Show your wounds with pride. Or not...


Break a leg and everyone sends a get well card.
Get pregnant and people send flowers.

You can SHOW the scar, proudly! 

You can count the sutures. You can see the bruise, squint and then gasp at the x-ray. 

You can try to understand what it must be like to cope with the missing leg, and we all sympathise with the itch under the plaster cast (thank goodness for knitting needles). And of course you can gently caress the raised skin bump, and exhale a wondrous ‘ahhhhh’

Tell people you are floored by deep depression and most people will ignore you. Except for one person who will tell you to cheer up. Or just suggest that you pull yourself together.

Of course!! Why do we always forget that’s all we need to do?

We are so, so, so accepting of any body part breaking down other than our brains. 

And that's ignorance. That's pure ignorance, and that ignorance has created a world that doesn't understand worry, anxiety and existential angst... that doesn't understand mental health. And that's ironic because anxiety and worry and depression are very extensively documented. Yet it's one of the least discussed.

One day we will begin building a world where we eliminate ignorance and teach the acceptance of ourselves, where we're okay with who we are -- because when we get honest, we see that we all struggle and we all suffer. 

Whether it's with this, whether it's with something else, we all know what it is to hurt. 

We all know what it is to have pain in our heart, and we all know how important it is to heal. But right now it hurts to heal. The stigma of mental afflicting is rife. 

Yet we're content to put a sticking plaster over and pretend it's not there. But for many of us, it's never far away.


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