Recovery will always be a process that you can never set a timeline for. One minute, you can have the biggest smile on your face, and the next minute, you can be on the verge of a mental breakdown. For people with mental disorders like anxiety, depression, or even addiction, they can never anticipate what the day will bring to them. And if you deal with one, two, or all of the above you never know where your mind will lead you.
We all have good days, and we all have bad days. The thing is, not many people know when we are having those bad days. As someone who has struggled with anxiety and depression since the age of 15, I understand that getting through the day is a mission in itself.
There are times where your mind will wander to such a dark area that you never even knew existed. Then there are days like today, where I'm sitting here, still anxious, but I feel in control
What's happening on the outside is very different from what's happening on the inside.
Let's take on social media for example. You log onto Twitter, Facebook, or whatever platform you use and you see pictures of friends and mutual friends with their candid photos of them laughing with the caption "Living my absolute best life." A week later, you come to find out that the girl you thought was living her best life, no longer has a life because she committed suicide.
From this point on, you see people that she never even knew commenting things like, "She seemed so happy! What happened?", or "I always saw her smiling and laughing. I never expected this from her."
That's because none of us ever know what is going on behind closed doors. As much as you may think you do, at the end of the day, we all fall asleep in our own bodies with our own minds. How could you possibly think you know what's going on in someone's head.
The girl that committed suicide dealt with anxiety and depression. As much as she wanted to get help, what mattered more to her was her popularity and the number of likes she got on a social media post. Her life was less valued than her standard of popularity.
Popularity can be scary – especially on social media. There are even celebrities that, believe it or not, are actually human beings too. It must be hard for them to handle the extremes they have to go through to maintain their popularity.
Demi Lovato, among many other celebrities, tries to uphold her name and her brand, but after a few weeks ago, she lost it.
As a die-hard fan of her since the days of "As The Bell Rings" and "Camp Rock," hearing the news of her overdosing and being in critical condition because of it was very disheartening. You look up to someone because you admire them for all of the good that they've done. If it weren't for her, I don't even think I would be alive today. She was the one that gave me hope for my recovery. If it weren't for her I don't even think I would've ever had the confidence to go to therapy and get myself together.
As horrible as it is that she's in this condition, it shows the world that she's human and that she messes up just like the rest of us. Because she's a human being, she also lives a life that we know nothing about. When she puts the microphone down and picks up the bottle to drink away the pain, we don't know that she's doing that. We don't see her suffer.
We don't see the true sufferings people really go through because all we get is what people want to give. We all have our own demons that no one in the world will ever know about and that we will take to our grave. It's time to start showing more compassion for others instead of just assuming that everything and everyone is fine and that everything will be okay. But, that's the thing.
Things are not always okay.
Start showing that you care for someone when they mention something they're going through. Stop judging people for what they're doing because their mind is in so much pain. Mental health is something that we all need to be aware of whether you have a disorder or not.
If you or someone you know is having a hard time with any mental disorder, or if something seems off, the best thing you can do is to be their friend and give them the help they need. You just might save their life one day.
