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If you’ve watched T.I. and Tiny Family Hustle, you’ve seen Deyjah Harris grow into the young lady she is today. And while she has been pretty quiet and less outgoing than her younger brothers, the 18-year-old has a story of her own.
And recently she launched a YouTube channel in order to share it. And while many young women her age, who come from similar means would discuss fashion, hair, makeup etc, Deyjah is using her platform to speak about something more universal, something which she has personal experience dealing with, mental health issues.
“I know that many of you are wondering why mental health is important to me and why I can kind of relate to it and transparently speaking depression and anxiety is something I’ve been dealing with since about the age of 11. My self esteem started to become an issue for me in the sixth grade due to bullying. I started to struggle with understanding what it was that I was feeling and I definitely knew that I wasn’t able to express what it was that I was going through.
So without the proper knowledge and support, I eventually started to turn to self-inflicted coping mechanisms that weren’t too healthy or beneficial to me or my growth. There have been multiple times when I couldn’t really envision the evolution of myself due to the fact that I felt really unmotivated to continue my journey and I also repeatedly had thoughts of me not being here anymore.
The way that I viewed or experienced depression and anxiety at 11 is way more different than how I experience it at 18. In other words, it hasn’t really gotten easier for me. Any time my depression might come back or anytime I might experience anxiety, it just kind of comes crashing down on me ten times harder than it did the last time.
Now, all of this is something that I still have to deal with and manage; however, please don’t let this give you the idea that it won’t be any better.”
There’s so much more I wish I could share with you all about my life, just to show you that you are not alone but unfortunately, I’m not really at a place where I’ve accepted how today’s society can kind of portray someone else’s truth [to] their advantage to toss around with, without caring to know my story for the right reasons.”
As a result, Deyjah spent the rest of the video speaking about certain mental health issues people face and some healthy coping mechanisms to help address them.
You can see what she had to say in the video below.
