I had a bad day yesterday. It prevented me from writing about what I had intended writing about. Instead, I just tried to describe some of the feelings I was having. I didn’t think it was very good, but a bunch of people reached out with words of support. That was nice even though it wasn’t my goal. I’m feeling better today probably, at least in part, from the words of support. As I was thinking about what to write today to continue the mental health conversation I’m trying to have, I realized there’s problem. Not just with today’s post, but it’s part of why the conversation is hard in general. I probably should have included it in my two–parter except I hadn’t thought of it then. That’s quite the preamble to get to my point, but here goes: When I’m feeling better, I’m not eager to spend a lot of time dwelling on what it felt like when I was feeling bad.
I don’t want to read too much into this. It’s perfectly natural to want to avoid painful things. But, if conversation is required to fix problems, we need to face those painful things at some point. That’s the conundrum. I’m pretty sure distance is the solution. The further away the painful experience is, the easier it is to talk about. Yesterday is still a bit too close. So, for the next few days, I’ll probably stay away from personal experiences altogether. There are plenty of other mental health related things to talk about. We can see how I’m feeling over the weekend or next week.
How’s that sound? Since I’ll be looking for some less personal things to talk about, any requests?
