On Mental Health, Personal Journeys, Sharing... and OVER-sharing

One of the wonders of our lives as Human Beings on this planet is that we all have our own unique and fascinating journeys to travel.

There are highs and lows, joys and wonders, nightmares and suffering. Seems we get a little bit of everything!

It also seems like close to a given that none of us get through life unscathed. That is, we will experience things that truly wound us, in the psychological sense of the word.

Physical wounds are a different beast because they are obviously visible. Psychological and emotional wounds tend to be fluid and misunderstood... and perhaps overlooked because they are not out there in the open for everyone to see and experience.

One of the great things about the Internet was that it opened the door to whole new generation of "peer counseling" we didn't previously have access to.

In some ways, that saved my life, when I was first getting active online, around 1995 or so.

In this case, I'm not even talking about actual online support, but about the marvelous thing of being able to reach out and almost invariably being able to find someone — or someoneS — who have had similar experiences. That was new!

These days, we probably take it for granted, given that there is a veritable plethora of online support groups for virtually every situation known to us. Often, there can be an element of healing in simply knowing that you are not ALONE.

At times, I've thought about the fear of "OVER-sharing," but what is that, really, if you have the appropriate environment? Whereas one should never substitute an online chat group for the services of a trained mental health professional, there are things you can get from a group that are rather wonderful... including simple validation that something that has been eating at you is not "just in your head!"

The human psyche is a complex place, and some things take a very long time to figure out. Maybe even most of a lifetime.

Aside from being quite aware of my somewhat strange childhood and teenage years, I started on my journey to understand myself and other people already when I was 13 years of age... and the modest beginnings took the form of journaling.

"Why do I feel like such an ALIEN on this planet?"

It didn't take me long to understand that such a question is actually made up of two parts: There's your perception of yourself and your place in the world... and then there's an actual physiological/biological aspect. And that biological aspect informs your perceptions.

When I was a kid and a youngster, ADHD was barely "a thing" and generally referred to that fidgety and unruly kid at the back of the class who could never sit still.

That was not me. But I definitely had "concentration" issues. In time, we ended up with "ADD" as a variation that didn't include the "hyperactivity" part... but there was still something missing.

I was basically an unfocused daydreamer who also seemed slow. Not unintelligent, just slow. I was tested for learning disabilities. I was tested for depression — repeatedly. I was also uncommonly sensitive.

As I said, understanding yourself can easily become a life-long journey!

There is something separate from Inattentive ADHD known as Cognitive Disengagement Syndrome. This finally rang a bell with me, not so many years ago... explaining my considerable difficulty with motivation, as well as my tendency to make lots of mistakes in situations where I am required to move quickly.

It was one of the things that always confounded both my educators and my therapists... I was able to complete extremely complex and difficult tasks with almost perfect accuracy, IF — and only if — I didn't have to do so quickly or in a hurry.

Of course, there are "degrees" of pretty much everything in life... including the extent to which a condition interferes with your functionality in life. I am generally very high functioning — I just have to make sure certain environmental and situational conditions are in place.

Which is not exactly practical, in this modern world of ours!

Now, none of this is intended as some sort of sad sob story... mostly it's an illustration of how important it can be to fully understand yourself as a path to creating the sort of life that works for you.

We humans are not "standardized," although society — for ITS convenience, not OURS — probably wishes we were, and will try to push us in that direction.

Know yourself! You can create a much better life if you do.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great weekend!

How about you? Do you have a deep understanding of yourself and your motivations? Anything about your personality that makes you feel out of step with the world? Even if you perfectly "mask" it, for functionality's sake? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2024.05.18 01:55 PDT
x776/2010