Speaking Up About Mental Health

What’s it like speaking up about your mental health?

So, there are two sides to this - the very public one where you share your painful emotions with the internet or else the side where you talk to your loved ones and let them know what’s going on.

I’ve done both. Why would I ever talk about my feelings so publicly? 

I started writing as a way to cope with my emotions. I felt the need to make sense out of what I was feeling. Little by little, it became a blog. I know how hard it is to articulate your emotions when you’re in crisis mode. You just don’t know how to explain the mix of emotions in your head. 

Things just made sense for me. The more I wrote, the more I was able to understand what was going on in my head. And the easier it became for people around me to understand what I was feeling as well. 

I’ve grown up always being the ‘happiest’ in the room - I was far from that to be honest. As a child I struggled a lot with my emotions and how to manage them. I was always so overwhelmed with anxiety, it made me feel like my own thoughts were stopping me from doing things. No one spoke about mental health growing up, neither at school nor at home, I didn’t know what to do when things got too much. 

I thought that the anxiety I felt was something everyone felt as well. Who knew. 

After struggling for a few years I understood something was wrong. I knew I needed help. I went to therapy religiously, when that wasn’t enough I started on antidepressants. There was always something still missing from my life. I wasn’t anxious or depressed anymore, but I was numb. Nothing made me happy and nothing made me sad. 

Now I thought, okay, maybe this is what ‘normal’ feels like. I was wrong, of course. 

So, when I told people what was going on, I got a lot of what’d you expect. Sympathy. 

“Oh I had no idea you were going through this” 

“You’re so strong” 

“I wish you would have spoken to me”

“I’m always here for you”

But that’s not the case, is it? Honestly, how easy is it for us to call people and be like, “hey, I’m not okay.”

Way too hard. And scary.  

The truth is, the warm messages feel good for the first few days - but when things go downhill, you feel like you’re back in that place.

I haven’t fought some battle and won 

I haven’t been brave and survived 

I haven’t had to push through the tough times 

Mental health problems don’t define who you are. They are something you experience. You walk in the rain and you feel the rain, but you are not the rain.

by Matt Haig

I was lucky enough that I had the support to actually sit with the pain and deal with everything. 

Do I regret speaking up? Absolutely not. I know that this has helped people, and honestly, that’s always been the goal. 

Speaking up doesn’t have to be on a public platform, it can be in the comfort of your own home around the people who love you. 

I started www.rethinkreachout.com as a way to help people understand their emotions and be part of a larger community.