You only cry for help if you believe there is help to cry for. Wentworth Miller

I never understood the suggestion that mental health, depression, anxiety, feeling suicidal etc. are a cry for help or attention seeking in some way. For me Wentworth Miller’s quote rings completely true, I felt that nobody could help me, so why would I reach out to anyone as the only thing I would gain from that would be becoming even more of an outsider than I already felt I was.

It was more important to me to hide what was really going on, so that people would assume I was fine. I wanted to deal with everything behind closed doors, hide my shame, hide what I thought was my failure. I had always come across as the strong one, the one that was never phased by anything, I wanted people to continue to think that so badly it got to the point where I was almost living a double life. The things that were going on in my head were concerning, and definitely suggested a need for help, but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t admit that something was wrong that maybe I was mentally suffering, it would have been an acceptance of weakness for me, I wanted to believe that if I could just keep pretending that I was fine, that I would be. Like some kind of strange Halo Effect.

Needless to say that didn’t work, and I ended up eventually seeking help and talking to someone about the thoughts I was having. This was after almost 5 years of struggling in silence, and even then it took me almost 6 months from having decided to talk to someone, to getting myself into that room. Even now, I haven’t been able to muster up the courage to go back, even though a part of me desperately wants to. I still struggle with those feelings of shame, of being a failure because my brain seems to slip into depressive thoughts so easily when all I want is to try and be positive. That’s why I have this blog, it’s my outlet, my alternative to talking about it vocally, because that’s still such a difficult topic to broach.

So, don’t assume that people who are struggling with mental battles are seeking attention in any capacity. You don’t know how long they have been suffering, you don’t know how much courage it might have taken that person to simply get to where they are.

Be kind to all and you won’t mistake the good ones for the so few that are faking.

Wentworth Miller