on the panel. The panel was called Real Healing Using Film to Normalize Mental Wellness in Black Communities. I want to ask you two questions. What moved you to sign on for this panel? Because it was so many different great panels, you didn't have to lend your voice and your presence to this one. So what moved you to sign on for this panel? And what are you seeing in the film industry now? Or what do you hope to see in the future regarding mental health? So what moved me to sign on to this panel at the African American Film Festival was really-- it's just, I have a passion for it and, you know, God put it on my spirit to really make this a part of something that I have this--I feel like I have this moral obligation. I have a natural inclination to understand psychology and learn about the brain and all the things of that nature. So that has blessed me to start understanding how the brain work properly. And I also train animals as well. So in training animals their brain is similar, it's functioned like our brain. So it's like, I'm really good with matters of the brain and when you start realizing that high rates of depression and anxiety and all these different mental health illnesses, you start realizing where it's stemmed from. Some people aren't born with it. There's certain patterns that they persisted in early in their life over and over and over and over. And now they're cognitively impaired. And then now is caused certain things in their thinking, everyday life. So I was always fascinated about the brain. And then when you mix that with all the statistics that's going on about mental health and things of that nature it's like I felt this moral obligation by I guess, I called the Holy Spirit, that made me feel obliged to like, yo, you gotta stop just dancing and acting and doing all the, you know, stuff. Just really devote your time and try to alleviate suffering to some degree because you have these--you have this information. So use it for good. I think it's a beautiful thing what's happening in film right now. There's a lot of psychological thrillers. So the psychological thrillers, it's horror films, but at the same time it's uniquely depicting mental health in a way that some of us could, I feel, like, digest, you know, and like so for me, when I watch a psychological thriller, like, for instance, you have the Smiles or there's different M. Night Shyamalan movies. It really gives you insight on the uniqueness of the brain and what the brain can create and how the brain can create things that's not really there. And I think it's an extreme point of view on what could happen, but it's also things that can actually happen that people actually go through because a lot of times it's based on those stories. So I'm glad that that's happening because as you see that happening in one genre, the way film work usually like it kind of spreads across it. And now you've seen a lot of different themes where there's a drama, comedy, romance, something like that, you know, people are added in that component of mental health. And it's a good thing because it makes people talk about it. And I feel like, admissions of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom. Like, once we admit that we're ignorant of the matter, which that's what's happening in a lot of TV and film. Now people are talking about it, and someone is saying, oh, I didn't know about this. And then someone is explaining to them, and it's cool because the audience gets to really see that and receive that and understand that. And then you can apply that to your real life, and then you start thinking about your buddies and your family members. It's like, okay, well, this is a real thing, and it leads you to do research that you probably wasn't going to do if you didn't see that on screen. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks. Da'Vinchi. As you think about the movies, film, and TV, normalizing mental wellness in Black communities and shows, where are there gaps? Is there any production that you can think of that's doing it well? Oh, I'm a harsh critic. Any production that's doing it well and the mental health space, I'm sure there's some really good documentaries out about it. I have not seen those documentaries because I'm not big on a--like a documentary-type person. I'm more so reading. And I probably haven't done enough googling to see what movies and TV shows are doing, particularly in this space. But I've noticed there is a theme in the mental health space, and if I was to create in this space, I would probably create like a documentary TV series style thing that is super educational. I think this is one of those things that need to be broken down from an elementary perspective to adults, and that you just work your way up from there, because the way we don't know anything about anything in this space, like the average person, is kind of alarming and it's kind of scary. That's why a lot of things are just, you know, it's when it gets extreme and then we're trying to fix it. And oftentimes sometimes it could be too late, unfortunately. So I feel like I would love to see more content that is breaking it down from a certain perspective. But then again, you know, sometimes people don't want to see that, you know, people are like, that's not entertaining enough. So it's kind of tough, you know, to put that pressure on film and TV. But I think if it can be done in a really creative way, like a really good show that could be about--I mean, we have enough serial killer shows, we have enough stalker shows so we can make a show around that and that is like well explained and is thorough in explanations. I think that will be very helpful. Da'Vinchi, we know that getting help early or early intervention is very important to someone's mental health recovery. That's part of why NAMI focuses on addressing youth mental health through a number of initiatives like NAMI Trauma Insight, our first trauma awareness training, our Back to School campaign, and the mental health college got to name--it's just a few of them. Another focus area for you is youth mental health. And I remember you talking about catching young people early in their journey. Why is supporting mental health and wellness for our young folks so important to you, Da'Vinchi? If you could reach out to the young folks, you can stop them in their tracks early. I mean, habits are one of those things that start from the minute you start doing something over and over and over and after a while, when you persist in a habit long enough, it becomes crystallized, so to speak. So that is like extremely hard to break it. And the way our brain works to protect us and to help us is that whatever you're doing at any given moment, you're physically modifying yourself to become better at it. But unfortunately it works--it's a pro and it's also a con. So if you're doing something good, if you're being raised at such an early age to be solution oriented and think positively and you think critically and you understand that, you know, there is a certain amount of suffering that you have to go through in life. So if your parents don't make things so easy for you, like if the gentle parenting isn't really done so much in your household to where sometimes you got to thinking you gotta hustle, you gotta grind, that's good because all you get is like, life is hard. Bills don't care about how you feelin'. A job is not going to care that you have a kid on the way or that, oh, something's going on in your house. If they want to fire you, they're going to fire you. So then when you start dealing with the inevitable in life, or when you deal with a breakup, or a friend does some wrong to you or your boss do something wrong to you, or someone call you a mean name or something like that, you have built character in your childhood that is going to make you prepared for that. But now what's happening is that in people's childhood, certain habits are going to crystallize that are bad. It's like they get everything their way, every time they cry or something, their parents give it to them. Or maybe they just don't have any parents at all. So they got to cope with life a certain way, and then you start forming certain habits to make sense of your little reality there. But the truth is, those habits are going to be short lived and it's only going to lead to your destruction. And then the older you get, you start behaving in a way that you like, you're still a kid, basically, you have no emotional IQ, you have no problem solving abilities. Well f you don't have emotional IQ or problem solving ability, most likely you're going to be a criminal. That's why they build prisons based off of third grade reading scores. They understand that at this age, if you can't think critically, you can't solve this problem, x, y, z, when you become an adult, if you get into an altercation with someone because you're not going to be able to verbally explain yourself, you're going to resort to brute force. You're going to kill them, you're going to hit them, you're going to shoot them, going to stab them, you're going to do something like that and then you're going to end up in prison. That's why they build prisons based on that. But if you go back to that same third grader and you promote positive habits, you promote positive things, and you teach this child how to talk about certain things, how to express certain things. Sometimes you shut up or sometimes, you know, you put certain obstacles in a child way to allow the child to really think and get on the other side. Now you're promoting positive behaviors. In that way, when a child becomes 18 and older, the child's going to be able to deal with life and take it head on because the thing about life is that problems are inevitable. You're always--you're either in a problem, you're headed towards a problem, or you just got out of a problem, and then you go like, it's like it's never going to stop, you know what I'm saying? And, so I think it's really good at an early age, you build a system, a software inside of a child's mind. The software that was built in my mind was Jesus Christ and the Bible. And I read the Bible and I understand the will of God. So whenever I get down, most people, like some of my peers, they have to go to a drug or they go to an alcohol and they'll be like, well, what do you do, D? And I'm like, well I read my Bible and I believe in the will of God. I believe in the Word of God wholeheartedly. So that takes the place of that. So it's not--and then some can say, I've had the conversation with people who say, well, how do you know it's true, da da da? I'm like, well, the results. It's like, if I am not--I'm good. Like, you've watched my world is crashing in front of you and you watch me being headstrong. It's only because God gives me strength and I rely on God, and that is my source of strength. And I just feel like everyone has to find that source of strength, because otherwise the pressure of life is going to crumble us. We're not made to bear that weight. Yeah. Thank you, thank you. Do you--you talked about resilience and young people building that resilience. And you talked about the intersectionality of faith and mental health. So thank you for bringing that into this conversation. I want to stay on this, but I want to go to something that you did that you didn't have to do. You did a mental health awareness college tour where you drew thousands of students to engage in conversations about mental health. Let me ask you first, why did you do it? And then what did you learn throughout the tour? I did it because I wish that was done for me, you know, I wish I was done for my brothers. I wished I was done for my cousins. I wish I was done for my friends. I have a lot of people that's close to me that, life has dealt them a hand that they didn't have the skills to really fight it, and it has crumbled them. Some of them aren't here with us today. Some of us are-some of them are in prison for life, or some of them is in a state that, you know, doctors say is probably impossible for them to come back from the situation in there. And that's the thing is, like with our habits, we can become so cognitively impaired that there's almost no coming back. But, you know, those are one of those things no human can really gauge that. But I've seen those things so close to home. And it's one thing when you're watching a movie and you're seeing our news and then you see those in your city that you see that in your neighborhood, you see those in your school. But then when is your family? You're just like, whoa. And I think that's what really moved me. And I just want to go out and just talk to the people and see what's going on. And one of the main things I realize is that, a lot of us are seeking a connection with God, but nobody wants to put in the work. A lot of the students that I spoke to, those that we believe in God, but we just don't know how, da, da, da. And they just don't open the Bible. They don't read the Bible, and they're taking it from someone else's interpretation. And that's scary when you play that game, because it's almost like--I tell people is like, you don't know what you believe in if it's based off of highlight reels. It's like, it's like, if me and Dan was to watch a basketball game and one of our friends wasn't able to watch the game, but the next morning he just watched the highlight reels and me and Dan is like, oh man, no, the game was crazy. You remember what happened here? Da, da, da. Oh and our friend's like, "I didn't see that." And it's like, yeah, because you didn't watch the game. You saw the highlights which is based on someone else's interpretation of the game and what was cool to them. That was like--so a lot of people were reading the Bible or whatever scripture or whatever you try to believe in through some highlight or through Instagram that's just saying a quote that you have no context or through a sermon that the pastor is preaching a certain way just to cope with his own desires because what was happening is unconsciously, we are creating our own gods and our own deities to make us feel comfortable in our situation and comfort is not where we grow in life. So you got to get the truth so you can feel conviction. So you could build character. And then when the inevitable happens, problems, you can deal with it. What's happening is that we don't have that community. We're not doing those research. We're not diving in. We're not understanding the will of God on our own. But we're saying we want this connection, but we're not putting a work in. And it's like faith without work is dead. You know, what I'm saying? We're not putting the work in, so then what's happening when problems come is crushing us down. And I was seeing that. So I was trying to encourage them to open your Bible. And if you don't believe in a Bible, open something else that brings you peace. But human beings, the way we were created, we were created to worship something and have a deity that inhabits our power. That's why we create idols. That's why it's been--there's so many religions around the world. We have to create something and you got to create something. But you got to believe something that is rooted in some type of truth that's able to help you stand. Otherwise, it's not a matter of if I'm going to crumble at the weight of the world. No, you will crumble. You will crumble. And I see it over and over and over. So that's a big conversation I have with the students. And it's amazing that they, you know, they're pursuing God. A lot of them ask me, what's the root of my like, calmness?
And I was like, it's like 1 Peter 4:7:You got to cast all your worries and your burdens onto the Lord. You got to cast them onto Christ and that's what I do. And something else that you know, they struggle with is that, not feeling connected to people. You know, that's a big one. And I think social media, it makes you feel like you're close to people, but you're really not like, yeah, just because, you know, everyone around the world now don't mean you're close to them. And everybody's living these fabricated lives and these fabricated relationships, and it just makes you feel insecure when you look online and you see someone's life perceived to be better than yours, and then automatically you're judging yourself and their situation. And so that's been crashing them. And also one last thing that was really huge, I feel like, collectively with all the kids said in America is that we're exposed, overexposure ,like, to news. We know too much, we see someone and it's so much fake news. It was like going on--or if you go on Instagram and TikTok and whatever else, and Twitter, it's so much news has just compiled, one after the other, that it's just giving you so much anxiety. And I told them what I do, I delete the app. I don't use the app. Like if I'm posting for fans and purpose, like that purpose, that's cool. If I'm looking for content so I can create something, otherwise I'm going to delete the app because it's like you're not meant to process that much bad news over and over. Like there's a reason why majority of news outlets is negative. Because they can be positive. It could be like, hey, today someone just won $1 million. Hey, today someone just had a heart surgery and it was successful. Today, this person just had cancer and they beat cancer. Today, this person, you know, it's like this person got their dream job. It can be that. But they--but for some reason, I don't know maybe Dan knows, but it's like they choose to make it extremely negative. And that's what's destroying us with a whole bunch of other stuff. So, those are really like the three things. It's God, people are not feeling closely connected anymore that we don't, we don't connect anymore to have community anymore. And, news and information, we're exposed at a rate that no other generation was ever exposed with that much news before. Yeah, you're so right. And community is so important. And connecting and community. So, you know, one of the things that we ask all of our guests eventually as a last question is, the world can be a difficult place and sometimes it can be hard to hold on to hope. So with each episode, we dedicate the last couple of minutes of our podcast to a special segment called Hold On to Hope. Would you tell us what helps you hold on to hope?
I would say Matthew 11:26--28, I believe? And it's "Come to me, all who, like you know, have weary and burdens and I'll give you peace. And throughout scripture, you know, it constantly says that God will give you peace beyond human comprehension. And I think with the weight of what I've been going through personally, family wise, career wise, personal stuff, I'm seeing it like a lot of the stuff that people are seeing in the news. You can feel that in real life, and that is the only thing in the world that truly gives me peace, the grace of God. Being a celebrity is one of the hardest things you can do only because you're constantly being scrutinized. You have no privacy. Don't get me wrong. Yes, shout out to the soldiers that are risking their lives every day. And shout out to policemen and everyone else that, you know, doctors and nurses and things of that nature it's like. But any job that you take on and whatever hat you wear, you know, there's always a cross to bear with that. And there's a reason why a lot of people that's in my field, mentally, I don't think we're in the strongest place, A lot of us. And I think it's due to what we're exposed to. And a lot of times, you know, it's very hard for our soul to ever rest. And that's, as some would say, that most people are going through similar experiences and I would just say, what gives me peace with that is my faith in God. And that is the only thing. I can sit here and lie and say it's something that it's not, but I feel like I'm doing myself a disservice, God a disservice, and ultimately the people a disservice, and what got me through my toughest times is the Bible. Wholeheartedly. That's incredible. And I also want to say to you that being at the film festival, there with you and and and others, it is clear that you have very limited privacy because the lines of people that want to come up and talk with you, and that has to be stressful in and of itself, because, you know, we're a cosmetic society. So everyone is judging the book by its cover. I want to meet Da'Vinchi, this and that. Da'Vinchi's got a life. Da'Vinchi, he's got other things that are going on in his life. You all are reading the cover of the book. You're not into the table of contents and the chapters, and that's where life is, is in those chapters. And, you know, I appreciate you, appreciate your resiliency, and appreciate what you've done for so many young people and you lending your voice to NAMI and choosing to be an ambassador for us. And this goes to the book of Matthew and the Parable of Talents, because you're using all of your talents, and we appreciate it very much. So, thank you very much. And I just want to say to our audience, this has been Hope Starts With Us, a podcast by NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. If you are looking for mental health resources, you are not alone. To connect with the NAMI HelpLine and find local resources, visit NAMI.org/help. Text "helpline" to 62640 or dial 800-950-NAMI (6264). Or if you are experiencing an immediate suicide, substance use, or mental health crisis, please call or text 988 to speak with a trained support specialist or visit 988lifeline.org. I'm Dan Gillison, your host. Thanks for listening and be well.
