Mark: Well I learned that I go through just the emotion of depression. I pray about it now. I don’t
go through months of it where I can’t get out of it. Now I have moments where I may fall into that
hole, but I can usually snap out of it in a day or so
Ayoka: So how does it look to us on the outside
Mark: Like a mood swing. One moment I can be in a great place, and the next I am in silence. I
think it is also contributed to who I am around. If I am around negative people and take on other
people's problems, it latches on to me. and I catch a part of their depression. It's like being a
counselor
Ayoka: A lot of counselor's actually have a counsellor
Mark: Yes, but for me, I deal more with everyone else’s issues. Its therapeutic and overwhelming
at the same time. It makes you second guess your own life while you are helping others get their
life on track. It can be hard to take on other's problems when you are counselling others because
you have to deal with the things that you have been trying to leave
Ayoka: Helping others can be therapeutic?
Mark: It can be, but it can also bring back dark memories. Like if someone’s problem falls into
the same category as mine. It's like when you know right from wrong but do it anyway, you can
give advice to others but still can’t take the same advice for yourself
Ayoka: Do you actively seek to help others as therapy or is it just natural?
Mark: It’s in my DNA . I was born to help. I get attached to people who go through a lot of
situations and I am always there at the right time. Sometimes I call out of the blue or post on
Facebook and it happens to be what someone else needs at the time.
Ayoka: Tell me about your mom when she passed away? You mentioned it as in incident
Mark: She was in the hospital. Everyone went to see her. And she was well. But the next day she
was just gone. It was a shock and it was something that I was never prepared for.
To be a child and go through that, and she was the only person that I was around every day. then
one day, I don’t get to see her ever again. It was devastating. From that point all I thought about
was her. I didn’t care about anything else, or about where I would go to. That’s the start of where I
started to close my feelings.