Everyone has been commenting or talking to me about how brave it is of me to post mental illness stuff on Facebook, let alone this blog. People seem to believe that because I have begun to talk about my struggles I must be ok because otherwise I’d be too embarrassed or ashamed to write.
I do not consider myself brave. In all honesty, this is a survival technique. I write to make myself feel better and to give myself a sense of purpose. True, I am ok in the sense that self-harm doesn’t enter my regular thought process anymore, I am attending school again and I am able to get out of bed on a day-to-day basis but I am still depresses and anxious. I began talking about this stuff and opening up because if I went on with the belief that I was fighting this alone then I probably would have chosen a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
I say that a lot, “don’t choose a permanent solution to a temporary problem,” but when I do I am not referring to depression or any other mental illness as temporary. The ‘temporary problem’ I am addressing looks different for everyone and I do not mean that you will shortly be relieved from that pain by life. I am prepared to deal with depression for the rest of my life and frankly, that was not what caused me the most pain; it was the feeling of being alone and helpless. I felt as though nobody cared and why should they? I hated myself and didn’t expect anyone to do otherwise. I am overjoyed to report that I (for the most part) no longer feel that way and most of that progress is due to me deciding to start talking about my crap. Initially it started as an “F the world, I am who I am,” type thing but shortly I realized that the world isn’t my enemy… in fact most people in my life just wanted to support me! I was out to get myself a heck of a lot more then the world was. Regardless of the motivation in the beginning; I got here, I’m still here and I am proud of that.
Now to address the shame people expect me to feel for still being in the midst of this AND talking about it openly. Nobody means to imply that this is a bad thing but they do, all the time. I am not embarrassed by my struggle because, as a good friend of mine put it (in reference to my scars), “they make you, you. Honestly, you’re more attractive when you’re real; scars and all you are beautiful.” This is exactly how I’ve felt about everyone who has showed me their cuts, burns, etc but I never had the eloquence of my friend to put it into words. I am not ashamed because I know I stand for 1/4 of the Canadian population who have mental illnesses. In my youtube video (below) I included a couple pictures of some celebrities who have not identified as having a mental illness (Craig Keilburger, Nelly Furtado and Alexandre Bilodeau) and I got a lot of flack for it because including them in a photo with me and a caption stating that 1/4 canadians suffer from a mental illness, might damage their career. Of course, I was referring to myself as the one of those four with a mental illness and would never mean to impair any of their careers; but why would suggesting that they do have any affect if their career at all? I never really liked Demi Lovato’s music or acting but as soon as she began talking about her struggles with mental illness my respect for her increased exponentially because she was being “brave” about it; but this shouldn’t be a big deal! She, along with the rest of us, is human and there shouldn’t be anything shameful about showing that.
Personally, I’d much rather admit to being depressed, having self-harmed, etc. then get caught on video with my crack dealer…and he may still get voted back into office.
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