OKEECHOBEE – Two speakers at the May 14 Mental Health Awareness Luncheon had personal stories to share.

Abby Garcia said she started Refuse to Sink in 2018 after the death of her oldest son to suicide. The nonprofit raises funds to support agencies around Lake Okeechobee that promote mental health awareness and suicide prevention.

It’s important to normalize conversations about mental health so those suffering will not be embarrassed to seek help, she said.

Keynote speaker Reggie Ford, author of “Perseverance Through Severe Dysfunction,” is a mental health advocate and certified wellness coach.

“Perseverance is a big part of my story,” Ford told those gathered at the Okeechobee Civic Center.

“I have fought through diversity. I have felt the anxiety. I have felt triggered,” he said.

Ford said his trauma began when he was an infant, born to a 14-year-old mother in Nashville, Tenn. His grandmother had been just 15 when his mother was born.

“That was the cycle in my family, of kids having kids with very little guidance on how to take care of them, and more important, how to love them,” he said.

“My mom was emotionally unavailable,” he continued. “Because of her own trauma she didn’t have the space and capacity to provide that.

 “I grew up with my grandparents in the house. They provided some shelter and a lot of chaos,” Ford explained. “My grandmother was 15 when she had my mom. My grandfather was 33.”

He said his grandfather was physically abusive to his grandmother and to everyone else in the household. Ford said his own father was rarely around.

 “Love and abuse cannot co-exist,” he said.

He said he considered everyone in his life a potential threat.

“I developed the response to my trauma to prevent the bad stuff that was happening,” Ford explained. “I was a kid that did everything right.” He said he didn’t cry because that would elicit the response to shut up  or “I’ll give you something to cry about.”

“I developed the response of people pleasing, of caretaking, of abandoning myself for the sake of others,” he continued. “But reactions weren’t always the same – there was no true pattern to it all. For a child that was very confusing.

“While I was dealing with the turmoil, I was also being promoted through life,” he said.

“I was the kid  who was quiet. I didn’t get into any trouble at school. I fought a lot, but that was outside school. I did my work.

For me, school was a matter of pattern recognition,” he explained. “That opened up a world of possibility for me.”

His good grades and good behavior were rewarded with a chance to go to private school, where he continued to excel academically and in sports.

“My dad was not around. He had his own trauma,” said Ford. “He was in the streets, selling drugs, he was in the streets robbing people

“When I was 8 years old nightly news came on, saw my dad’s face and at first I kinda smiled … Then the list of charges started to scroll up the side of the television screen.

“I’m just eight and I don’t know a lot about the world, but I know that’s not good.

“Growing up, I need to feel love,” Ford said. “Mom’s not showing it. Dad is gone. I start to internalize that, like kids do. ‘What is it about me that you can’t love me enough not to do those things?”

The child who craved attention found it at school. “I got it in the A+ and smiley faces. I got it in sports.

He said he fed on that attention and pushed himself to do even better.

“That external validation was the only love I was getting,” said Ford.

With addiction, you don’t choose that thing, he said. Something shows up in your life and provides some calm, and you want that again.

“I got addicted to the external validation,” he said. “I got into every college I applied to.”

Ford said he decided to attend school close to home because he was the caretaker for his younger siblings.

“I went to Vanderbilt. I studied economics, accounting and finance,” he explained. “I was still passionate about sports. I walked onto the football field and earned a spot on that team.”

Outwardly, he was a success. But ,“I didn’t have any close friends. I didn’t have an long term girlfriends.” He said he didn’t trust other people.

“In my mind, the closer you are trying to get the more you want to manipulate,” he said. “I was terrified of deep, personal connection. I didn’t know what love is. I had never been taught how to love.

“Then when I was 20, almost 21, I finally meet this person, this girl and she asks me if I have ever taken the Adverse Child Experiences Questionnaire,” Ford said. There are 10 questions on the list and the more you answer yes, the worse your health outcomes later in life.

The first time he reviewed it, he answered yes to nine of the questions. And eventually he admitted the 10^th question – about being sexually abused as a child – was also true.

He said it still took years for him to seek help.

Ford said he was the first person in his family to graduate high school. Then he graduated college and was a success in the business world.

He started Rosecrete Wealth Management, naming the company for a rose that grows through the crack in a sidewalk.

“My trauma was my fuel,” he said.

 “Rose Creek as this launching point for me,” he said. He was young and being recognized for contributions he was making the world of finance

Then Top 100 in Finance Magazine published my name and he was nominated for Forbes 30 under 30.

“I found myself lying on the hardwood floor, and it wasn’t enough,” he said.

“I was laying there, and I started playing with my dog and laughing, and then crying and then yelling. I asked myself how did I end up here?”

Ford said he went to his primary care doctor and said, “I think I am depressed.” The doctor told him, “I think you’ll be fine.”

 “Growing up I was told therapy is for white people,” said Ford. Admitting he needed help was difficult.

By then his grandparents had died, he explained. “Because I lost so many people in my life, I went to a grief counselor.” That counselor referred him to a therapist who deals with trauma. He started going to therapy. Writing down his experiences led became his book.

 “You are not defined by your worst day,” he told the group. “You are not defined by your trauma. You are not defined by your past. You have survived your worst day, you can keep on going.

“We have people who are doing this work, so that people can go one more day,” said Ford. “The reason I am up here, started with pain.

 “They say ‘Hurt people hurt people.’ All the healers I work with, they’ve been hurt too.

“I say: Healed people heal people.”

The luncheon was hosted by Our Village Okeechobee, Refuse to Sink. The meal was sponsored by Ferrel's Market, Brad Goodbread and Jessica and Mike Sumner.