The hardest thing for me is when people can't take another opinion on something. Like; if I feel something is stigmatising and I call it out, don't get personal and try to accuse me of taking away your rights. My job as a mental health campaigner is to challenge stigma where I see it. I am not in any way trying to accuse anyone; just attempting to debate about it in a friendly way and try to explain where I'm coming from with that view; that's all any of us can do. Not everybody is going to agree with you all the time, everyone has different ways of coping and of opening up about mental illness and no way is right or wrong, but we need to be more sensitive to those who may feel this is too far.
That's why I never like to assume how people feel, nor would I ever tell someone how to. We're each of us unique and not one human has the exact same experience or reaction to an experience as anyone else; which is why there is no 'one size fits all' when it comes to treatment and healing. It's all too easy to fall in to the trap of 'well I felt like this so everyone must.' Grief, trauma, breakups. surprises; different people will react in ways they might not even expect. A death of one loved one may cause someone to grieve in a completely different way to another loss. There is no right or wrong way to feel in situations, and nobody has a right to invalidate those feelings.
It's too easy to say 'I'd never let anyone harm me' or 'I'd always report a crime' but people act in the moment in ways even they can't explain. You honestly don't know how you're going to react until you do. Freeze, panic, run, cry, attack; these are all options and some people will do one or all of these, or something completely different. Fear and shock can change you in ways you never thought possible.
Speaking of fear and shock, have you ever just sat back and question how you got to a certain point?
Wondered how things would have gone if you only said something sooner, if you just stayed home, if you didn't take the long way to work, if you just said no to that extra drink, if you we stronger, braver, smarter?
Or are you more of a 'done-bun-can't-be-undone' (1) kind of person? The kind that just goes with the flow and accepts their fate, because you think 'actually maybe things could have been worse if I didn't do that.'
I change my mind regularly; sometimes I think that we make our own fate, other times I think that our lives are like one of those multiple choice stories and it's all written out for us and our reactions and/or choices unwittingly change the way things end up. Either way, we have no way of truly knowing.
That's all my Monday night thoughts wrapped up, now I can start prepping for my birthday on Saturday...
🎂🎈🍹
(1) Insomnia, Stephen King
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