On Talking about Our Mental Health: More or Less?

[Originally published on personal blog – Feb 22, 2023]

A few days ago, I read this article that says we should talk less about our mental health. I have nothing against it because I think the whole article is true: there is a danger in open up too much, especially when it comes to something very personal to ourselves. The article did a great part in pointing that sharing about your mental health state often times would feel like putting a stamp on your personal branding. I encourage you all to read it!

Ultra-Openness on Mental Health

Now that opening up about mental health is encouraged, it’s almost a common thing to describe someone based on the diagnosis that they share on social media. If you go to almost every social media, there must be some hashtag about it: #mentalhealth #talkaboutit and so many more – not to mention that there are a lot of influencers that brand themselves on this matter. “A mental health advocate” or “A self-love warrior” are very common to put in some influencer’s bios. I bet it’s also not a weird thing to reply with “Oh she’s a girl with social anxiety” or “He’s a man with major depression” when you were asked about someone. But is that really a good thing though?

Well, personally, I wouldn’t want to be described as “A girl with Bipolar Type 2 and BPD that loved to self-harm” when someone asked who I am. That answer might be still true, but that’s just a speckle of the person that I am. Just as each one of you, we all have many sides to ourselves – and our mental health status just made up a few percents of the whole thing. It is important – yes – but is it the most important? I guess it’s just unfair to see someone just based on that one side – as if you disregard all other things about that person.

Sea of Strangers That Know Each Other’s Secrets

As much as I’d like everyone to rethink about binding a person with their mental health, I also realize that sometimes it’s so hard to do so. We – as humans – are biologically wired to give more space in our memory for the extremes. When we see something normal, it’s harder to register these moments in our brain because the danger isn’t there. This remnant of our past evolution is there to help us survive in the past, but most times it’s also make our modern life harder. How often do you share to social media when you have a perfectly normal day? I would say it would be way less compared to whenever we have the extremes in our plate. When we’re sad, when we’re depressed, when we got married, when our dog died – these are the times that will make the space in our feed. Now combine that with how open it is now to share about our mental state. Yes, we now have feed full of strangers opening up about their deepest and personal struggle to another stranger.

Sure, open up about our problem is healthy – but anything healthy must come from moderation. This is where the line is very thin and there’s barely nothing we could use as the guideline: how much is too much? Well, this is where my personal experience jump into this story.

The Twist

I used to be very open about my mental state – be it in social media or in any articles that I wrote in the past (I even wrote this – back when mental health is not much of an open topic like now). I was medically diagnosed with Bipolar Type 2 in 2018 (after previously misdiagnosed to have Schizophrenia since 2016) and later I had BPD added to my collection. The early journey of my diagnosis was quite puzzling because it was very affecting to my daily life. I was barely functioning whenever I had the phase and I believed that sharing the journey would be beneficial for others – just in case they feel the same.

Especially during the early time of the pandemic, I documented a lot of my struggles on the social media. I remember I even post something quite graphic on my Instagram feed (some photos of my self-inflicted scars and a reflection on what it meant to me). I kept these posts for quite sometime on my feed, so whenever a new person befriend me on Instagram they would know that – and I bet they’ll have a conversation in their head, like “Wow, this girl went through some shit” or maybe “Wow, this person is very deranged” – I didn’t know which route they chose.

I stayed like that until mid 2020 when suddenly I had the sudden urge to be more mysterious. I don’t exactly remember what was the thought-process but I decided to be more discreet about everything in my life. I archived a lot of past posts and basically ‘erased’ my past personalities. Anything from college or basically my life before 2020 was practically gone from outsider’s view. I left only 6 photos on my Instagram feed (out of about 200ish previously) – very curated ones that fit the new aesthetic and image I meant to built. I posted less – and even when I do, I share only very cryptic that only I could decipher. I embarked on a journey to be more invisible in social media.

It was probably adulthood or maybe it was depression, but my secrecy remains until now. Since then, I share very little about my life in social media – especially Instagram. I curated my feed so much that it now has a particular concept (well, it’s just black and white though, nothing fancy). I’ve been learning to filter myself a lot in social media – for whatever reason I had back there. I was also being ultra-aware of the content I put out there – or maybe overthink a lot on how a simple post would made me look like; what kind of impression that this will make about me; and all other checklist questions that I need to answer whenever I wanted to post something. Most times, I ended up to not post anything at all – for my rule of thumb is “if you think too much about it, don’t do it”. This all changed about a year ago, when a friend texted me asking for a recommendation for a good therapist.

At that time, I haven’t been posting anything about my mental health for quite sometime. I thought that everyone had already forgot about any of these past contents I put out there – but nope. This friend asked a genuine question and even told me, “I do this because I saw your post. I think I need a professional help to figure this out. Your contents were very honest and helpful” – and it changed the way I see things almost instantly. After that instance, a different friend did the same. And that followed by another different friend – even a girlfriend of a friend – and et cetera. So many people reached out to me last year – asking about mental health. I even made a note for the replies so I could simply copy and paste the list whenever someone ask me about recommended therapist. I didn’t know how much impact of these mental-breakdown-contents made to other people in my life. Well, I knew that there must be some sort of impact, but I initially guessed it must be ‘disgust’ or ‘annoyance’ – I didn’t think “honest” and “helpful” would made it to the list.

These instances wouldn’t change my view on the moderation required when sharing on social media. I still think that some moments are best shared only with particular people, and some struggles are best split with the professionals – but I guess helping out each other could also be manifested by a simple post on social media. You surely don’t need to share every and each of your struggles and mental health state – but maybe when you experienced something useful that helped you out, some people could be benefited from that information. Someone you know out there might be in need of a little push to finally go and see a therapist – and who knows that your little post could be a positive push for them to finally do so?

The Key

As much as I want people to find help, sharing about your mental state is a tricky business, but I guess the key is on the moderation. You could very much advocate for a better mental health system without having to share your breakdown in 2020 when you broke up with your boyfriend. The boyfriend part could be toned down when you share to a bigger audience while highlighting the advocating part. Of course, you can still share the boyfriend part to your close friends, but sharing it should not be a replacement of going to a therapist. The spirit of sharing about mental health on the social media should be about fighting the general stigma, not about advertising your personal problems. Whenever you want to share something personal about your mental health on social media, I urge you to ask yourself first: “Would Sandra from High School that never ever talked to you in person but happened to follow you on Instagram should know about this detail?”. If the answer is not, then you should probably leave out that detail.

I hope we all find the help that we need, if not now then eventually.