What’s a challenge you overcame?

Taylor | Whakatāne

Content warning: this video discusses sensitive mental health topics.

As a young man Taylor has already faced mental health challenges and watched his peers fail to overcome them. 

“I definitely feel lucky. It’s good to have a lot of people around you. Definitely a lot of mates. A lot of things to do so yeah, definitely feel real grateful for that.

The biggest challenge I’ve overcome is definitely depression. That’s been pretty bad around here. I had that for two years. Lots of people die here. It’s a bit of a bummer. There’s a lot of suicides here. A lot of pain around the community. I had a couple of mates die already. Pretty stressful, especially with school and that.

I started skating. Skating is what I got into two years ago, and that really helped me with my journey right now. Definitely being around new people was an interesting thing. Just getting involved, getting more social. I’ve always been quite a happy person inside. I’ve never really thought about suicide or any of that. I probably would’ve checked up on my mates more often to see how they are. Because I felt like that’s nothing I really did before. And even with my mates now, I still don’t really do that, but it’s probably something I should get into.”