07/30/2021
When we break our leg, our friends run to sign our cast and help us hobble along until we are well…hoping we won’t have a lasting injury.
Mental health is often an invisible injury/ailment/disease/illness…have you ever been broken on the inside, but smiling to cover your pain and shield yourself from the questions, the looks, the judgement?
When our soul and every ounce of our being is broken in ways most can’t and won’t ever see, ways we may never fully understand ourselves, our injury/illness/disease is cloaked from the public eye. It takes courage, trust, strength, and true grit to open up…to talk…to admit we are hurt, broken, lost, scared, confused. Why is there shame in what is so often a solitary, lonely, isolated injury? Why do we not run to others to share our strength, walk beside them, lift them up when they most need it?
Who remembers Robin Williams? Who will never forget Robin Williams? Did you know he was hurt? Could you see it? Did he do an amazing job masking his pain? Hiding his pain? Shielding his pain? Stuffing his pain deep inside? His humor was a gift to millions. How many of those millions were experiencing a pain similar to his…for different or similar reasons…with different or similar stories? He was a professional…he was a human being…and he was hurt…on the inside.
We all have our story, and we all have our pains…some are visible…many are not. Some of us heal…some build around it…some hide it…some try to bury or forget it…some of us have a brain that will physically block it to protect ourselves…but who knows if it is ever gone/better/healed/healthy…who knows who/what/when/where it might slowly bubble back to the surface or completely explode and shatter everything around it without any warning at all. Will we be there to help pick up the pieces? Will we walk around the mess, trying to avoid it? Will we pretend it isn’t there…or isn’t real? What will you do? We all have a choice…every day and with every person. Will you run to sign their cast?
Let’s remember kindness. Who are we to project, judge, question, shame, doubt, gossip…especially when someone’s pain is flashed across televisions, computer screens, phone screens, newspaper for millions to see? Are you walking in their steps? Could you? Would you?
Mental health is often an invisible injury/ailment/disease/illness. We don’t have to know about it…understand it…and no two people will ever be alike. If you don’t understand it…that is your gift…but it makes it no less real for those who are suffering…so often in silence.
