Dozens attend and participate in the mental health workshop organized as part of the MLK program
COURTESY OF THE WSU MLK PROGRAM
“Awkward Conversations with Emmanuel Acho” facilitates mental health conversations with Lil Wayne.
On January 26, WSU hosted a seminar and workshop for the MLK Show’s screening of “Awkward Conversations with Emmanuel Acho: Mental Health Doesn’t Discriminate with Lil Wayne.” After the viewing, attendees actively discussed their thoughts on mental health and how to de-stigmatize help-seeking.
When Lil Wayne was around ten years old, his mental health issues began to take shape. Wayne said that he realized he was serious when his thoughts turned “radical.”
At the age of 12, he felt frustrated at not being listened to by his mother. As a result, Wayne told Oy that he didn’t have a place to blow off steam and suitable support to pursue your dreams.
“How I knew he had mental health issues was that I pulled the trigger,” Wayne said.
Wayne said he ended up in the hospital with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest, saved by a police officer whom Wayne called. Uncle Bob.
“When he got to the top of the steps and saw me there, he refused to even step over me,” Wayne said.
Officers searched the apartment while Wayne lay on the floor critically injured. As he lay there, Wayne heard one of the officers yell about finding drugs.
“Is when [Uncle Bob] he went crazy,” Wayne said. “And he was like, ‘I don’t give a fuck that there’s no drugs. Don’t you see the baby on the floor?’”
Uncle Bob ushered in other officers to help him get Wayne to the hospital, assuring him that he was not going to die. Along the way, Wayne repeatedly told Uncle Bob that he wasn’t a baby.
“I met him years later,” Wayne said. “But he said, ‘I don’t want anything, I just want to say, I’m happy to see I saved a life that mattered.'”
Yadira Paredes, Director of the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, found it interesting and also troubling that [mental health] it was already affecting such a young child.
“It was nice that he tried to fight him, saying he wasn’t a baby, but they are,” Paredes said. “They really are; these kids are so young and knowing things like that can start so young.”
Moderator Charles Allen Ross opened the Zoom workshop for comments, participation flooded. dozens of attendees from across the WSU system stepped in to contribute to the discussion, allowing the workshop to be an open and honest conversation about mental health.
“The more we can normalize the idea that [is] go to therapy or see a doctor for something that’s affecting your health,” said Chris Cordodor, customer relationship management technology project manager. “The more that stigma can go away.”
Several people spoke about their own mental health and why it is important to change the image of therapy or care.
Paredes said that he believes that it is up to us to break those stigmas, break those chains, break those stories and those myths.
Wayne’s mental health is much better., according to the video, his mental health problems did not go away but simply changed due to his maturity. She said they hit differently, they hit harder, but being real about the struggles that are going on and being honest about feelings are the first steps in working on coping mechanisms that really help.
