Reasons for Secrets

There is a reason that more and more we are hearing about escalating suicide rates. Just yesterday my hometown newspaper had a front page story about record high rates in our county. There are numerous contributing factors, but I think the biggest one is attitude. Our society's attitude towards mental illness has begun to change, but not enough. We still judge, stereotype and cringe when we hear "mental illness". People who suffer these conditions feel embarrassed and ashamed to come forward and ask for help. In some cases, like mine, they don't even know their condition exists and is treatable, and they simply thing they're genuinely going crazy and are terrified of being found out.

In most cases, people who have depression, anxiety, or any other type of mental health issue, keep it a secret. We don't tell anyone what's wrong, we don't ask for help, and most of all we never speak of the dark times when death seems like the only option. There are a lot of reasons for this, and everyone's are different, but for the most part it boils down to the fact that we don't want to be treated differently.

I don't want to be handled with kit gloves, or be treated like a fragile child who can't handle life. I'm me. I'm an adult. I can handle the things life throws at me, its just that sometimes they're harder for me to handle than the average person. Yes, I am different, but I'd rather suffer silently and be treated like a normal person, than a "normal" person.

For me personally, there was always one specific fear that haunted me about telling the world I had depression. I felt like if I told people, I wouldn't be able to be in control of my emotions. I feared not being able to just be sad or have a bad day, because people would jump to the conclusion that I was in some deep depression funk. I had flashes in my mind of people saying things like "you're not gonna kill yourself, are you?" any time that I wasn't deliriously happy. When the average person is having a bad day, people just say "oh yeah I get it" or "it'll get better". But when someone like me has a bad day it becomes a crisis and people start googling the suicide hotline number.

When someone is sad, just let them be sad, or angry, or frustrated. Let everyone, depressed or not, be free to have emotions. No one is happy all the time, but making a big deal about someone being unhappy, or worse telling them to stop it or cut it out, is not helpful. It succeeds only in furthering the belief that we need to constantly fake joy. When we create a culture where it is considered okay and normal to feel and have genuine emotions, we are empowering people to take care of themselves.