24. Is talking about your mental illness a sad thing?

Hello kind people!
I am back. At least, for now. I'm not making any promises.

I'm almost 24 now and I do feel quite old. 

I've grown quite a lot over the past two years I think. I certainly learned a lot. Like, how to be confident. At least a bit. How to be honest and open to people in real life, not just on the internet. 

People are still quite scary, but ever since I started taking medication for my social anxiety disorder, I've started talking to them more. The people. Not all of them, of course, just some of them. 

And these moments when I reach out to people are probably my favourite moments in my life. 

Even if my anxiety often still scolds me afterwards. Who cares. I scold her, too, sometimes. Millie, the anxiety. Millie doesn't go away when I've done the scary thing. Millie says unkind things to me for a long time after I've done the scary thing. But Millie is often quiet, too. Which didn't use to be the case, so I'm grateful for that.

I can't seem to help talking about my mental health. I don't set out to, but I suppose it's a pressing issue that needs to get out. I do feel guilty about it. I don't want people to feel worse because of me. So I try to keep conversations about it to a minimum. The problem is that even that minimum seems to be way too much. And, I mean, I get it. No one wants to talk about sad stuff. Because that's what it feels like to people. They feel sad, and they feel helpless, and of course they don't want to feel that way, because why the hell would they??

But for me talking about it and having people listen is incredibly empowering. I can't even tell you quite why. Perhaps because I like to be taken seriously. Perhaps because sometimes I think I've just imagined my anxiety, or that it's completely normal. Which would mean I would have to deal with it on my own, and there would be no help. 

Hearing what Millie is telling me outside of my head, getting someone's perspective, talking through it with someone non-judgemental, all of that is very empowering and beneficial to me. And no, that is not the job of a therapist. 

I mean, it is. But you can't just go to a therapist and be cured. That's not how life works. That's like going to a hospital for a broken leg, and they fix it, but you don't get crutches, nobody picks you up and also you have to build your own bed in the forest out of rocks and wet leaves because nobody's there to help.

This might not be the greatest comparison. 

But you get what I mean. You need people. You need trusting relationships. 

Also there's a lot of terrible therapists in the field. And even ones that are good just don't work for everyone. The notion that if someone has therapy everything is fine and you have no responsibility for their mental health is incredibly naive.

Don't get me wrong. As a friend or family member you are not responsible for someone's mental health. But you do have a responsibility for it. Meaning that if somebody's mental health decreases, it is - of course! - not your fault. But also meaning that if you choose to be someone's friend, you don't get to back out of the bad parts. If your friend tells you they're struggling you don't get to say 'but you have a therapist :) ' and go back to talking about Grey's Anatomy.

But there's another point I am trying to make. Of course when people share their struggles with you it can be tough. Especially if you care about them. You want them to be happy. But to me, people telling me bad stuff happening in their lives does  not make me sad. And I guess I know why that is. 
I don't feel powerless. 

I guess somebody who has never dealt with mental illness suddenly eye to eye with a struggling friend feels like I would if somebody told me:

'We're on a football field. All the players have died in a mysterious fire. You need to score the final goal or we will be eternally doomed.'

This makes more sense if you know that I know less about football than Trump knows about kindness -

well, maybe not quite. No need to be drastic. 

What I mean is that when I encounter someone with a mental health related problem, I know most of what to avoid, I know what could possibly help, and I am not afraid of the deep and dark mysterious, because it's not that deeply and darkly mysterious to me. 

And - which is why I'm not sad - I know that even if I just listen and do nothing else, the person next to me will still be better off than they were five minutes ago. And that's what's important to me in that situation. So, in a way, these types of situations make me not sad, not scared - but kind of happy. 

You don't need a psychology degree to be helpful.

You don't need to have struggled yourself to be helpful.

You don't need to read and analyse ever letter of the ICD-10 or the DSM-5 to be helpful.

You don't need to cure anyone.

You don't need to find any solutions.

You just need to sit and listen.

And that will always be enough.