I still remember how uncomfortable silence used to feel whenever mental health came up around me, especially after losing someone I loved to suicide, because even when people cared, there was this strange hesitation in conversations where everybody seemed afraid of saying the wrong thing and so instead they said almost nothing at all. I carried that silence for a long time.
A lot of my early understanding of mental health was shaped by watching people continue functioning through grief without ever really discussing what grief was doing to them privately, and I think because of that, I became very good at acting emotionally “fine” in ways that looked convincing from the outside. I knew how to keep showing up to school, work, meetings, community events, and responsibilities even when internally everything felt disconnected and heavy, and for a while I genuinely thought that was what strength was supposed to look like. Looking back now, I think I spent years trying to make difficult experiences appear smaller so other people would feel more comfortable around them. Even writing this now, I still catch myself wanting to soften certain details before saying them directly. Some habits stay in your body longer than you expect them to.
Mental Health Awareness Month feels different to me now because I have seen what happens when people stop editing themselves quite so heavily around each other. Over the last few years, especially through community health work, advocacy spaces, and student conversations, I have watched people slowly become more willing to say things out loud that they used to keep hidden behind jokes, overworking, isolation, or constant busyness. I have sat with students making therapy bags while somebody quietly admitted they had not been okay for months. I have had conversations outside campus buildings at night where someone suddenly shares something deeply personal and then immediately changes the subject because vulnerability still feels unfamiliar to them. I have watched people pause mid-sentence like they are deciding in real time whether they are allowed to tell the truth. Those moments stay with me more than any polished campaign language ever does because they feel human in a very specific way. Not inspirational. Not perfectly resolved. Just honest for a second.
I think losing someone changed the way I listen to other people too.
Before, I often approached conversations thinking I needed to have the “right” response ready, something comforting or useful or carefully worded, but grief taught me that people usually remember presence more than perfection. Sometimes what stays with somebody is not advice, it is simply the fact that another person did not immediately pull away from their pain or rush to make it easier to digest. That realization changed me slowly. I became more honest about my own mental health. I became less interested in appearing endlessly capable all the time. There are still moments where I struggle with vulnerability, especially because being “the supportive person” can quietly become its own role that feels difficult to step outside of, but I no longer feel the same pressure to package every painful experience into something motivational before I am allowed to speak about it. Some experiences do not become neat lessons. Some things just change you permanently and then life continues around that fact.
A few things I keep thinking about this Mental Health Awareness Month:
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people are often carrying much more than what is visible in public
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there is a difference between somebody hearing your story and somebody making you feel safe enough to tell it
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emotional exhaustion can hide itself inside productivity for a very long time
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some of the most important conversations happen after events technically end, when people linger instead of leaving
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healing can look extremely ordinary sometimes (eating something, replying to a message, sitting outside for ten quiet minutes because your room suddenly feels too small)
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I have become gentler with myself than I used to be, although honestly, I am still learning how to do that consistently
When I think about the power of our story now, I do not think about perfectly written narratives or inspirational speeches. I think about the smaller moments that change the feeling of a room almost invisibly. Somebody said ‘me too’ very quietly. Somebody admitting they are tired in a way sleep cannot fix. Somebody finally using words for something they have carried silently for years. Those moments matter to me because they remind people that they are not strange for struggling and they are not failing for being overwhelmed. I think stories become powerful the moment another person recognizes themselves inside them (even briefly) because once honesty enters a room people tend to breathe differently afterwards. (:
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