The Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference will host a live Zoom session with former professional sports executive turned Mental Health Advocate, Eric Kussin on Tuesday, May 5, from 6-8 p.m. as a part of NCAA Division III Mental Health Awareness week and the HCAC SAAC's Mental Health Awareness Campaign Initiative.

The event is free and open to all the members of the NCAA Division III Community. To join in the call, please click here.

We're All A Little "Crazy" is a 501c3 founded by 15-year professional sports executive, Eric Kussin, bringing together Athletes, Celebrities, and Expert Practitioners. After a successful career that started at the NBA League Office, and led to senior management positions with a number of professional sports teams, Eric's mental health took a sudden and rapid decline.

Due to unresolved personal life traumas he failed to appropriately address at a younger age – life experiences he was unaware were affecting his mental health – Eric developed a severe bout of PTSD, along with symptoms of anxiety and depression.

This fall came essentially "out of nowhere" and left him almost permanently in bed, and with severe cognitive impairment, for just over two and a half years. Once he found a way to climb out of his abyss, he vowed to spend the rest of his life focused on changing the global conversation through mental health advocacy.

It wasn't until he met practitioners who taught him methods to actually heal his body and central nervous system, that he began to improve and get his life back.

He is determined to spread his message: that everryone in the world is affected by life's inevitable traumas and stresses.

We can't escape them, as they are part of the human experience and they impact us on many levels. Mental health exists on a continuum, with some simply experiencing more severe declines than others over varying periods of time in their lives (and/or being more genetically predisposed to such declines).

Because of this, his view is that we should all be open and accepting of those who need help, because we're one community in this "crazy" world, all fighting our own unique, but often similar, battles.

For more information about Eric Kussin, or the #SameHere organization, click here.

For more information on all things HCAC, visit the websites of any of the participating schools, or go to the HCAC's home on the internet at www.heartlandconf.org. Be sure to stay up to date on all of your Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference news by following @HCACDIII on Twitter and by liking the "HCAC DIII" Facebook page.