Small change, a lot of text to explain it - Empathy Online

Some comments just stick with you. Honestly, usually, it’s the bad ones. The ones that hit right into whatever insecurity you’ve been nursing recently. But these kinds (image below) that I’ve gotten a few times have stuck around to keep me thinking. Something that preoccupied my mind at a time when I felt like I was freefalling about my purpose in this space.

By you regularly addressing and sharing your own priveledge or biases on twitter I was made aware of those things within me as well, in a way that made me feel called out but also understood. And also in a mental health content the way you learn from the “what about” we talked about yesterday reminded me to not be stuck in my ways

everytime I see a piece of [mxiety’s] content I learn something about how to be kind to others (and very often myself at the same time)

To me, ideas come from 2 things: Things I’m worried about + Things I feel passionate about changing.

The thing I’m worried about

In a world where not taking a side implies unquestionable carelessness or worse, compliance with the worst thing—it’s become a statement to try to see things from the other side. If you have platform, you don’t want to be neutral on big issues where your voice could matter. But you can’t be vocal about every issue, and you doubly can’t be vocal in an informed way about everything. If you’re a recovering perfecionist/people pleaser not wanting to hurt to someone’s feelings by doing the wrong thing becomes paralyzing. And distracting from the issue at hand.

What I’m Feeling Passionate About

The loop was:

I don’t want to say the wrong thing ->But I should say something? ->Is saying nothing, indulging too much in my privilege when I could be lending my efforts to help a cause?-> But if I don’t know enough about it, will I say the wrong thing, and not know until I’ve caused damage? How much will that damage effect someone else?

I realized the only way out of the loop is by thinking about everything from both sides. Even when I vehemently disagree with the other side and know there’s nothing I will find common ground on, I feel like I can learn something. And yes, “some people are just hateful” is still a lesson worth re-learning.

The loop became:

Ok, what do both extremes think about something? -> If I land on one side, why? What would make someone think the opposite?->What can I learn by considering that?

Honestly, if you want to sum it up, it’s probably that I’ve just become obsessed with ethics and empathy in an increasingly divided world. And if you know ethics, you know that we know a whole lot of nothing.

The fact that others note I’ve helped them reflect on the other side of themselves as well as others, has made me hope that maybe this is a thought process that can help someone else.

Exceptions

I definitely don’t think there’s a common ground to everything. A relevant example would be that LGBTQ+ rights are not debatable, in my opinion. They are just human rights.

Sure, someone needs to help bridge the gap between those who think the worst about what it means for someone to identify as LGBTQ+ and help bring those folks to be more caring, but I am not level-headed enough about the issue to be the one. I try to do my best to be kind and respectful, but I go into my feelings pretty quickly and get to the worst version of myself fast when I feel someone doesn’t even see those I love as human. I can’t handle that. See also, folks who don’t believe in scientific fact. I just can’t have serious conversations there.

BUT

Even if I’m not the right person to explain everything in a way that helps folks see things from the other view, I do want to try. I know I am going to F up royally, but I am also in my embracing learning era and accepting myself as flawed era (even as flawed as I am at both those things).

This is going to require me to be as vulnerable as heck in a way I haven’t since I became more closed off in 2021. I want to talk about the hard reflections I had to have about myself in case it’s time you had those hard reflections too. Maybe to remind you that it’s human if you’re in the middle of them.

Why Now?

I haven’t been passionate about much. And without that, I honestly was ready to just tap out of streaming and content creation. But I also really didn’t want to.

I noted in my last post that 6 years in a lot has changed about mental health advocacy. And the goal that I started with ‘Getting people talking about mental health’ is quite underway. It was really interesting to be at the start of that initial swell for streamers. The hardest part of it was explaining why what I was doing mattered, and especially when I was in a headspace where I felt like nothing I did mattered in any part of myself or my life. Thankfully, we’ve grown.

I am going to make sure I keep propping up others who are working on reducing stigma (and honestly, no dig, doing a better job than I could!). I would way rather prop up folks I want to learn from, than try to restart my own kiln with what now feels like someone else’s clay.

I wanted to allow myself once more to feel vulnerable and honest, but had no idea where to start again with it. What do I say? What do I keep to myself? How will people react when you admit you don’t know what you’re doing? Will they understand and relate? Or write you off? What about when you admit to doing something you wish you didn’t? Point is, you can only be vulnerable when you’re passionate. And I’m passionate about this.

Okay… Let’s get into it.

This isn’t a rebrand. It’s a honing of focus. And if I do it right, anyone who hasn’t read this will barely notice. I’m embracing a new facet of what I care about right now, more so than changing what I do overall.

So, without further ado here’s the announcement:

I am going to focus my mental health advocacy on Understanding empathy online.

I want my content to help answer the question, What can I learn about myself when I reason through someone else’s actions?

What does this mean? Most likely I won’t have a clean definition until I am neck deep in a slightly incorrect direction but on route. I’ve learned that I work best when I start, get into it based on what I think is needed and then pivot when I see a clearer line.

What do I think this means right now? It means my interviews will look through this lens of sharing stories to create more understanding: mine through my writing and live show, as well as those I interview, host roundtables and other events with.

Ok but for real, what now?

I need to get more strategic with my time and efforts and have no idea where to start. You’ll keep seeing my writing, posting, videos, and streams in the meantime, but I am working on going less with the flow and being more intentional (nothing wrong with either approach, I just switch them up from time to time).

I don’t want to say “You’ll get 4 posts a week” and then maybe get 4 a year over to you. I know I’m streaming once a week. I know I’m on my way to getting the Ted Lasso book done.

I will need your help, as always, staying straight to my truth and to the right thing. I will need accountability. But not from the faceless masses, but from a close-knit community (both friends and Mxiety) that wants to see the same thing.

Be the light… that guides to the next right thing.

A Year Of Following My Purpose AKA You Are Not Alone On Twitch

I am pretty sure I actually teared up when I streamed one day back in October 2017 and not one person came for forty minutes. I was talking to myself while researching a mental health topic, but no one was there to care that I was doing so. I think I actually said out loud: “who cares if I’m here, I should just give up.” Then, quietly, I resolved to keep researching, because I knew I would be doing the same thing if I was offline anyway.

At that exact moment someone popped into my chat and asked me what I was doing. I talked about my research topic and how happy I was to see this person chat with me because without interaction, I was just talking to myself about medical diagnosis, which I found to be ironic to say the least. We both laughed a bit. That was just about a year ago as of this writing.

I’ve learned more about my self-worth and image over the past year than in the preceding twenty-seven. I have learned to see myself as a person before I see myself as a streamer or a writer, where before I thought that what you do must define you. I’ve learned that you can be more than you can ever define yourself to be, because while public perception is close to what you put out, it is also completely nuanced.

I’ve also found out that people interact with each other based on their personal emotions and assumptions. Every struggle, every day for each person, is theirs and theirs alone. Every comment, every word we speak has little to do with the person we are speaking to and everything to do with the ongoing battle in our consciousness (and subconscious selves, if you’re into psychoanalytics).

Keeping all of that in mind, the one word that comes when I think of how to summarize it all, streaming, writing and discussing mental health online is: Community.

This has also been discussed ad nauseum as it is the cornerstone of Twitch but from October to October, it’s the one thing that stands out to me the most. Who reads my writing? My community. Who understands what my dysphoria truly feel like? My community. I started the project telling my husband: “If I cannot help just one person during every episode and with every piece of my writing, I will quit. But all I need to keep this up is one person.” That count’s a bit higher than one today, and I am grateful beyond words.

I frequently say that Mxiety is an idea of hope, which is bigger than the person who started it or any one person who supports it. It’s the belief that since we live in a time when the world doesn’t know how to feel about mental illness, it’s up to us to show them and take care of each other when no one else knows how. It what created Be The Light as our sign off.

Just over twelve months ago, I felt alone and scared, like no one was listening even though I was surrounded by all the love my incredible husband and friends could offer. I felt stupid, yet angry, and most of all, I felt like I needed some kind of purpose. Maybe if I let others know what I knew, I could make them feel like this less often. And, I just wanted to stop seeing people with mental illness misunderstood and mistreated because of things they had little control over.

Never in my wildest dreams, when I sat sobbing three years ago on the floor of my bathroom, wishing I could die, did I ever realize that I could incubate a whole community. When I was driving and talking myself into not ending my life, I could not fathom the number of people who had done exactly the same and were looking for someone to tell them they are not alone. I thought of making something like Mxiety, but in that moment all of those people I could be helping were faceless and nameless, just me working behind the scenes to help someone.

I know I found some version of a calling, when I noticed that I would not shut up when someone asked me what I could do if I could start anything. I would launch into detail about my plans for a website, a live-stream, and finally getting myself to write consistently.

It took a community of like-minded people to confirm to me, beyond a doubt, that there is a friend out there on the internet for all of us. That people want to help each other, especially those who’s hardship was invisible. Seeing others like them made them finally feel as special as every one of us wants to feel in our lives.

These are no longer just “people out there with mental illness,” but friends and kind humans who are willing to help others after knowing for years what being alone feels like. It became a group of people who work everyday just to be a functioning version of themselves. They all have names, they all just want to be loved like anyone else and many of them (50+) have given me the honor of appearing to share their story live on air.

Those who come back to read and see more inspire me to keep learning, keep pushing and keep trying, even though some days I am painfully reminded that I need more knowledge, more experience, more time and more ...everything else.

After listening to over 50 stories, I can conclude that while each of us lives a different life, which informs how we handle our hardships, the hardships themselves –the human experience—it's the same.

So, if you haven’t yet, come share your story, because every single one of them matters, each one makes at least one person feel less alone. Doesn’t matter if you have thousands of people following you online, or you work as an accountant, you too can be the light for others.

If you do currently follow me and are reading this because that’s a thing you do, thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for taking the dream of a girl crying in her car and making me feel better than I ever thought I could. You have made my dream a purpose.

If you are struggling today, please don’t end your journey on this earth with us. I know how bad it can hurt, but amidst that I found my passion. I believe you can get up and find yours. Or tell me to F**k off, what do I know?