CLEVELAND, Ohio — A popular fitness instructor and personal trainer is taking on a new challenge and preparing for his first amateur boxing match.
“I feel great, I feel real great, I’m just ready to get it over with, I train three times a day, after the fight I can go down to one,” laughs Phillip Weeden.
It’s all smiles now, but he’s battled with depression for thirty years. “You know I workout all day and no one knows what’s wrong with me until I tell them.”
He’s using the upcoming fight to raise awareness about mental health within the African American community.
“All you got to do is open your mouth up and let everybody know what’s wrong with you,” he says.
Weeden says his depression started as early as age 11.
“As a kid you really don’t know what you’re going through at that time, and I was bottling all my feelings inside,” he explains.
“So I was never telling anybody how I felt, what was going on with me, so it was just something that I was trying to deal with myself.”
As he got older, there was a time he tried to commit suicide but thanks to intervention from a co-worker he was able to get the help he needed.
“Guys, they don’t want to seem like they’re weak so they don’t want to tell you what’s wrong, what their problems are” he says.
“So they just sit there and just fight it, fight it, fight it but you never know that all you’re doing is making yourself worse.”
Weeden’s fight is on Saturday August 3rd as part of ‘Brawl for a Cause’ at Euclid High School.
Part of the proceeds will benefit “Little Giants” which is a non-profit organization that helps young people build confidence and self-esteem.