With the strong presence of social media in our everyday lives, our actual everyday lives can be distorted. Someone who is depressed and can't get out of bed for the day, might post something that is really happy. Then, the people who read that, think everything is okay.
It's okay to not be okay.
No one expects you to have your whole life together by the age of 20. People of our generation are in such a hurry to get married and have babies, instead of building a life and a career for themselves.
As someone who struggles with perfection,control, anxiety and depression, this is a hard concept for me to grasp on a daily basis. Somedays it's literally all I can do to get out of the bed. You might be reading this and thinking:
"Why is she writing about her depression online?"
Well, why are you not?
At what point in our society did mental disorders gain such a negative connotation to where no one wants to talk about them? In a world where we share everything, why are we not sharing our personal stories about having a mental disorder? Are we afraid of judgment? Are we afraid of people looking at us differently? Or people feeling sorry for us?
Maybe, if we start talking about it more, then there would not be such a stigma attached to depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and other mental disorders. Maybe if we start talking about it, then the suicide rate will start to decrease because these people won't feel so alone and like they are the only ones going through this. Maybe if others became educated on these disorders and what they can do to people, then we wouldn't feel so bad for talking about them.
Maybe we need to learn that it's okay to not be okay.
We need to know that it's okay to cry.
We need to know that it's okay to struggle.
We need to know that there are others who are crying and struggling at the same time because we all have a common ground.
I challenge you to be transparent with your followers on social media, friends and family. If you are struggling, tell them. If you want a shoulder to cry on, tell them. If you feel like you are losing control, tell them. If you just want to talk, tell them that. Don't "act" like everything is okay, when you feel like you are dying inside.
You are entitled to feel exactly the way you are feeling.
No one can tell you how you are supposed to feel, but you can tell others how you feel. Tell others when you are not okay. Sometimes, all we need is someone to listen to us talk about how we aren't okay. For those of you who might not struggle with a mental disorder, be the "someone" that we talk to. No judgment, no criticism, just listen.
Let's #KillTheStigma with mental disorders and start talking about them and what they do to us.
