I hope you guys know who Patch Adams is. A lot of people don't know who he is when I mention that I met him as both of us gave the nearest camera a goofy smile.

Did I mention I met Patch Adams?

Well, it was the summer of 2016 and I was in Oregon with my Aunt for a few weeks. I had a layover in San Francisco and arrived at a small regional airport in Eugene. She picked me up, and we drove off to her house, listening to a mixture of The Dead Kennedys and Johnny Cash. A week later, I was deep in the woods, camping by a small creek in the middle of the most holistic and free fair in the U.S.: The Oregon Country Fair.

You cannot fully explain the miraculous beauty that is the Oregon Country Fair. It took me a complete hour to find a photo that captivates the Fair, and this photo above does not even do it justice. All the photos pale in comparison to the Fair and what happens.

I was working the Fair that year with my Aunt, as she volunteered at the historic WOW Hall in Eugene, Oregon. It's a local theater that puts on shows with local and regional celebrities. It has had a long and detailed history that even the Hall itself cannot be fully described.

Anyway, the Fair takes place in the middle of the woods in Veneta, Oregon, and everything respects the nature surrounding it. The booths are built with the trees, the landscape changes with the river, and the decorations depict the wild and colorful nature of ourselves.

The best example I can give of the free-nature of the event is that the workers can take a shower at this massive complex known as "The Ritz", where there are communal and single showers. The communal showers always have a band playing in them... under the water, while they are nude. Like... free spirit.

No wait. Maybe the best example is that there is a couple of elderly ladies by the entrance of the Fair that has been going to the Fair for years, practically being the founders. They sit there, making condoms into roses all day for the tradition of loving one another and...

Probably the best example is that the artists are so laid-back that the late night concerts can include you in them, like how I was doing the can-can with a rapper at one in the morning.

It is so hard to describe this beauty of a Fair that you need to go there and experience it yourself.

Anyways, while I was at the Fair that year, my Aunt's friend, Barb, who I miss so much, was reminding me that Patch Adams was going to give a talk to all the people by the entrance. I have only heard of him and never looked more into him.

As we sat down on some hay bales, he came in with his colorful button shirt and red glasses, sitting down on the ground with us. He talked about his work in other countries and how he has held many, many dying children in his arms, hoping to lessen their terminal pain with his humor. He talked about how he is working on opening a special hospital in Virginia to help with children and research, and how it can possibly be free. He talked about his hard childhood, but the one important thing he mentioned was about loving yourself.

He wiped a speck of sweat from his brow and sat forward a bit, shifting his weight onto his feet, looking down the row of bales before he caught himself.

"There is too much negativity in the world," he started, projecting his voice calmingly. "So many people care about the small things: time, money, love..."

He looked at all of us and fixed his glasses, opening his arms.

"Love is important. Loving your neighbor is the best thing to act on, but before you love your neighbor, you must learn to love yourself."

He shifted again, wrapping his arms around himself and smiling, closing his eyes.

"Yum yum," he said out of the blue. "To start loving yourself, you must learn to love yourself. You need to let go and find something that you can say all the time, reaffirming yourself. I use "yum yum" as an innocent and friendly phrase."

He stopped hugging himself and smiled again, pointing at the corners of his mouth.

"I know what depression is. I know what mental disorders are. They are diseases, and we must learn how to fight them. So we must let go and hug ourselves. We must love ourselves. Everyone, hug yourself and say Yum yum."

As he said it, everyone did not even hesitate. Everyone hugged themselves and said those words.

He stopped and looked at us again.

"Next we need to love each other. Please, if you want to, share your experiences."

First a woman came up to the microphone and talked about how she organized school supplies for a school in Kenya, and how she went over there to personally deliver them.

Barb nudged me and told me that I should go up. I shook my head nervously, but the woman on the other side of me encouraged me with a smile. I slowly got up out of my seat, and she started clapping, and everyone came in with cheers.

I started to stutter as I spoke into the microphone.

I told my story as best as I could in front of an audience. I spoke of how I went into legitimate psychosis my sophomore year in high school and how I couldn't differentiate reality from fiction. It wasn't until, for some reason, I stopped everything I was doing and wrote several poems and stories that I started to take hold of reality again. My psychologist at the time said that I was somehow "cured".

I said that we should look into rehabilitation as much as the production of medications.

Everyone stopped. You could hear the crowds in the background, but in that area, you could hear the hay bales rustle.

Slowly, people started to come back, and the woman that encouraged me started to clap. Patch Adams himself started to clap as well, and jumped off of what I was saying before others started to share their stories.

As everyone left, he stopped me and personally said that I was courageous to share what I said, and that I was right: we need to support funding of rehabilitation.

And that's when I got this picture with him:

Depression is real. Mental disability is a disease. We must fund research into rehabilitation. It does work! Medications help aid us, but rehabilitation helps bring us back into the fold! Patch Adams was right: we must love ourselves.

Now say, "Yum yum" with me and love yourselves, just like Patch Adam.