Sydel Curry-Lee Speaks To College Students About Mental Health: 'They Aren't Alone'

Sydel Curry-Lee uses her social media platform to help spread mental health awareness by sharing her own journey, so people know they aren't alone. She recently took her advocating offline with a visit to Ferrum College in Ferrum, Virginia to speak with college students about the topic of mental health.

Curry-Lee was the special presenter in honor of National Teen Mental Health Awareness Day at the college's event on Thursday. The college celebrated her visit with a carousel of photos from the event on Instagram captioned, "#FerrumCollege welcomes @sydelcurrylee as she shares how to balance college life, her mental health journey and her experience as a student-athlete. 'There's power in stories,' said Curry-Lee to students in the Blue Ridge Mountain Room."

Curry-Lee also shared the experience on her Instagram page with similar photos captioned, "Dusted off my speechin’ skills and spoke to @ferrum_college students today! I left feeling so encouraged by the progress that’s being made in colleges and universities by creating safe spaces for students to feel seen and heard in their mental health journeys."

She concluded her caption with the reminder that you're not alone and thanked everyone who attended. "With all the many things being thrown their way in this transition they deserve to know they aren’t alone, what they are going through is normal, and it doesn’t have to consume them! Thank you to all the students for your participation and willingness to open up! ??"

Many of Curry-Lee's social media followers left comments on her post. Her mom, Sonya Curry, wrote, "Proud of you! Keep sharing and shining! ❤️"

One follower wrote, "Love you! Thank you for sharing your story and making it a safe space for others to open up today. You are amazing ❤️," and another added, "I just feel like you left so much students feeling hopeful in that relevance of 'it's okay to not be okay' and other things we can all tell ourselves to help our mental wellbeing. You're continuing to do great things and we love you!! ??"

Curry-Lee's brother, NBA star Stephen Curry also celebrated her participation in the important event by sharing an Instagram Story.

Curry-Lee also posted an Instagram Story at the end of the day shouting out to the college and all who attended the event.

Wife of NBA star Damion Lee and mom to 15-month-old Daxon, Curry-Lee advocates for mental health awareness by sharing her own journey. She began advocating online back in 2017, and while she ended up taking a break from sharing online for a while for her own mental health, she's back hoping to help more people by reminding them they're not alone.

"Back in 2017, I said if I was going to become a social media content creator, I want to put some meaning behind it. And to me, that also meant, I wanted to bring light to mental health, talk about my mental health, and also talk about ways that we can change the stigma around it,” she said.

“And my contribution to try to change the stigma around mental health is sharing my own personal experiences, what I deal with when it comes to mental health.”

The caption of her video also explained her small hiatus from sharing her journey and that she's now back and ready to pick up where she left off.

"After taking a step back from how I used to be online, I don’t feel any better. SO I am back doing what I feel called to do! It won’t happen overnight, I have build trust in myself for how I will deal with the judgement and negative criticism (cause it’s still gonna happen ?) and just the overall not caring about what people think but I hope that we can continue on in this journey to better mental health. So we can live the healthy lives we deserve ?," she wrote.