Journal entry No. 1 - Mental Health
Invisible Condition Journal Entry No. 1. I talk about mental health, sharing our stories, and killing the stigma that surrounds mental health in order to be comfortable reaching out for support.
Transcript
Hey, Tim here, host of the Invisible Condition podcast, a show where we talk about unusually normal things. Every Wednesday, I'm going to release an episode with a guest. This guest might be somebody who lives with an invisible condition, could be a caregiver, could be a healthcare professional. But the goal of every episode every week is not just to leave you inspired, but to provide a platform for somebody to share their story and to share how we can collectively kill the stigma that surrounds sharing about our invisible conditions.
I've decided every Friday, I want to send out just a personal note. I'm gonna call it the invisible condition journal. So today is going to be journal entry number one. Now the goal with this journal entry is, I've got a lot of thoughts swirling around my mind. When I wake up in the morning, when I go to bed at night, I dive into some deep research and I may be triggered by something I see online and I'm looking for an outlet to share. So.
Bear with me. My goal is to make these little audio video notes less than 10 minutes, super digestible. But the goal is to start a conversation, maybe to challenge your thoughts, maybe to invite you to share. So today I'm feeling extremely grateful and overwhelmed. I'm grateful because of the community that has been created and is being
created to support invisiblecondition.com. I'm also overwhelmed because I shared a very personal note on LinkedIn. A note about my son and I may get choked up. I may get a little teary eyed here because it's a real post and it's a real story and one that we're still navigating and trying to figure out how to navigate.
Now for the record, I didn't share it just to get likes and clicks and comments. I shared it because honestly, I'm just tired of hiding behind the stigma that surrounds sharing about our mental health. My son is 10 and he's battling something fierce to the point where he has said that he's not happy, that he's depressed. Hhe doesn't laugh anymore.
And when I shared on LinkedIn, I didn't know what was going to happen, but the outpouring of support has been incredible. But not only support, others have shared about their personal journey, dealing with anxiety and depression. Parents have shared that they're dealing with the same thing. We're not alone. And the point is, is that we don't need to carry these burdens, these struggles by ourselves.
Imagine that we could walk into our workplace or schools and show up as our true authentic self, bring our whole self to work and stop answering how are you question with the canned answer of good. But what if we answer authentically and true?
Wow. That's a place I want to be. That's a school system I want to raise my kids in. That's a society I just want to be part of.
I read a stat about mental health this week as I'm releasing this in November and it's Movember for those who don't know what that is. It's a collective support for men's mental health as well as different cancers. And one of the stats here in Canada says of 4,000 suicides a year, 75% of those are men. Every single year.
So we need to talk about this. Young boys need to be able to express how they're feeling.
Men of all ages need to express how they're feeling and be able to reach out and share authentically and share without judgment and that fear of judgment. Because I know firsthand that it's scary to share. But I also know that I am here today because I shared.
Many years ago, I woke up one morning and said to myself that, that it's it. This is it. So my last day on earth.
I cleaned up my place, sorted out some affairs, wrote some notes and started driving.
Well, there's a lot to the story, but I'm here today because I ended up in a place that invited me to share, and truly by the grace of God that I'm here today. I have no other way to explain it.
So if you're listening to this, maybe you're driving to work, maybe you're out for a walk, maybe you're at work, wherever you are.
There might be somebody carrying a burden that is really, really heavy.
What if we invited people to share?
And there's so much fear wrapped around sharing, isn't there? Being vulnerable is scary.
There's fear of judgments, fear of losing friends, fear of losing jobs, fear of not getting hired because of vulnerable shares, but.
That's not a place that I want to be part of. I want to be a place where it's okay to share, to not feel judged.
to even simply say, I'm not doing well today. Not really prepared to talk about it. And I just want to get my work done, but thank you for checking in. Simple as that. We don't need to push. We don't need to prod. We don't need to pry. It's not our place.
But what is our place is.
to open up our minds, our hearts, our arms, and embrace in some cases.
and to let people know that we do care and that we don't need to carry what's on our hearts and our minds by ourselves.
And I think about the purpose of invisible condition. And, you know, we're here to talk about unusually normal things. Mental health is.
I don't know the word to use, but it is prevalent in our society, in our schools, in our churches, in our, in our workplaces. And I don't know the answers. I'm not a doctor, not an expert. I'm an advocate. What I can tell you is that I'm here to listen if you need someone to share. If you need somebody to lean on, if you need somebody to talk with, reach out to me.
Connect with me through the website, visiblecondition.com and the connect tab. Find me on LinkedIn.
And I'm here to listen. Okay. Don't carry that burden alone.
So with that, this is my first journal entry. Every Friday, it's gonna be a different topic, something that's the top of mind for me for the week or for the day or for the month that I just want to get off my heart and maybe challenge a little bit. So think of this, is there someone who you're spending life with, a friend, a colleague that you think might be carrying a burden?
How can you support them today?
If you're carrying a burden, what's preventing you from reaching out to someone and sharing?
So with that, I encourage you to think about that and stay tuned for next Friday and for the next ramblings of my mind in my next journal entry. Thanks for tuning in.
