I mentioned a few weeks ago I didn’t know what my purpose for blogging was any more. Then on Sunday I wrote about the one year anniversary of trying to kill myself and in five days it has become the third most popular post I’ve ever written.
It has become so popular because I took the unusual step of choosing to post it as a thread to the company yammer network for almost 6,000 people to see. People queried whether I thought it was a wise idea to share something so personal directly with the people who have power over my career. Once again my thought process was, ‘stuff it, this is who I am’.
I am inordinately glad that I did share it with my colleagues. Because since I have done so a conversation has started within the company. People have started to share their own stories on the thread and I have received a huge number of emails, messages and comments from other people grateful to know they are not alone.
Over the last five days I have had more conversations with people about mental health and how it affects us all than I have had in my life to date. I have discovered how similar we all are when it comes to this battle and how important it is that we know we’re not alone.
I have started to think about my depression and myself in a different way and been grateful for the empathy that it provides me. I want to continue to have these conversations because I think that it helps me to deal with it and feel like I am in control of what is happening.
I’m still scared about all of this and I still have the critical voice echoing in my head saying things like, ‘Why are you doing this? No one will ever love you, you’re worthless’.
I’m just trying harder to shut it down and remember the good I can make happen. I realise that for some people this might all be a bit too much information but I’ve decided I’m dropping the filters. It’s important that we see that other people have the same thoughts and feelings as us. That we’re not freaks, our similarities are far more prevalent than our differences.
