Silence Kills, Speak Up

Silence is more powerful on our world and our society than many of us citizens may even realize. Though silence can happen in many different scenarios. To explain one:

One person in the scene is one side and the other person is the one suffering with a mental illness and the first person acts and responds with conversations with the other person in ways that aren’t open, supportive, kind, understanding, non-judgemental when it comes to honesty and care.

If you want someone to be honest with you about things that happen to them and in their life, healthy communication is important. Communication is the key to healthy relationships along with honesty, and all else that comes with being supportive, kind, caring, understanding. So if you don’t do what you need to give others in a relationship (as explained a few) the relationship won’t be healthy nor what you want it to be if not only you but the other person doesn’t pull their end in the relationship to make things work.

To make things in conversation healthier, supportive, understanding, caring, compassionate and more when it comes to expressing or showing that we care about others who we spend our time with. If you really care about them, you would give them all the time to be heard, to say what they need to say and hope that you will give them the response or outcome they want from you. What they want is for you to be caring and even if you don’t understand the experiences they are sharing with you and the info/facts, try asking to clarify them differently.

Listen and ask. That’s one of the 5 steps to ending the stigma around mental illness. Listening to someone’s experience being expressed or shared with you and asking for clarification on any facts they have shared with you that you don’t understand, but once they have at least finished speaking about it. Or if they stop in the middle to check if you are understanding what they are sharing with you.

I believe that the lack of understanding, self control, emotional intelligence and the little acts of selflessness to learn about other people’s experiences without judgment: being mindfully present in the moment; is what the ingredients with this stigma. The stigma where society acts in the opposite of what our society should be treating and caring about those who live with mental illnesses, addictions and eating disorders.

But as much as society may be to continue repeating the past or history of the stigma around mental illness, yet mental health overall; I believe that we can only inspire others in our society to care a little more about others and not so much about themselves. Yeah we all should care for ourselves and we even need a mental health day once in a while, but that’s no excuse to be selfish when it comes to others who need to be understood, heard and treated with the respect, and proper treatment that they all truly deserve!

We all deserve great things in life, and though we may not have the control over the circumstances in our lives but we do have control over our own self. As quoted by Rosa from Date My Dad:

“You cannot control how other people react, you can only control your own behaviour.”

Something I like to remind myself and others when in times of need. Anyway, I believe that we all can make some small changes that will lead to long lasting change! The challenge about this, is that you may be willing to step outside of your comfort zone and outside of what you know yourself and be open to new things, learning new things and much else!