Lately, I have been reflecting on the importance of sharing. Not necessarily the sharing of material goods, although I do believe that sharing the last piece of cake has never hurt anyone. The type of sharing I'm thinking about is much more challenging, requires much more strength and courage. I'm talking about the sharing of our feelings, opening up to our vulnerabilities, which in the end, is the driving force that unites all of humanity and allows us to see others as individuals, rather than ideas we have assigned to each other.
Over the past few years, I have been following a number of blogs and articles about mental health and almost all of them end in the same way -- encouraging an open dialogue about mental health and raising awareness about this silent crisis. I do believe that changing the dynamics of our society is important and that these blogs have encouraged the beginnings of change. But I always wondered where these changes were happening and to whom they were happening.
I am very much an individual who needs to see in order to believe. In the past this has presented a number of problems, especially regarding faith, romantic love, and most important for this conversation, my own struggle to accept illness. I always met myself with resistance -- it's all in your head, you're lying to yourself to make yourself a victim, to mold a tragic lifestyle for yourself, for attention. It is not important to what extent I continue to believe these thoughts, but rather, it is important to acknowledge this doubt. If it didn't show up on a MRI or in my blood samples, it was not real.
So it comes as no surprise that I continued to doubt the effect that these essays on depression, bipolar, obsessive compulsive disorder, and anxiety had on the readers. It's all good and lovely for the writer to feel the vulnerability of sharing their story but how does my vulnerability help to change this enormous habit of silence that is present in our country today?
This morning I received my answer when a dear friend and fellow sister of my sorority shared that she, in fact, was not doing well. The specifics of her situation are not important. What is important is that she was courageous to share the truth of what was happening behind the story she had given almost all of us for the extent of our time together. She was honest about her life, something that has become erroneously difficult in our superficial society.
Social media and the culture of busyness may have something to do with this superficiality but it reaches into much more basic aspects of our society, into our daily conversations with one another, into the most common question: How are you?
Every time someone responds to this question with "I'm okay" or "I'm good" I have a sudden urge to shake them while simultaneously shouting
"ARE YOU GOOD? ARE YOU REALLY GOOD? IS EVERYTHING SO GREAT IN YOUR LIFE? OR DO YOU GENUINELY NOT VALUE THIS PRECIOUS LIFE AND THE DELICATE MAKEUP OF YOUR SPIRIT & MIND TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT MAYBE, FOR JUST ONE MOMENT IN TIME, YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE MORE OR LESS THAN GOOD?"
For me, this question is the most superficial part of our society, not the edited photos on Facebook or the carefully constructed captions on Instagram. Instead, it is this banal acceptance that we cannot express more of ourselves to the people around us, even when they inquire into our state of being. It has become an act of courage to admit to being more than good or okay or tired, when in fact, it is ridiculous to expect someone to radiate these three attitudes (I don't want to do an injustice by calling them emotions) for the majority of their existence.
And that is how we come back to the importance of sharing. Courage is infectious. For me, it's not the most important to change how the population views mental health or perhaps inspire policies that would improve the lives of few and in doing so, improve the mental health of many. It's important to spread the courage that is needed to share in any capacity.
It doesn't matter if it's a blog, a Facebook post, a book of poetry, a past midnight raw and pure conversation that lasts until the sun rises, or a whisper to your dogs that you need to share something with them (Full disclosure: My dogs were the first living things I told about not being okay. It helps, trust me.)
What matters is that you never, in the words of David Foster Wallace, "sacrifice how gorgeous and perfect it is in your head" under the pretext that you do not deserve to be more or less than "good," that you do not deserve to share your truth.
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If you -- or someone you know -- need help, please call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. If you are outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for a database of international resources.