Social Media is a “complicated” tool. It can be so harmful when it comes to polarization, confirmation bias, comparisons etc. At the same time, it can connect people around the world in a collaborative way, that no other tool on this planet can.
I’ve shared in stories how much the last post – about the “lack” of linkage traditional media’s made between the obvious connections in the suicides of Katie Meyer and Robert Martin – has taken off here on IG.
There are now a lot of new folks (2k+more) in the community, so it bears some repeating (and apologies to those who’ve been following me for some time):
For almost four years, built off a lived experience (link to it in stories), we’ve banded together with athletes, musicians, doctors, CEO’s, and everyday heroes to hold hands and get out an important message.
That mental health is NOT “binary”. There aren’t “s ick people” and “healthy people”. We’re all impacted based on life’s various experiences and challenges, along with our genetics and lifestyle choices across a continuum, just like we are – our physical health.
No one is 100% physically healthy – back pain to cancer, just like no one’s 100% mentally healthy. We are ALL susceptible. I learned that all too well, mid-pro sports executive career. That makes us all on the SAME team, and our stories of life challenges connect us way more than disorder labels.
Social media doesn’t like that message. It’s not “clean”. It doesn’t draw a thick line between sick and healthy – so it doesn’t help them enrage/polarize/victimize, and doesn’t help their advertisers sell quick relief through “cures” through pills/potions/apps. (Anything can help, but nothing is a silver bullet).
Due to that messaging, for four years we’ve plodded along. Many of you have been with us from the beginning. Suppressed by these channels, we built modestly, with your support. We built programs all over the country/globe so we could be boots on the ground, despite social media’s suppression efforts.
Then recently, I started posting more about holding hands and sharing, sharing, sharing: that if the media/SM don’t like these messages, if the government won’t make the changes we need, let’s be the change we want,. Let’s get the messages out wide, together.
That must’ve been the “perfect storm” along with KAtie and Robert’s stories – but for the first time here – the levy broke “in a good way”. Over 6k of you have shared that post, and counting.
The reason why we say #samehere is because based on our challenging life experiences: mental health is a tribe everyone in the world is a member of, they just don’t all know it yet. We are excited to have new partners in this. Ecited for you to share. To send us messages you want out there. It takes a village and we can do this. Promise to get back to all the DM’s one by one now. For now, welcome. We’re all teammates now.
