Victoria Gonzalez/Vaquero Radio
Pablo Campos was a high school senior at the time when he attempted to take his own life after turning to substance abuse as a way to cope with deep-seated anger and frustration.
Campos was born in the United States to his Guatemalan parents. He said he grew up without exposure to mental health discussions, despite a family history of depression, addiction and anxiety.
Struggling to balance both Guatemalan and American cultural expectations, Campos lacked healthy coping mechanisms and turned to substance abuse, eventually attempting to take his own life in high school.
After multiple unsuccessful inpatient treatments, Campos was diagnosed with ADHD, which led to proper treatment and recovery. Now, he speaks openly about the challenges of stigma and lack of education, emphasizing how a strong support network helped him transition from self-destruction to active recovery.
Campos recalled feeling deep anger as a child in kindergarten, but those built-up emotions progressively grew stronger in elementary school as a fourth grader.
“I noticed I was hiding emotions, but having them was almost my whole life,” he said. “I just don’t think I noticed it, right. Like, I don’t think I paid attention to it. That’s part of, kind of, what I’m referring to, is just noticing kind of, somehow, some of those come up, how they affected my body, and how I would really feel them, came later in life.”
But external factors caused Campos to have “racing thoughts” that were self-critical of himself. Majority of these thoughts told him he was not good nor doing enough as a person.
“So, I think that’s how, in some of the pressures and stressors that I felt, some of the thoughts kind of took that tone as well, and started to really affect me,” he said. “It’s like carrying an extra weight, right. It was really hard to know what to do with them, to tell somebody else about them, to, you know, manage them, I didn’t do any of that. I was keeping it all into myself and felt like nobody could understand me either.”
Campos said comparing one’s own mental issues to other people’s struggles can be a negative mindset, but it’s also natural. He added the only way to avoid comparing yourself to others is complete isolation, but the real question is how much that comparison affects someone and how much power they give it.
For Campos, his depressive symptoms played a role, convincing himself that others had it worse, which made him feel like he couldn’t speak up because someone else was facing something even more difficult.
“That’s kind of like a defense mechanism is my mind trying to tell me that it’s not worthwhile, that it doesn’t matter, or that somebody else is more important,” he said. “What I was telling myself was not fully a reality. It was important and it did matter … but you have to kind of relearn how to interact with some of that.”
A common myth often repeated by older generations is that mental illness didn’t exist, but Campos said it is because they weren’t aware of it because people didn’t talk about it.
Unfortunately, this mindset can make it harder for younger generations to seek help because it reinforces stigma.
“There’s no way that it’s that big of a difference, right,” he said. “I think there’s more to it than that, it’s more complex than that. So, I think it’s important to recognize it did happen then just like it’s happening now. It happens in a different way, things change all the time. I think it’s important to know [that it] can be invalidating for someone to hear that and may discourage someone from seeking help.”
The biggest part of coping with Campos’ mental health issues was leaning heavily on drugs and alcohol. But when he stopped relying on substances, Campos had to establish new coping strategies and social techniques, which he said was hard for him.
“But, it overall helped because it was a variable that was making my symptoms worse,” he said. “It was making me more depressed, it was increasing my anxiety … I was in denial about it too, you know, but it helped a lot when I stopped.”
Campos said it’s important for those struggling to know they’re not alone, and there is hope. People don’t have to struggle in silence and can talk to someone and access resources. He said it’s normal to feel misunderstood or that overcoming mental challenges may seem impossible, but support is out there.
“It’s worth the fight for sure,” Campos said. “Because you’re fighting for yourself, for your future, and there’s no perfect time … people want to wait and try later, or do something else, but it’s something you gotta start and get going.”
Today, Campos is a licensed clinical social worker and addiction specialist associate. He is also a clinician at the North Carolina State University Counseling Center. It’s been 16 months since Campos maintained sobriety.
This is Victoria Gonzalez for Vaquero Radio.
