I’ve been interested in mental health advocacy for a few years now, but had been too nervous to actually talk about it with friends, or even just bring it up as a topic of discussion. I sat by and grit my teeth when others would use insensitive terms or made offensive jokes, feeling like my opinion or my own values didn’t matter to the larger community around me.
To be honest, I still kind of feel this way! But, at the very least, I want to throw my opinions out there in hopes that people know where I stand – in a non-confrontational way! Win-win! Right!
My life has brought me back to mental health many times over the past few years. I worked briefly at my college’s mental health counseling program and currently work for a mental-health adjacent software company. While I know that behavioral health in general still faces a general stigma, I never really held those opinions personally.
That said, I thought about going to therapy for a long time but never actually went for it. One of the reasons is that I didn’t actually know why I should get help or what the process actually looked like. Because of this, to start this series, I want to talk about my own experiences – read about them below!
