Her breakdown motivated a mental health movement

Sasha Raskin once was depressed and suicidal. Now she shares why her future vision is in making sure to give others the emotional support they need through her incredible initiative, A Beautiful Mess.

TAMAR: Hi, everybody. Today, I am so honored, and it’s such a privilege to have somebody I’ve been admiring from afar, Sasha Raskin. She is not too far from me, but we haven’t met face to face yet. We’ve met online in the women’s community. This is Episode 42. And hi, Sasha. Thank you so much for joining.

00:42

SASHA RASKIN: Yeah, thank you. I’m so excited to be here.

00:44

TAMAR: Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Tell everybody what do you do? Where are you from? What’s your life like these days?

00:54

SASHA RASKIN: Okay, um, well, I was born in Ukraine where it was in the Soviet Union right before the  collapse. But I’m pretty far from there. I live in New York City right now. I’m in the East Village, which you probably know, and maybe a lot of other people do. And now I run a mental health organization called A Beautiful Mess. And we do talks and events to combat loneliness, depression, and mental health stigma. And yeah, I’m just trying to stay sane during the madness, pandemic life.

01:34

TAMAR: It’s hard. Let me just disclose right now. It’s October 20. And I mean, full disclosure for myself. I feel like I might have it a second time. That’s really where we’re going right now. This is like a crazy, it’s a beautiful mess. I will say. Yeah, let me get a little bit more about your history. So you were from the Ukraine. Tell me when did you come to America? I’m sure it contributed to your story. But give me a little bit of background about like how you immigrated to the United States. That story and maybe any challenges that you faced, hardships that you faced along the way?

02:14

SASHA RASKIN: Yeah. So we left when I was a toddler. So I don’t remember anything, actually, from the journey. But we did come as refugees to the US. There’s an organization named HAIS, what it stands for Hebrew, international aid society, something like that. And they helped us escape the former Soviet Union. So yeah, we were very fortunate to get their help. And  they essentially sponsored Jews who were trying to get to the US. So we lived in Europe and moved around Europe while we were trying to get to the States. And like I said, I don’t remember the journey because I was too young. But that’s probably for the best from what I hear. It was pretty intense. At one point, I’ve obviously heard a lot of stories and a whole family emigrated together, and we all lived in in one room. That was not exactly nice. And there are a lot of pests. And they said the rats are so big they would like you to sleep on surfaces because they were worried the rats were like bigger than me.

TAMAR: Wow.

SASHA RASKIN: Yeah. So I’m very grateful to not remember that. For sure.

03:36

TAMAR: Yeah, it’s interesting. When I was a child, I remember my mother being very involved in like Soviet jury stuff. I don’t even remember what she did. But I remember she had a lot of paperwork in her car. And we were very, very instrumental in that. I mean, obviously, things have changed in the last 20 years. And none of that’s happening anymore. But that was a big part of what she was focused on. So I wonder if she was involved in any of that. I mean, this is in Florida, it was not in New York. But still, that being said, there’s a lot of that immigration, and I had seen her as well in school like kids coming from the Ukraine, or Russia, whatever you say politically correct. I don’t know. Because borders are changing all the time. But yeah, that was my life as a child as well. Like I experienced it from the side.

04:24

SASHA RASKIN: Yeah, that’s so interesting. Why was she involved?

04:29

TAMAR: I’m not even sure it was just more of like, a grassroots volunteer thing that she decided to take upon herself. And I just remember this was like I said, South Florida, she would go and there would be this office and she pick up papers and she was so young. I wish there was more concrete information that I could provide here because I just remember that she was instrumental in that immigration. I think my family is very diverse, we come from various parts of Europe. My paternal side is Lithuanian, Polish, and Hungarian. My maternal side is Russian and Polish and my mother, I guess maybe it was my mother&