A problem shared is not a more valued issue.
It feels like we only really believe the importance of a feeling or event if we post it online for others to warrant the value of the experience. I felt that I could only be a person who supports and actively engages in mental health politics if I was someone that shared how I was feeling all the time. Then, I started to notice I was hurting, I hurt and was causing wrong doings to close people because all I did was share online, rather than wanting to voice it through personal connections. Which is then an issue I needed to address.
Sharing doesn’t make things more important, more real, more valued, more than someone who is private. The only difference is; we can help someone far more when we know what someone else is experiencing, and not everyone is ready to have more people involved in their thoughts; which is okay. More than okay.
I decided to cut the main source off; Instagram. A place I found easiest to share, however I wasn’t really sharing, more projecting a idealism voice of what I thought mental health and the conversations around it should be. I’m not ready nor am I actually helping people by doing this. I opened conversation out more openly; yet, my connection to the cause of mental health felt showy and glamorised. Which, mental health as a statement, is not showy or glamorous.
I also found that actually, I really havnt’t found my own voice yet for mental health. After having a brilliant conversation the other day with someone that has similar personality and thought patterns as me; they were far more eloquent, knowledgable, sounder understanding than I was. Which made me notice; people out their do ‘GET IT’. Online presence or publicly talking about it doesn’t make me or anyone else more wiser on the issue. Therefore I NEED to enforce the point that just because someone online talks about an issues doesn’t mean no on else understands; in fact bringing it up with people you know in the flesh may be a better form of mental health conversations than online personas or even… blogs!
It is amazing, truly amazing what people have to offer, and we don’t fully appreciate that if we don’t start to have meaningful conversations and actually raise the topic up. We just don;t know what someone who we have known for months/years might have to say on the matter of mental health, their eye on things can be the gateway for knowing yourself better. So for as much as I like sharing someone insight within my life, instagram and the almost too up-to-date media needs less refreshing. Start to refresh the timeline of a friendship in person. Be inspired by your actual friends. Talking to a camera can only be so ‘authentic’ up until a certain point. But how real can someone be to a camera - thats not actually how we interact with a community. A camera is for a mass message, a face is completely devoted to YOU. The personal mesh of ideas/mindsets.
Thank you for reading, as always x