Talking about your mental illness

This is a controversial and com[plex topic. I wanna start out by saying that the desire to share your mental illness experiences with other people is completly healthy and normal. For example if you were in a convenience store that got robbed at gun point while you were there, what would you immediately do afterwards? You would tell EVERYONE you woudl talk about how crazy it was and scary and as you share with others you would heal and process and feel seen and heard and nobody would think theres anything wrong with you. NOW what about if you had a mental breakdown and began to think aliens were watching you(I actually experienced this once) wouldn't you want to tell EVERYONE, you would want to share your bizarre experience for normal and healthy reasons just like the person who witnessed a robbery wanted to share their story to heal and process, however most people dont know how to respond if someone said to them they were being watched by aliens. But again its not wrong to want to share this information with people it's normal. Whats not normal is our societies view on mental illness and its fear to discuss it. Talking about mental health is how we learn and heal from it. However if you suffer from a mental illness there are times when you shouldnt share you illness with others, I am speaking from experience. learning the approproate times and place to discuss mental illness can take practice and some failed attempts, but with perseverance you can learn the appropriate times to talk about your mental illness and the times when it is best to keep it to yourself. Again I wanna say that the world is not normal, the world is fallen and that is why people get so uncomfortable talking about mental illness. What i mean is in a perfect world (which we do not live in one) we would be able to share freely with everyone and it would only make people grow closer rather than push them apart.

To start if you suffer from a mental illness first tell a close family member or friend and avoid telling anyone else. If you have a therapist thats probably the most appropriate time to talk about mental illness. Thats what therapy is for. Now as for talking about it with stangers and people you have just met i would be careful, hold back what your going through (i know how hard this can be) and just talk weather with the person, but if you feel an opportunity to share your illness with them and it feels appropriate than go ahead. Again you may have both good and bad outcomes but you will learr from the bad outcomes so theyre really not bad at all.

Id like to say that when I first experienced mental illness i tried to talk to everyone about it. Society calls this oversharing and I believe oversharing can be a real thing but i want to continue to make it clear that people who suffer from mental illness desire to share is not wrong in any way wanting to share. It our societies culture that classifies mental health issues as taboo and discourages people from sharing mental health experiences. . Now that being said you need to learn when you are "oversharing" because it can damage your relationship with others. Buts its important to understand that the desire to share is okay you just have to learn the art of when to share and when not too. Its a skill worth learning for those with mental illness so that one can feel closer and more connected to all those around them. Because i wanna say isolation is a common and dangerous sideeffect of no one wanting to talk about mental illness. Some people are so afraid of making people uncomfortable they tell no one and completely Isolate themselves. This is very bad, the devil loves to isolate people. And I understand completely I did it for years. I Went from oversharing all the time to neversharing, the bible tells us in ecllesiastes that all extremes are bad and i can personaly testify that, that is true. We need to find a healthy balance of sharing our mental health sruggles with those around us somehwere in beetween oversharing and isolation.

Hope this helps!