There are many thoughts swirling around my head right now. Thoughts of what I want to write about. I've thought about writing about depression, resiliency, or the importance of mental health awareness. For some reason, the news of Robin Williams' death really hit hard for me. I'm not sure if it's because he's someone famous that I have grown up with watching on the big screen that was apparently dealing with mental health issues or what it exactly was but for some reason when I heard the news, I was hit with a wave of unexpected sadness. I went on Facebook after the girls had gone to bed last night and my newsfeed was exploding with the news, people talked about the impact he made on people's lives and some even posted about the importance of mental health awareness. Even myself, as the events that have occurred have caused me to replace a post about baby wearing to a post about mental health. While I think the posts are a great way to promote mental health awareness, it saddens me that it takes a tragedy to get people talking about the importance of mental health. But on the other hand, what if this is the perfect opportunity to talk about it, because sometimes as humans we do get so stuck in our own stuff that it takes something BIG to jolt ourselves out of it? In the times of tragedy, people may be more receptive to talking about mental health and its impact on society. Unfortunately when a tragedy does occur it makes it REAL to people whereas it can be an issue that's sort of "out there" for people, out of sight, out of mind. Something like- if it doesn't affect me at this very moment, I'm not going to worry about it kind of thing?
Every. single. day. people are fighting struggles that we know little about. To the person bagging your groceries to the quiet girl sitting in your office. Everybody has a story. At least for me, sometimes I can get caught up in the small stuff. When things like a death occur, it really reminds me of the grand scheme of things. The important stuff. Sometimes, we can get so caught up in our own "stuff" that we forget to look around and notice other people's "stuff." Or even when we do notice, we aren't sure what to do to help.
I wrote a
post about how things aren't always as they seem and that post really seems true in this moment. I talked briefly about things that I am slowly working on and getting out in the open and thankfully, have the support of friends and family as well as other protective factors in place to do so safely. Others aren't so lucky. So, please take the time to not only take care of yourself but be aware of your friends and family member's mental health- there are
signs, you just have to know what to look for!
