The Importance of Blasting Stigmas

I find it interesting. I'll be having a conversation with someone, most often someone new. The conversation will start out with common ground. Horses, or work, or even life experience. If we have more than just a passing encounter, the conversation may go a little deeper. I sometimes infuse it with some of the better things I am doing...my books, my music, and then a quick insert that I am working to build a platform in the self development world.

More often than not, people want to know more about this and dig a bit deeper to learn about my life experience that has led me here and to my current daytime occupation. We then might talk about their road, about their struggles with life and sanity and resiliency. But what I find interesting is, even when we've maybe talked about their own turmoil, the second I mention that I have had my own struggles with anxiety and depression, an invisible wall arises. I see it. The look on their face. Guarded, fearful.

All of a sudden, I've been painted with a different brush. All of a sudden, I've gone from strong, authoritative, helpful friend to unstable crazy person who has issues. Up to that point, there was no secret that I had issues and, in many cases, they themselves mentioned dealing with either anxiety, depression, or both. But, somehow, my admission invalidates anything I have said up to that point, or it's at least shifted the light.

How unfair.

My experiences with anxiety and depression over the last few months have opened my eyes to exactly what I want to help people through. And this - this repercussion of being honest about who I am and what I have been through - has reaffirmed my belief that there is definite need to dispel any kind of discomfort associated with these experiences and journeys. 

We cannot help these things. They are conditions. Psychological and physical conditions that we do not ask to be a part of. But they are only weaknesses if we and the people around us let them be. Does that mean they are easy to deal with? Heck no. But they could be easier to manage if we could approach them with no shame, realizing the challenge, and face them with compassion and care, both from ourselves and from the people around us.

Most of my favorite mentors have been through their own struggles. To me, this makes them even more qualified to help me through mine. They are beautifully flawed individuals who have seen the darknesses, been the darkness, and have come out light.

They are still susceptible to humanness, as we all are and will be for the rest of our lives. It is how we face these challenges and then overcome the falterings as we go. We stumble, we fall, we get up, we go again. We love, both the world and the people around us, and hopefully ourselves, enough to cherish it all. And if we find we are not living our best selves, we find help, hope for hope, find light, and help others to do the same.

So, maybe I will use that as a weeding out point. Someone who shies away from anyone, just because they have had differences and struggles, is either fearful or in a lack of admission about themselves. These experiences, in my opinion, are strengths. They build us into richer human beings when we emerge. We have tasted the fire, the darkness, the cold...and are then meant to help lead others through the terrain we've managed to manage. I am forever grateful that I have been given this wayward but ever powerful gift.