My Story

For my first official blog post, I would like to share something, really close to my heart and something I am deeply affected by. A lot of people don´t like to talk about it mainly because they have a feeling of being judged for their or it is generally inappropriate to talk about it. However, in my opinion we should all open and talk about it. The topic I am talking about is mental health. In my opinion, mental health is just one of the many topics a lot of people avoid talking about just like racial and gender inequality and other topics. To overcome these miscommunications and misinformation one must always talk about it. That´s what I have been told. Therefore, I am going to tell you a little bit about my interpretation of the mental health subject. Full disclosure, I am not a mental health professional and you are free to correct me if I am wrong.

A study done by the WHO reports that one in four people in the world will be affected by mental or neurological disorders at some point in their lives. Whether they are currently dealing with it, having already dealt with it, or will deal with it in the future. Think about it one in four. That´s 25% of the world population. You may think now that 25% is not a lot. However, considering that out of 7.5 billion people, that one billion eight hundred seventy-five million people have to deal with it, it´s a lot. Since we as human’s can´t comprehend big numbers let get back to the first statistic I found. One in four, that´s roughly the size of an average-sized family. When you go out or just look out your window (due to current circumstances) every fourth person you see on the street will be dealing with some kind of mental disorder. That´s a lot. Many people might not even realize that they are dealing with a mental disorder, which makes talking about this topic so hard for many. You may now hover your cursor over the "close tab" button because you thought you were reading about a person´s experience with mental health but until now, you only read about facts and numbers. Don´t worry I am getting to that. I just wanted to put into perspective that people dealing with mental health issues are not alone.

My "journey" on the mental health road has been full of ups and downs. For me, it honestly felt like downs only, because I could not see the ups. I am not saying that everyone will experience the same things because two people never will experience the same thing. They will experience similar things but not the same since we all experience the same experiences differently (mainly because we have different past experiences, our senses are differently "tuned" and our preferences are somewhat different). However, for me, I did not realize that I was suffering from a mental disorder, because I thought everyone is feeling the same way as I am. I never thought that I could be different and perceive the world differently. In addition, many people claim that they can show symptoms for a certain disorder, but never really be affected by that disorder. In my opinion, it is because showing a symptom does not mean that you have that disorder and the reason being that the severity of the symptom and duration of the symptoms are also factors playing major roles in that debate. Moreover, I never thought that the symptoms I showed were that severe until someone paused and asked me why I believe that. They then just suggested for me to seek help because I had no idea how much that disorder impacted my life until someone put that in perspective. And after realizing what I am impacted by, lifted a weight off my shoulder that I never know existed. That´s why in my opinion don´t seek help even though they are suffering from a disorder. Another reason might be that it may be considered as weak by their peers to admit an issue. A lot of people don´t seek help because they believe that a mental help profession might not help. Or they are just fine. A lot of reasons have stopped people from going to seek a mental health professional. For me personally, it was mistrust and lack of time. But once one seeks the help they need, their life might not be changed significantly, but at least put into perspective.

After spending hours thinking about mental health in general got me thinking of an example that can help me explain it better to myself. Make myself understand it better (if that makes sense). The object that helps me understand mental health is actually a funnel. Funny I know. But seriously think about it. Let´s imagine we are all people living somewhere on that funnel around the centre of the funnel. Some people live closer to the centre of the funnel and some people further away. It is not dependent on wealth, race, gender, etc... where they live on that funnel. Well if you consider the fact that, some people cannot seek help because of their lack of resources or their belief or their society. Then yes, some factors do influence where you live on that slippery slope and how slippery that slope can be. Some people with the least amount of danger of falling prey to mental health issues live on the rim of the funnel. Side note: please do note that I consciously decided that everyone lives within the funnel and nobody is outside of the funnel. Because we all show symptoms for certain disorders, but some are more severely affected by it and anyone can experience something suddenly that changes their mind-set completely. Therefore, no one is safe from mental disorders, since we are not fully in control of what we experience and what happens to us. Therefore, everyone lives in a funnel and the closer you live to the centre the more likely you are to fall in one day. Nevertheless, one can change their lifestyles by changing small things every single day to improve their mental health. One way is to, as mentioned, seek help. Since mental health, professionals are somewhat like a person living not too close to the centre who helps you up that slippery slope. Some people may actively self-destruct and move to the centre every day. However, some may be slipping down to the centre without them realizing it or without them wanting to. Once a person is close enough to the centre, a small gust of wind can push them over the edge into the deep endless pit. The pit feels like a dark and cold with nobody around to help and all one can do is continue falling, falling, falling... One can believe that they see the light at the end of a tunnel, but they will just keep falling. No one will realize that one may have fallen down that endless rabbit hole, but once they find out they want to help. However, if they are not mental health professionals, one will just pull him/her down with them. Therefore, if anyone should notice that someone they know has fallen down the rabbit hole, they should certainly need to ask the person in the endless pit to seek help. Since once you are in that endless rabbit hole it might feel like all hope is gone and the only choice is to end this misery, but that is not the case. With the statistic, I wanted to show that no one is alone in the fight against mental health and people want to help. Therefore, let people help before you fall into that cold dark pit.

Now you may think, "great thanks for that totally unnecessary metaphor we get it", but I only read this blog, because I am looking for inspiration and not a sob story. I am truly sorry for that pessimistic interpretation of mine with a ray of light at the end of the tunnel, but there is a reason why I am sharing this story with this interpretation. Firstly, I wanted to make people feel like they are not the only ones and encourage them to more openly talk about mental health. Furthermore, I wanted to show you that one could find inspiration with the oddest things and interpret particular topics with the craziest explanations. My goal of this blog to encourage readers to share their stories and their artworks without fear of being judged. I may not publish a post with my real name, but I shared my story and made my voice heard. The question is will you do the same?