Mental health is an absolutely crazy issue (no pun intended) and if you listen hard enough, you’ll most likely hear me start a rant about it. So I was extremely excited to be able to do a presentation on depression for a class, and I developed a very meaningful slide about the stigma surrounding mental health.
When I looked a little closer, it brought me to tears and I could not understand why. Echoed in so many of the statements about mental health stigma were flashbacks from my own life.
I saw in the information about public disinterest a little girl who felt like nobody cared when she was sad.
I saw in the comments about mental illness being a myth a group of friends that got mad when I suffered and told me to “just be happy” or to “get over it.”
I remembered trying to convince myself that my struggles were no big deal.
I saw a high schooler surrounded by people who saw her struggling and decided they would rather not know the truth because it’s uncomfortable.
I heard voices telling me that being depressed is selfish, an excuse, or completely my fault.
And I saw a ton of scars that I was so ashamed of, embarrassed of, that I was terrified to let anybody know my secrets because they would judge.

I myself am a product of the stigma surrounding mental illness–but I am nowhere near a worst case scenario. Worst-case scenarios happen every 13 minutes. Suicide is one of the US’s leading causes of death, and it’s ignored because people don’t believe it can be beat.

Here’s my theory–if more people knew that they were heard, accepted, and loved, there would be fewer suicides. If the stigma could be taken away, then more people would speak up and seek help.
A lot fewer people would end up like me.

I believe in speaking up–if you need help, seek it. If you see someone else who needs help, reach out. Erase the stigma in your own mind and you’ve already started the revolution. Sometimes it only takes one person.
And hey, you’re a person.
Maybe, it would only take you.

Recently I saw this dude named Bob Goff speak, and he said a ton of really awesome stuff. But I’m stuck on one thing that I truly believe a lot more people need to hear:

“Jesus didn’t hold people accountable, He just held people close.”

Looking through the Gospel, this almost seems wrong–I mean, Jesus spent a lot of time calling people out (Pharisees, brood of vipers, hypocrites?) and definitely had some hard-hitting words.  And that was my first thought. Of course Jesus held people accountable!!

But then I started reading between the lines–and I stopped paying attention to the Pharisees for a second, because they’re a whole different topic.  I stopped paying attention to the people Jesus called out and started paying attention to the people Jesus just called.  It’s no news that Jesus hung out with a lot of dark and messy people, and that we would most likely avoid the people Jesus tried the hardest to pursue.  And if we look at that pursuit, the trend is not accountability.  The trend is Jesus coming to people in dark places, having dinner with them, and showing them love.  The trend is not for Jesus to yell at people who interrupted or got in the way of His preaching–the trend is to heal the dude whose friends lowered him through the roof.  The trend is to notice the woman touching His robe and acknowledge her faith.  The trend is to say “let the children come to me, do not hinder them.”

Pausing there–He didn’t say “do not hinder me.”  He didn’t even say “it’s alright, let them come, they’re not a bother, whatever.”  He told the people not to hinder them.  He wanted to let the children pursue Him.  He wanted to seek out and heal people.  He wanted to come to people where they are and tell them they are forgiven.

He stopped the people throwing stones and said to the woman, “where are your accusers?”

Let me reiterate something we’ve all heard a billion times.  We are supposed to be like Jesus. I feel like at times, that means we justify a whole lot of stone throwing.  But what if we really lived like Jesus with these dark and messy people? What if we started holding people close and coming to them in love?  What if instead of focusing on the people that bother us, we tell the world to not be hindered in seeking love?

This world has a lot of pain and a lot of condemnation–and a Savior who came in love. He came to stop the stone throwing, not tell us where to throw stones.  Jesus came in love, and gave that challenge to us.
The world would look so much different if we all decided to come in love.

as an avid people-pleaser, i always joke that it took me until i was 18 or 19 to realize that i was a person. and there’s a lot of truth to the joke–it really did take me a long time to understand that as much effort as i put into keeping everybody in my life happy, i was forgetting that i’m allowed to be happy and pursue joy for myself as well. i love people so much, and it took me 18 years to realize that i was part of “people” and worth loving.

in the past year or so, i’ve started realizing how much of a blessing it is to be a person. (i know, this sounds really groundbreaking. i can tell you’re already all inspired. stay with me here!)

think about it, though.  you’re born a blank canvas full of genes and potential and otherwise completely untouched by your environment. from that point forward, you’re being built–through childhood, a lot of people do a lot of influencing in your life, but at a certain point you take over the canvas and start creating yourself. you start to understand your own personality, your quirks, your passions, your style. and eventually, you stop trying to change all your quirks and little idiosyncrasies and learn to really appreciate the fact that you’re alive, you have a life to live, and you can’t be replaced.

i’ve realized that i will always prefer comfortable over cute (and also that i know i can rock sweatpants!). i am overly compassionate, i get extremely excited and enthusiastic (and sometimes about really small things), but that i am an introvert.  i thrive on small communities and deep friendships, but get insanely uncomfortable around large groups of people. i’ll enjoy everything exponentially more if i can have headphones and music playing. i’m flighty and i’ll always love traveling, but having a home base is very important to me.

what about you?
you are a person and a work of art. nobody has your fingerprint and nobody has your specific genetic markup–there is literally nobody like you.  you have quirks, passions, things that make you happy and things that tick you off.
and you are worth loving–even from yourself.  you are worth the effort to develop and strengthen yourself as a person. you are worth feeling the things you feel. and nobody can take away your identity.

it’s so simple and so beautiful, when it resonates correctly. roll this around in your mind for a while.

you are a person.

lately, if you know me, you know about my recent journey with lifting–i’ve become something of a gym rat, and it’s something i’m super passionate about (but that’s another story for another time).

i was in a conversation with a friend recently and we were talking about eating disorders, and i stepped back and realized that i was actually more concerned with eating too little than eating too much, more concerned with my strength being lost than looking skinny.

this is a far cry from who i was in earlier years–being one of the only runners with “birthing hips” (as termed by my coach in a SUPER awkward conversation my senior year), i never saw myself as skinny or tiny. and i never let myself eat enough to support my athleticism.

fast forward to me as a weightlifter. just last night, i was forcing myself to eat a little bit more to meet my calorie goal for the day. i’ve started working with a flexible eating plan that gives me specific numbers to hit every day, and i actually find it difficult to eat as much as i should (man, bulking is so great!). i’m not worrying about my size, i’m worrying about what’s going to drive me to a better workout next time i hit the gym. i’m not looking at food as something to be guilty about, i’m looking at it as necessary fuel.  lifting has changed my perspective–and it changed my story.

i never struggled with a legitimate eating disorder in earlier years, although i “envied the willpower of anorexics.”  but i knew a lot of people who did, and whose relationship with food is still marred and guilt-driven many years later. and i do know the struggle of a marred perspective and a disfigured outlook–when your perspective on something is only driven by guilt or fear, your story can only be hurtful and pressured.

the encouragement here is that it is never too late to change your perspective–if that means spinning around and looking at something a different way, starting a hobby, or investing in a change of scenery, i recommend it wholly. because even for things that CAN be destructive, your anxiety about the problem will be more of a barrier in your journey than the actual problem would ever be. and that is GOOD news! because often, we can’t change our problems. our perspective, however, is only in our own hands.

my grandma said constantly to me growing up, “if you can’t change the situation, change your mind.” when i was a kid, i hated it every time she said it. now i can see so much truth in the words–your problems aren’t as much mountains as they are molehills with a simple change in perspective.

try looking at things a different way–if you change your perspective, you might change your whole story into something greater.

Well, my name is Danielle, but I go by Dani (yeah, like the name, how cool, yada yada).
I’m a fan of things like writing and coffee and beanies and long-sleeved cardigans, but also things like weightlifting and flexible dieting.
My thoughts tend to over-complicate when I don’t write them out (and, let’s be honest, sometimes even when I do).

And I’m on a journey. So are most of you. And maybe if I write about my journey, it’ll give you some encouragement for your own.  And so, lo and behold, I give you a blog.

Enjoy, and go find some adventures. I’ll leave you with a quote I read today that I’m kind of in love with from a book I’m enjoying immensely.

“The story made us different characters than if we’d showed up at the ending an easier way.”
—Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years