On World Mental Health Day; me, laid bare.
If you see my smiley selfies and my positive posts and think that life is all rosy for me. I’m living my dream, in control of my life and happy every day.
If that is what you think then I’ve failed.
Because that’s not what I’m about and I try my hardest to post about real life things, how things go wrong and how my children struggle in this world and how exhausting it is to live with disabilities.
But you might gloss over those #RealLife #RealFacebook posts and think that everything is hunky dory.
It’s not.
But that’s ok.
I do those posts to highlight how much of social media is fake but I probably don’t go far enough. I post about how day to day things are hard and unfair, but I don’t post about my feelings enough. On World Mental Health Day I thought it was apt that I do.
I try very hard to look for the positives in every day, but I do that because life is hard and if you let the darkness take over it is hard to ever see the light again.
But I often see that darkness.
I feel sad when I don’t hear from people in a long time, life is busy and I forget to reply to texts messages too, but I often lie in bed late at night wondering why I haven’t heard from you in while.
I over analyse everything I do and say. Did that post upset someone, did saying that make them cross with me, did they take that the wrong way, why did you look at me like that.
I notice when you don’t like my posts, when my closest friends don’t engage with things I put out there. I feel it deep in my heart. I don’t know why this bothers me, but if does. It’s not about chasing like it’s about how I think other people perceive me I guess.
I am lonely. Really lonely sometimes. I have lots of friends on the internet but nothing beats a proper, in real life hug and seeing someone smile when you tell them a story. I need more of that but don’t know where to get it. That makes me sad.
I’ve made a conscious decision not to judge others. I try to give everyone second or third chances. But that is very hard when I feel very judged myself and feel that people are talking about me behind my back.
What was the point of this post?
To get some sympathy? To get attention? Absolutely not.
I thought it was to normalise feeling like this. Ending the stigma of mental health. But it’s not.
Although I’d like that, and that is really important, why don’t we try harder to prevent it in the first place.
Be kinder to each other, look out for one another more. Check in on your friends more. Go out more. Spend time with each other.
We are all in the darkness at some point, let’s work harder to pull each other out.
