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I recently decided to get professional help. I have always felt embarrassed and would rather just go on and off medication over the years, than admit that I might need more than that. After all, I am strong, and getting help will mean admitting that I am weak. Also the stigma regarding mental health and being a normal functioning member of society does not fit together. If people found out, it would have major implications on my career, how would my “clients” respond? It would be perceived that I am incompetent to perform my duties. So I twisted the truth slightly and then embarked on the journey of a lifetime. After all, no one will ever know.
Well, as life would have it, that is not how things work. On my most recent check up to see my Psychiatrist, fate would ensure that I bump into one of my ex clients in the waiting room. I was flustered as he asked me what I was doing there. While looking for an answer while my brain is going thru something resembling a wild fire and electrical short, I manage to change the focus from me and ask what he was doing there instead. Seeing the anguish on his face at the realization that he needs to answer me, I found my purest fake smile, and while wiling the floor to give way from underneath me, said; “I am here to see my Doctor, for my post discharge appointment”. Because, in that previous moment I forgot everything I had learned, I had again become part of the problem as to why Mental Illness is such a taboo subject.
I opened up about what I have been dealing with, expectantly, he was taken aback as that is not the person I portray to be. But it allowed a space in which he could be open and honest with someone, that like him is wearing a mask, because we need to be the people that society expects us to be. To, with someone familiar, in a safe and non judgmental space, be vulnerable.
This path that I have been on has allowed me to meet people from all walks of life. It has opened up my eyes to the people around me, people who seem to have their shit together. Yet I cannot help but wonder, what is your story?
“The people we surround ourselves with either raise or lower our standards. They either help us to become the – best – version – of – ourselves or encourages us to become lesser versions of ourselves. We all need people in our lives who raise our standards, remind us of our essential purpose, and challenge us to become the – best – version – of – ourselves”. -Matthew Kelly
