In the wake of what I wrote on May 28th, 2023, I have had many, many people reach out via phone call, messenger and text to express their shock at what I shared about my mental and physical journey the last few years.

Yes, I am strong, but I am also a sponge. I feel things deeply.

Yes, I am a good listener, but I am also not great at sharing what I am experiencing. I feel things deeply.

Yes, I am realizing that I need to create a circle of support where I can be seen and heard. I feel things deeply.

Yes, I am one thousand million percent grateful that I wrote what I did and shared what I went through. I know that I truly shocked some of you, but I think it really reminds us that these last few years haven’t been easy for many people, whichever side of the “fence” you chose to be on. I wrote this post and had it sitting in my “drafts” for a few weeks, but I decided to publish it for three groups of people.

First, this last autumn season we had two very remarkable young woman living in K-City, one was my niece and the other was Bubba’s daughter, my oldest friend in the world’s daughter. It was such a special time to have them here. When I wrote this post, I thought of them and our three boys. Perhaps one of them will stumble on to this when they need it the most. I hope my sharing will help them is some small way.

I never wrote this post because I needed help right now or I wanted something from someone or I wanted to bring shame or guilt onto anyone else. My message was simply to help one other person, either now or in the future when someone stumbles upon that blog. One beloved friend wrote to me a few days after my blog: “I just wanted to say a huge thank-you for sharing your last post on Be Enough about re-claiming your health (mental and physical)…. Basically all you have been through and how you’ve described it is EXACTLY how I’ve felt the past 3 years.”. The second reason was simply to help one person feel less alone!

Lastly, I was also thinking of all the young people who have committed suicide these last three years. (And no, suicide was never an option or thought for me personally, but my darkest moments made me think about the hopelessness people must feel when they attempt or commit suicide.) Every day in Canada 11 people commit suicide and 200 people attempt it. Did you know that 75% of the people who commit suicide are male? The saddest part for me as I learned about suicide rates in our beautiful and “in need of healing” country was this rate is rising, not going down, with everything we know about mental health.

I wonder what would happen is more of us shared our stories, without worrying about judgement of being labelled or worrying about being put into a box or then having people try to “fix” us. I wonder if people were exactly where they are, when they are, how they are what our communities would look like?

And that’s all for this Thursday folks. Love what you do!

xoxo Joanna