“Hashtag Mental Health”

[Raw and unedited thoughts.]

I am not a professional regarding this subject, and I’d advise you, dear reader, to seek detailed information about it.

Whenever I scroll down any of my socials, I would come across at least a single post related to issues about mental health. Some of the posts draw a warm smile in my heart, make me feel proud about sharing the same air with that beautiful soul. And there are other ones that are examples of good marketing.

Now, I know this might be another essay on this subject (it might even be a not well-written essay), but why not take a chance and let it be there. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there? (My mind is still all over the place on how I am going to approach the title I have bestowed this essay).

I had once read, “There are at least seven billion human beings on the face of this planet, and every single person is experiencing today differently.” Besides it sobering me with the fact of our insignificance, it made me sonder—made me realize the fact that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as mine. And even though globalization is making the earth smaller, I believe we still have our own ways of approaching things. Our bodies might react to medications in similar ways, but our minds… I think our minds react to the treatments in different ways. Aldous Huxley puts it like this: “We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes.”

Now, understanding this, truly understanding this, would make us more easy-going with ourselves. We tend to compare ourselves with people who are doing better than us (actually with people who we see are doing better than us). [I said that because they are for sure thinking there is someone that is relatively better than them too.] Understanding what it means to have a different perspective gives us a whole new platform to shine with our true colors. You know you don’t measure volume using a metric ruler; you don’t measure “you” with “them”. Your minds are different.

Now let’s have few words about the media. The media did good (and bad) regarding mental health. It did raise awareness about the topic, which is definitely very brilliant. I believe it had opened a way for educating people about the subject. But it also raised controversies about it. I mean, we live in a time where depression is an aesthetic, OCD is being clean, and anxiety is caring too much…

Yes, this collection of sentences might sound like the author is trying to do the whole issue justice, but that is not the case. It is just another perspective, another reflection. The author knows that she, even if she wants to, cannot redeem the affected, she cannot point out solutions to end the dilemma. But she hopes that someday we’ll truly understand the topic thoroughly. She hopes that someday we (humanity) would learn how to empathize and understand each other.

Let me once again shift back from the third-person and close this random message with few words. Even if we’re experiencing this differently, we really are in this together. Go easy on yourself. And most of all, educate yourself.

(hugs)