Let’t try not to judge a book by the cover. The same goes with assuming that we know what someone is thinking or what they are going through. We may assume that someone is ticked off at the world or we may assume that this person has very few worries going on and wonder what they would have to complain about. The truth is, obviously, we don’t always know what someone is going through. Someone could literally be dying on the inside but their outside may portray snocones, puppies and rainbows. Depression, OCD, and other emotional struggles, can all have this sort of thing in common. People can become experts at living a facade. It becomes a survival skill, it becomes a mask we wear in public, for numerous reasons. Someone can be living on the streets or could be driving a new car, the truth is, we often have no clue what exactly is going on in their brain and in their world. We can save ourselves and others a lot of heartache by not trying to read someone’s mind or assume we know what their situation looks like. We are all guilty of this, it’s human nature. We can increase our stress levels pretty easily if we go around trying to read someone else’s mind. I am a big believer in checking in with others to see how things are going. It doesn’t have to turn into a therapy session. Just a simple hello and asking someone how things are going in their world will often suffice. “Social” media can be a great tool for reaching out; however we know that this can also be filled with negativity, just like a lot of things in our world. There are often many sides to things and it’s easy to go down a rabbit hole online. Online bullying certainly comes to mind and it’s a huge issue. When dealing with OCD, we may seek reassurance or do online research on a topic until we are blue in the face. Maybe checking to see if someone is upset with us, or if someone liked our post on “social” media. We may have the bump on our leg diagnosed 12 times over by the end of the day, all by looking online for medical “answers” that we think are going to make us feel better. If we struggle with obsessions and compulsions, we want to be mindful of these situations where we can find ourselves going down a dark hole, obsessing and ritualizing, only to find ourselves more stressed out than when we started. As we know, we don’t have to be diagnosed with OCD to see how these obsessions and rumination can be very counterproductive. Coming back to the present moment, and remembering to live a life we value, is always a great place to start. Over and over again. Hang in there.
Jeremy Rudd
“Your feelings are too real. Let them spew, a fall from grace would do us good today.” – “Hold Me Up”, lyrics by +Live+