july goals, crushed them. i’m down six pounds, my body fat percentage is down 12%. i feel good about the progress, i feel like i’m getting somewhere. i’m happy with july. already tackling august, trying some new things, allowing my body to rest when it needs to. today though, i’d like to talk about something different.
i’m not here to idol worship and talk about how much robin williams changed my life. he didn’t, i never met the man. i loved his movies, i watched his stand-up, and loved it. i will miss that, but eventually we will all move on. like we all do after death.
what impacts me the most about his death is how it identifies how little the nation (and the world) know about mental illness and mental health. i heard a lot of people say “why would he be depressed?!” “he had so much money/fame” and statements similar to that.
depression, and other mental illnesses, can impact every one. black, white, brown, rich, poor, middle class, blue collar, foreign, american, male, female, transgendered, gay, lesbian, straight, whatever. money, fame, education, social status, economic status, religion, sexual preference, doesn’t mean you won’t be affected by mental illness. you will. those things don’t change how the brain works. it doesn’t change how you process emotions and deal with them.
i would hope that if anything positive comes out of this tragic death, it’s that we take away the stigma of mental illness. going to therapy, taking meds, having any sort of psychiatric care doesn’t make one weak. it makes them crazy strong. they were able to identify that some thing wasn’t working for them and they sought out help. when you have a headache, you take aspirin. when you have diabetes, you take insulin. when your leg is broken, you get a cast. we don’t look at them as weak people. we shouldn’t look at people with mental illness as weak either.
and if you’re reading this and you’ve dealt/dealing with something, remember that you matter. your story matters. i’ve dealt with depression on and off for a lot of my life. i go to therapy and i have amazing people in my life who remind me that i am important. if you need that, please find it. please. a bad chapter doesn’t mean your story needs to end. people care about you. and they want to see you tomorrow. this world needs people like you, who have the power to make things different. it’s going to be hard, don’t be afraid of the struggle. don’t be afraid to ask for help.
for others, we need to be there. i know life moves fast. however, with everything that is going on in the world, we need to be there for each other. from st louis to israel/gaza to iraq to human trafficking to everything in between, the world is hard enough. we are built for relationships. we are built for bonds. smile at someone, let someone know you care about them. you never know how it make change the course of their day, week, or life.
your story matters.