UMich’s TEDx conference helped remove the stigma of mental illness

If you aren’t familiar with Ted Talks, you’re seriously missing out. A Ted Talk is a conference which calls for change and creativity through the form of captivating speakers — and some of them are seriously amazing. With only their thoughts and words, these speakers manage to change the way even the most stubborn people think… myself included.

When I learned that UMich held its own TEDx Conference each year, I was so pumped that right then and there, I filled out the application to attend (except I accidentally filled out the 2015 form at first and wasted two hours writing essays, oops). Eventually I managed to correctly purchase tickets, and the countdown began for April 1, the day of the conference. I was more excited than a kid waiting for Christmas.

Honestly, it was one of those events you just don’t want to end. Although there was so much I learned that day, there was one speaker in particular I was moved by — and I hope her story moves you, too. 

Lynn Rivers, an eight year veteran of the United States House of Representatives, seems to be made almost entirely of courage. Though she could easily have spent hours talking about her various successes, she chose to share her personal battles instead.

Rivers has dealt with Chronic Manic Depression for years. Her open dialogue with a room of complete strangers about not only mental illness as a whole, but her own specifically, is both taboo and refreshing. Quite frankly, I think this makes her a rockstar. Like many, Rivers is no stranger to the struggles of having a mental illness, but like few she wears it entirely on her sleeve. And man, does she own it.

Rivers says her depression was just in the hand of cards she was dealt, and that we all  have something in our hands that hurts us. That’s our personal battle. That makes us broken. Maybe you were born like Rivers with your tough hand already dealt to you, or maybe you picked up some bad cards along the way — Lord knows I have. But that’s entirely okay. Rivers challenged us, the audience, to not only own our less-than-ideal cards, but to embrace our own brokenness. She urges us to continue to be ourselves, even (and especially) when becoming what hurts us is far easier. In the span of only 10 minutes, Rivers managed to foster the removal of the stigma surrounding mental illness, as well as from admitting hardship in general.

I’ve been told all my life to be the best person I can possibly be, but never prior to this conference has it been said to me to “be the best broken person you can be.” As an 18-year-old who doesn’t have much of an idea what she’s doing with her life at this moment — and as someone with a couple bad cards in her own hand — this was something wonderful to hear.

Ted Talks motivate us to look at our own ideas through the lense of another’s. To approach our hardships, our illnesses and our downfalls with the courage that Lynn Rivers embodies. I left the TEDx Conference with an evolved concept of myself, and a new goal in mind: to be the best broken person I can be, and go from there.

And that’s a message I think everyone at UMich — a university of such high expectations, high stress, and high pressure — could benefit from.