I can say I fit some of the fraternity stereotypes. I'm outgoing, sociable and love people. I try to be a hard worker and a good person. But if it wasn't for my fraternity, almost none of these things would have been fostered, and I can almost say with certainty I wouldn't be here today to tell you this.

I've been battling depression for the majority of the last four years. Despite the outgoing and extremely extroverted personality, I'm incredibly self-conscious and have a twisted body image. I'm riddled with anxiety, which is not helped by my case of post-concussive disorder. And it's exhausting to try and put on a face every day that none of these things are happening to me internally, and I'm just an always happy, go-lucky sort of guy.

Leading a sort of double life, a contradiction between internal and external, is emotionally draining. I'd put up an iron barricade between the two, trying to ignore or discredit these symptoms for a while. And when I did start receiving treatment, I hid it from almost everyone I know. When I joined a fraternity in the fall, I too, at first, hid the fact that I was struggling with these issues and put on a facade of relaxation. But within a month or so of being in my fraternity, this began to change.

You can't help but bond with your brothers. You're around them all the time, you hang out with them everywhere, you share your stories, ideas, and lives. They share with you their most intimate thoughts and the core of their beings. They can sympathize, empathize, and relate to exactly what you're going through. Your brothers help you and support through everything you are going through.

The bonds I have made with my fraternity brothers are really some of the deepest, most personal bonds I have ever formed in my lifetime. I'm so happy I pledged, because before I did, I was at the lowest point of my depression I'd ever been. I stopped going to classes, slept all day, and barely ate anything. I dreaded waking up and almost made an attempt at my life. I was in these dreadful mental chains that I could not break free from.

But my fraternity liberated me from bondage. With the help of GT Counseling and psychiatry, my fraternity essentially dragged me out of this dark pit from which I could not escape from alone. They became my safety net, my rock, my family. They were a group I could depend on, brothers I could lean on for support which I couldn't find anywhere else. I knew that no matter my conditions or struggles, they would accept me for who I was and who I am, and continue to treat me not only a human being and an equal but as a brother of Phi Kappa Theta.

I thank them eternally for the privilege to be a brother here with them, for if it were not for them, I'm not sure if I'd ever had the privilege to suffer through my first Georgia Tech-approved finals week. So again, thank you Phi Kappa Theta, for allowing me to join you this brotherhood, and thank you for the immense support and brotherhood that you all have given me in the last several months. Now and forever, always a Phi Kap.