I've gotten to some libraries before and purchased Carrie Fisher's book, The Princess Diarist, as I admire her for the job she did as a mental health advocate and writer. She was a human who did so much, who made so much, and still, I believe she never truly realized the impact she had. Because you stand here, or on paper, or in a conference, or in a conversation, and come clean. And describe all your symptoms and the ways you've found to survive, the ways you've managed to stay on float. But you never know, you truly never get to see if it impacts one human, or 10, or 80, or if it's just your private personal way of trying to survive through writing.
You never know if you are getting to people you'll probably never, ever meet, or if the person you went to high school truly needed those words because your stories are more alike that you imagined.
I am in no way comparing to Carrie Fisher, truly. Believe me, she had some courage and her humorous way to place her addictions and bipolarity out there is just fascinating. She transmits you this thing of feeling that you can truly be an amazing human who achieves great stuff and that your condition makes you fascinating, not shameful or deserving of hiding in a closet, institution, or under a mask.
That truly happens with mental health activists. You stand there and read a quote by Jamie Tworkowski or Matt Haig or Carrie Fisher or many, many more, and it just strikes. You feel identified, you feel that's your story, you feel that would be yourself if you just had a little more guts, or balls, or whatever... You listen to Andrew Solomon on his Ted talks and you say "If only I could. If only my story was THAT". And to be honest, the truth is that those people I really admire and look up to are just patients like us, people who decided that their story was worth saving and worth sharing. And they did, and they changed stories like mine. They inspired couple, or dozens, or tens, or whatever, to do the same. To pay it forward. To speak so others could speak and could see that we are all in the same level, playing the same game, with the same demons. We have absolutely no idea whatsoever what we are doing, we are just hoping to have a couple of strength, a couple of good moments now and there, a couple of strategies to be able to catch a breath in order to tell them to others. And to transmit that it'll be okay, even if it isn't okay we'll be together, and even if you feel lonely, you are not.
I've been writing for over a year now. 2017 was the year I discovered myself as a possible writer, and I saw it healed me more than many, many other things. I saw it brought me closer to other people. But the most significant thing ever was that it made me realize I have absolutely no idea about it. I'm a psychologist, and I've been symptomatic for the 23 years I have. I've been in the patient world since 6 and a half years ago. So yeah, I have experience and knowledge. But the more you get in touch with yourself, with your own self discovery and healing, the more stories you write and read, the more you see you still have whole world to discover ahead of you. And the most beautiful thing of all is to know that you're in a world, in a field, in which you have no idea if you changed one, ten, or one hundred stories. You could have saved people, or you could have made them lost their faith on humanity, that's the magic of writing honest, raw stories about the mind.
And does it really matter? We are humans, so somehow I'm gonna be honest and say we would love to have a count and a check that says if we are useful to others. But we can't, sorry. This is a job (A job truly?) in which you can only hope that your story has been meaningful by helping others. The best, at least, and the only certainty you've got, is that you've helped yourself along the way. Certainly, I know I have.
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