Several months ago, in the midst of working at a school that was performing feats of wonder to stay open during a pandemic, it came to my attention that most people don’t have an adverse reaction when the word “ventilator” comes up in casual conversation. Most people can talk about the concept of someone being put on a ventilator and then just move on to the next topic. And this is when it became abundantly clear to me that I am not most people.
When I hear that word, my throat gets tight and I start to feel what I can only describe as “out of it”, like my mind is trying to remove itself from the situation . I have very vivid memories of my parents standing next to my hospital bed explaining that my surgery had to be stopped due to a severe anaphylactic reaction, and not being able to ask any follow up questions due to the tube down my throat. Even though I am in a safe place now, my brain recalls a scary and dangerous time and sends signals to my body that the danger has returned, and my body responds accordingly, engaging it’s fight or flight response. Thanks to all of the training I’ve had about working in trauma informed settings, I was able to determine that this response I was having was not typical and could probably fit somewhere under the umbrella of anxiety, and I knew where I could go to get help.
I have an interesting relationship with counseling. I love the idea of it, and I have a history of putting myself in for a few sessions, and then finding reasons to stop as soon as it gets too uncomfortable. The problem in the past has been that I’ve wanted the positive results of therapy without having to do the hard work of processing my own feelings, and that’s not how it works. But this time I’m in a different place, maybe due to maturity, or maybe just time and distance from the events I need to process.
I never intended to admit to anyone that my reaction to the memory of a past medical trauma sent me to therapy. I have had to work through a great deal of shame after finally admitting to myself that the medical trauma I have experienced did indeed have a negative impact on me mentally. It feels silly typing those words, but it makes sense. Each time I would go through a traumatic medical event in my childhood and teenage years, I was praised for what people perceived as courage and strength. I learned that pretending not to be in pain, physically or mentally, earned me praise and admiration, things that are very appealing to a people pleaser like myself.
Furthermore, I know that some readers of this blog will be inclined to believe that I am subscribing to some liberal ideology, that I should just pull myself up by my bootstraps, pray more, go to church more. That spending an hour of my time every week talking to a professional about my feelings makes me a snowflake. I know this because when I was still an impressionable teenager, I witnessed how my church reacted to someone sharing their mental health struggles. I watched the initial support for this person gradually fade to skepticism as people very close to me began to suggest that it was time for them to stop talking about it and move on, showing that mental health was not yet a topic our congregation as a whole was comfortable with. What I learned from these attitudes was that my church was not yet a safe place to be honest about the reality of mental health. And if you can’t be honest in God’s house, where can you be honest?
When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepped away from royal duties, and Meghan bravely spoke out about her mental health, people said she was too wealthy and privileged to be depressed, which demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of depression.
And now Simone Biles, a survivor of a very public sexual assault and currently the best gymnast in the country and maybe the world, has withdrawn herself from competition for the sake of her mental health. She was wise enough at the age of twenty-four to realize that she was not in the right mental state to compete safely, and she gracefully bowed out and stayed on the sidelines to enthusiastically support the rest of her team. And as I read the Instagram comments from uninformed trolls calling her “weak” and “a quitter”, and talking about how she’s “letting down America” as if she owes any of us anything, I know that there are teenagers and even children reading those same comments. And although I don’t have the platform of an Olympian or a Duchess, it feels important that I add my voice to the conversation, because I know what it’s like to hear these kinds of messages as a young impressionable person and prolong your own healing because of them.
Having depression or anxiety or any other mental health struggle does not make you weak. Your brain is an extremely complex organ that needs to be taken care of just as much as any other part of your body. And if you’re a person of faith like I am, I need you to know that God is not mad at you for going to therapy, or doing whatever healthy thing you need to do in order to heal and protect your brain. You are not depressed and/or anxious because you did not pray enough or read enough “do not be anxious” Bible verses. You are depressed and or/anxious because of very real things that are happening within the structure of your brain. God created your brain, and I feel pretty confident that God is not anything but happy about you taking care of it.
Right now, Simone Biles has put the topic of mental health on the world stage, and that is a wonderful thing. I am inspired by her courage and I hope that she knows that her decision is paving the way for more athletes and people in general to prioritize mental health. But in a world with a 24/7 news cycle, our attention spans are short and will soon be captured by something else. This particular moment will end, but that does not mean that it didn’t matter. I believe that each time a person in the spotlight like Meghan Markle or Simone Biles is brave enough to tell the truth about their mental health, it sends a message to the next generation about what it really means to be strong, and brave, and tough. It sends a message that we are no longer sacrificing ourselves on the altar of approval to get the gold. We are staying true to ourselves, and using our God-given instincts to honor the needs of our minds and bodies. We are finally acknowledging that sometimes going for silver is the bravest and strongest pursuit of all.
