Is there a downside to creating awareness?

You may or may not know that May is mental health awareness month. Apart from social media, there isn’t really much I can do in the way of busting the stigma. Where I live, it’s still very much a reality. Then I read an article about triggers and it got me thinking about some things that happened in my life and the combination of events that lead to this.

Even as a child, I knew that I was depressed, I just didn’t know that what I felt could be classified as illness. I didn’t know that something could be done about all the terrible feelings going crazy inside my head. And awareness in that case would have been great! But then I thought about the first time I contemplated suicide. I think I was about 14 or 15. Suicide had never even remotely cross my mind, even though I was in a terrible emotional state. One day, one of my mother’s magazines were lying on the coffee table and I was just randomly paging through it when I found this article, addressed to parents, about how to handle your child if he/she is suicidal or has attempted suicide. For the first time, I realised that there was a way out. Luckily the younger, confused me was too scared to actually do anything. I did however have suicidal ideations on and of, well, until now.

Similarly, I never thought of self-harm. Even as a dark and twisty teenager I never considered that hurting myself would make me feel better. Until I met someone when I was already in my mid-twenties, who became a friend, confided in me about her self-harm. And then one day I was feeling awful and getting drunk by myself, and I finally had enough courage to give it a go. And of course the more you do something like that, the more you want to do it.

Am I making sense? Of course people should be made aware of  mental illnesses, the symptoms, the treatment, etc. But I think the point I’m trying to make is that those of us who already have this awareness, who have been around the block, who know the ins and outs of our particular illness have a responsibility to think before we share, especially online. Like giving trigger warnings. We need to use our experiences and the information we have wisely so that we make sure that we do good, and not harm.