Meet Devin Smith of Lifted KC

Today we’d like to introduce you to Devin Smith.

Hi Devin, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Let me first say MENTAL ILLNESS is real! Nobody wants the “label” or “title” of a mental illness diagnosis. However, the reality of it is that at some point everyone has and/or will experience mental illness.

After giving birth to my youngest son, I experienced an extreme disconnect from him emotionally.

I originally connected it to the hardship of challenges my marriage was facing, then I summed it up to the hard pregnancy I endured causing me to be on bed rest the last trimester of this pregnancy.

It wasn’t until a week or so after being home from the hospital that I laid a little over arms reach from my baby in the bed, he was crying yet the pain from my cesarean surgery kept me from getting up to soothe him. He cried and eventually, I cried. It was the absolute worst feeling in the world that as a mother I couldn’t muster up the strength to nurture my baby. The thoughts came flowing in “you’re worthless” “ you can’t even take care of your own baby” “How hopeless are you?” “You don’t deserve to be alive!”

Yep! That was the one! That was the thought that gave me an undeniable amount of strength to get up out of the bed (not go to the crying baby), and head to the patio, ready to jump! Only three stories high it still felt like this could be the thing to take all this pain away! To stop the thoughts! I opened the sliding door, stepped out, looked over the balcony, and looked down at the ground.

I chuckle at the thought today but I remember a voice in my head saying “you’re gonna jump off this balcony, break bones, not even die and you went be laying there looking STUPID!” Surprisingly, that’s all it took for me to go back in and call for help. I knew those thoughts weren’t right! A few weeks later I started searching for a therapist with the guidance of my OBGYN and Pastor.

It was the worst experience ever! I talked to a few therapists and learned they were inexperienced in POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION. It has a name! What I was experiencing had a name and it became MY label.

Now I’ve been to counseling before in prior years but it seemed “normal “ since the counseling was due to losing my grandmother and experiencing marital issues, yet now having a label made me feel abnormal, and not finding the therapist that could help me made the feeling of abnormal even greater.

After finally finding MY THERAPIST, I vowed that I wanted to help ensure the next person that was fearful of getting help didn’t have to experience so many boundaries, especially while battling the mind itself! And that is where Lifted KC was birthed.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Nothing worth having comes easy and walking in this calling has been a task! Major depressive disorder never goes away, you learn skills to manage it, learn your triggers and create boundaries to stay mentally healthy.

However, life happens and when you are faced with a new trauma or a trigger to old trauma it can sit you down real quick. After experiencing what felt like betrayal from my first board, I put a hiatus on Lifted KC. A new pain, the trauma that I had to deal with, I couldn’t move forward in a healthy way.

As life went on, God continued to show me my calling, connecting me to people that could push the mission, having me talk to people that needed to hear my story so they could push through. No matter what I did, I always came back to my desire for everyone to seek healing!

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Lifted KC is a nonprofit whose mission is:

Reducing the stigma associated with mental health by promoting awareness of the mental illness, its symptoms, and providing resources for those in need.

It is our desire to educate the community on mental health, create positive dialogue that will reduce the stigma, and connect the community to the established mental health providers based on their specific needs,

There is no need to be ashamed! We no longer need to live in the “what happens in my house, stays in my house” mentality because those traumas, pains, and hurt are tricking into our communities and taking us out a murder, suicide, prison sentence at a time!

We have to become a healthy individual so we can produce healthy families that live in healthy communities that create a healthy world!

What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
When we come together, WE COME TOGETHER! We have some beautiful souls that haven’t taken the time to heal. Sports alone have showed us what unity and  joy can look like in our city. Imagine having that feeling daily. It’s my prayer that the dark cloud of depression, sorrow and despair be LIFTED from over KC.

Pricing:

• Men Heal shirts $20
• Any Donation Cashapp $LiftedKcorg
• Resource Listing Sponsorship $150-$600

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.liftedkc.org
• Facebook: Lifted KC