Daniel Durant (71:00)
When I was growing up, I went to a mainstream school and I was the only deaf student. And that's where my two mothers and some of my teachers, they noticed I had some behaviors. And so I got started with therapy pretty early. And so I've been going to therapy ever since I was young. And that really did help me big time and helped me understand Some tools and appropriate behaviors and so on. And I think therapy did really help me. I think the whole time I was in school, I was in therapy from elementary school to high school. I always had a therapist. And after that, I went to college and became an actor. And I didn't really go to therapy for quite a while until I was in the play Spring Awakening on Broadway. And my character was Moritz. And it was a pretty dark and depressing role to play. And, you know, I'm a method actor myself. So how I really dove into that role and that depression was I had to think back and force myself to think about my own traumas, about what happened to me, like negative experiences in school when I was bullied or when I screwed up. And then I didn't want to think about that again. I just kind of stashed it away. And then I became this character, and I kind of opened Pandora's box and all those negative memories started coming out. And I was really proud that I was able to do well in that play. It was a beautiful performance. It was really deep. It was such a great cast. Everyone really did a good job. And after that, after the show was over, you know, I didn't really think that it made an impact on me. But then I started getting depression myself, and I was in depression. I was depressed for a pretty long time. And then it hit me that of course, you know, I was in touch with my. My mom sometimes, and they said, daniel, you haven't been going to therapy for such a long time. You need to go see a therapist. And I said, yeah, you're right. So fortunately, I found a deaf therapist or hard of hearing therapist who could hear a little bit, but new sign language. And that really did help me and taught me some more tools. And I did that for about a year. And then after that, I didn't again until much later during COVID And that was the worst time for me, I think, in my whole life, because at that time, we just finished shooting the movie Coda. It was such a wonderful experience. We had three months going out in a boat in Massachusetts, and it was a big movie. It was so successful. And then all of a sudden, Covid hit and everything was on pause. I didn't have any employment and I was pretty broke and I had to move back in with my parents. And at that time, you know, I was almost in my 30s, and so I had to go back to live with my two moms. And, you know, I didn't feel proud of myself. I felt like my self Esteem really took a dive. I was working in a restaurant. I was working as a busboy in a restaurant, you know, washing dishes and cleaning up tables. And I really went downhill and I had a break, a breakdown, you know, and it. I think that only happens, you know, once in a while with people. But during COVID it happened to me a few times. And my. Then my two mothers said, daniel, go to therapy again. So I listened. I went to therapy, went to the doctor, got some medication that did help, some antidepressants. And so I think mental health is really important. And so seeing a therapist has helped me. And, you know, I need to work out more. You know, I'm just. I'm all talk, but I need to work out more. You know, since Dancing with the Stars, you know, I was so happy because we were exercising every single day. I was sweating, I was moving, you know, I was really enjoying it. And then at home, I felt good. It was almost like you. You were vibrating. You felt so good. And then after that, I was kind of lazy a little bit. And I said, okay, you know what? I do need to work out a little bit. It is really important. And sometimes, you know, if I had a hard day, I really do enjoy playing video games. You know, it's a really nice place for me to escape and disconnect and just, you're in the game, you're in that world. You're just completely immersed in playing. So I do really enjoy a game with the storyline or that feeling when you win, you know, when you're playing a game and socializing, too. You know, living in la, deaf people live all over the place. It's. It's really rare to have an opportunity to see my friends in la, but we socialize when we play video games. I have a group of deaf guys, you know, hearing people can talk over headsets, but we have a separate zoom where we can kind of joke around and chat and play video games together. I really do enjoy that. That really does help my mental health too. You know, it's okay if you have a mental health issue or you're not. You're feeling some anxiety or depression. Just be open about it. I think we're all human. We've all had different experiences. It's okay to go to therapy. You know, I remember when I was in school, the teacher would say, just to let you know, don't forget you have a therapist appointment soon. I was like, why is it such a secret? Why? You know, you can just. It's fine if people know about it. And like, oh, I thought this was a private issue. And, you know, I didn't understand why. There was kind of a stigma back then, I think, where people weren't so open about therapy and we're all trying to take care of our own mental health and our own emotional condition, because, again, we're human. We all have this human condition. There's nothing wrong with that. So that older way of thinking was to stigmatize it. Like, if you're going to therapy, you must have a problem. And, you know, I think it's really important to not think of it that way, just to be open and really we can improve ourselves and be better people for sure.
