I’m not brave.

Firemen are brave.
Malala Yousafzai is brave.
Lightning McQueen is brave.
I probably shouldn’t compare them. Only one of them managed to purposely lose the Piston Cup championship and still put Radiator Springs back on the map.

Last week I published a blog post about my mental health. It was pretty personal. It dealt with some dark shit. It featured a picture which included my nipples.  That’s not brave to me.

The thing about mental health, and no, I don’t want to be someone who is solely known for speaking out about their psychological well-being, is that it is the same as physical health. It’s intrinsically linked. It’s all in the same body. In my case, it’s all me.

When someone has an accident, and breaks their leg, they aren’t brave. It’s just something that happens. They talk about it and people sign their cast and in time they get better and it’s something of an anecdote. They might feel twinges of pain in the same area. They may even break it again as there’s a pronounced weakness there, but there’s nothing brave in them telling others that they have broken their leg.

It’s okay to ask me about my injuries. I’m open to conversations about it. Others might not be so it’s always best to tread lightly and gauge the reaction.

That aside, I am so grateful to everyone who took the time to read my post last week. The comments and messages I got as a result were incredibly overwhelming. The more I can do to encourage others to talk about mental health then the better I am doing as a writer on the subject. The private messages I received from friends who I didn’t know were going through hard times were incredibly touching and I remain completely available to anyone who wants to talk anything through.

You are not alone in this and I am not going anywhere.

Thank you again for your displays of affection,. My little blog didn’t know what had hit it.