It was International Women’s Day a few days ago. A friend asked me what women have shaped my life and what women I inspire to be like. Feeling quite stereotypical, I told her that my mother, the women who helped raise me, and various women in society have shaped my life thus far, and hopefully, will continue to. But I forgot about a woman who has only been in my life for two years, a woman who I only saw on Tuesdays for an hour at a time. I forgot about you, the woman who saved me.
I was a broken 16-year-old when we first met. I was scared, lost, and really any other adjectives used to describe a young girl who thought her life was over. You were calm, collected, and ready to help me figure myself out. I’ll admit, I didn’t trust you. In my defense, I didn’t trust anybody, but I really didn’t trust you. And it freaked me out. You had such kind eyes and you gave me all the space I needed, yet I was still so unsure.
The reason I was unsure? The stigma of mental health, the ultimate culprit of why I had spent years wallowing in misery before seeking help. It was in the way my friends spoke about how uncomfortable they felt about depression or the negative reactions to celebrities admitting that they found help. So I plastered a smile on my face and kept walking because I was scared of what people would say if they ever found out I was struggling the way I was.
We spent days talking about my journey into feeling the way that I was currently feeling. You asked nothing but small questions, encouraging me to explain my story on my own, and never jumped to conclusions. It took days to get through five years of my life because I spent the first picking and choosing just what I would disclose to you, even though you were adamant on me knowing that I had your full trust and privacy.
But there was always that stigma that held me back. In an article in Psychology Today, a survey found that “respondents believed that people with mental health problems were generally hard to talk to…regardless of their age, regardless of what knowledge they had of mental health problems, and regardless of whether they knew someone who had a mental health problem.” How could I possibly combat this? How could the (far over) hundreds of thousands of people in the United States alone combat this stigma? It was a miracle I was sitting in a room, speaking with, someone who had specialized in helping people like me out, when a majority of people believe that someone like me, was hard to talk to and hard to help.
I was not dangerous to anybody but myself. And even then, I was only a danger to my own thoughts and the positivity that I wanted in my life. Yet, in the same article, respondents believed "that people with mental health problems were dangerous.” How is that true? Of course, there always exceptions to everything, and there are people with mental health problems that can become dangerous. But me? A 16-year-old girl who had let a bout of anxiety and depression became an issue for a few years? How could I possibly be dangerous?
As the days of speaking about the past ended, the days of talking about how to solve these past issues began. More than ever, I was feeling the effect the discomfort of talking about my issues and solving them. It was just a known thing in my life that I never really talked about things like that to my friends or my family because I always felt so ashamed and so unsure of who would listen to me. The funny thing about feeling bad about yourself is that you are always second guessing if you’re making the bad feelings up or not. Part of me, even though every day I felt like I was dragging myself around and not enjoying the things I used to, wondered if I was making up these bad feelings for attention. I’d seen so many essays written about anxiety and depression and the lot, so many posts on Twitter that adamantly refused to believe that people really could feel extremely bad about themselves and not know what they were doing.
The stigma towards mental health must end and it must end now. Too often, people are too afraid to reach out for help and the consequences can be fatal. Mental health has wormed its way into becoming a topic that people are too afraid to talk about. Even most politicians do not want to branch out and have the important conversation of how to take care of mental health rights in the United States. The next generations must come together to make sure that mental health rights and care remain a conversation that is had throughout the country, or nothing will ever happen. And when I met you, I knew that I would want to be a part of this change.
Through everything, the long pauses, the times that I wouldn’t let myself cry, the things that I pretended I didn’t need to say, you stuck through with me. You listened, you understood, you cared. You completely changed my perception of receiving help from specialists. You completely changed my mind about the way I viewed mental illness. And you completely changed the way I looked at myself. Thank you for sticking with me through all those times. I know you were paid to sit and listen and offer advice, but hearing it from you, I knew you meant every word that you said. And I know that you’ll always be on my side.
Thank you, from a now 19-year-old young woman who sees the best things about herself and her future.
*If you are ever worried about reaching out for help, know that there are others who are worried about doing the same. Your mental health is never something to be ashamed of and it is never something you feel you have to hide from those who care about you. Getting help was the best decision of my life. Let it be yours as well.
