I’m not ready to talk

Hattie Butterworth

It’s not always healthy to share.

I speak as one who has shared my experiences with severe mental illness openly over the past five years. Sometimes it isn’t the external reaction that worries you about opening up, but the knowledge that you aren’t ready for people to receive it. Feeling it is too painful to air, you keep it among those closest to you and seek therapy in private.

This is how mental illness used to be dealt with. The internet has certainly created a space of mental health freedom, yet within this freedom I have found myself struggling to know when it isn’t healthy for me to share. I have to be realistic that some parts of my journey and elements to my mental health and personal life aren’t ready for public view.

This is very different from the undeniable mental health stigma. we experience still everyday. A stigma that says you aren’t allowed to talk, even if you are completely ready and feel true strength to. I have often confused the internal pull to remain private and keep myself safe with societal stigma.

Sharing my illness experience is my top priority, but I feel strongest sharing it when I know I am on a road to healing, not deep in the confusion and mess. Still, communicating the bare bones of our experience can often be just as powerful. We don’t need to expose graphic detail to allow people to feel connected, but can express simply that we are going through mental health difficulties, but aren’t yet ready to share full details.

But do other sufferers like to know us in our deep suffering in the moment? I remember finding it frustrating when mental health campaigners maintained boundaries. I wanted to know what they were going through so that I could feel less alone. I suppose if it’s an issue that is resurfacing that you are familiar with, this may be a time where sharing is beneficial with the knowledge that sharing isn’t going to impact your recovery.

When sharing involves strong anxiety and shame, fear of judgment and confusion, it may be stigma but it might also be that you just aren’t ready. There are things I am dealing with right now that I have had to maintain a boundary. I really don’t like it, but I think the fact that I have recognised the need for distance says a lot about my respect for my mental health, compared to the destructive habits of the past.