00:00And the women's high jump underway with Brigitta Barrett going over the bar.
00:04Brigitta Barrett was the London Olympic silver medalist back in 2012.
00:20Every school I was new to, I would go straight to the record book to see what the record was.
00:24So I could be like, I'm going to break that record.
00:27And this used to say Tanya Hughes.
00:34Crazy!
00:35My name is Brigitta Barrett.
00:37I'm a track and field athlete.
00:42People often commented on how focused I am.
00:46Oh yes!
00:48I always seem to have it together.
00:50That is the body language of a confident young woman.
00:55Can you not see me literally mentally deteriorating?
01:00So many people were so shocked that I was depressed.
01:06I started to feel guilty for being depressed because of the quote unquote amazing life I had.
01:15Which made my depression worse.
01:18Depression is a overwhelming sense of despair.
01:26As a kid I would just have different thoughts like, I didn't want to be alive.
01:32And I remember crying myself to sleep most of my childhood.
01:36It is really, really, really, really, really hard for me to let anybody in.
01:41I have trust issues.
01:42For obvious reasons.
01:43For logical reasons.
01:45Being taken away from my mom by CPS.
01:47I have like literal memories of being ripped from my mother's arms by a stranger.
01:53I felt so ugly my entire life.
01:56And it wasn't just a physical ugliness.
01:58Something about me is so wrong that neither my mother or my father or my sister will love me.
02:06And so me being the really, really skinny, tall black girl in school was like just open season for bullying
02:14and just torment.
02:16And I experienced a full eight month long phase of depression and five and a half, almost six years of
02:26mental instability.
02:28Because it almost feels like there was always something that was so deeply sad in my heart.
02:34My entire college experience was summed up by the feeling that I could not fail.
02:40I had experienced the token athlete treatment.
02:47Essentially forgetting what it was like to be just a normal black person.
02:51Justice for Trayvon! Justice for Trayvon!
02:55When Trayvon Martin died, there was no justice.
02:59Everything that all of America had to say on Twitter or Facebook about this boy.
03:03Just, it took my plate and threw it in the air.
03:07George Zimmerman told police he'd been following Trayvon Martin because he was acting suspiciously.
03:13The message here is that the teenager was killed and his death not properly investigated because he was young and
03:20black.
03:20The complete, bold disregard for African Americans in general.
03:25It was like there was no compartmentalizing and I couldn't shove all of those feelings back into the box.
03:31Trayvon represents a reckless disregard for our lives that we've seen too long.
03:39Enough is enough!
03:42All of those things made me extremely suicidal.
03:45I think the only thing that really helped me care was this text message that Christian Taylor had sent me
03:52where it was just full of kindness.
03:54And it was so unwarranted because it's not like we were in the middle of a conversation.
03:57It was like 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning and I was on my way to San Diego
04:01to go jump off of Coronado Bridge.
04:04And so, in reaction to that really kind text message that he sent me, I really wanted to live.
04:10I wanted to live in that moment because of Christian's kindness.
04:13And I realized that that one moment of soberness might be the only chance that I get to make a
04:20decision.
04:21I think life has made me a stronger person and sports, athletics, track and field has given me the avenue
04:31to exercise that strength.
04:35To deal with whatever was coming my way.
04:38Sport had always been the way in which I conquered life's hurdles.
04:43And that never changed.
04:45And that, honestly I can say, is the very thing that really made me able to exist as what I
04:54consider the real me again.
04:56I am.
04:58I am.
05:00I am.
