Mental Health, Kindness & The Mom Network
My newsfeed these past few days have been flooded with the sad news about Heather Armstrong, Dooce, the OG Mom Blogger. I began blogging in 2010, I have not followed Dooce but give credit to her and the many others that paved the way for sharing their voices on motherhood, and life, which includes both the beauty and the challenges. Heather spoke honestly about her challenges and how Mental Health is a part of all of us to varying degrees. If you don’t know her, she is one of the top Mom Bloggers, is a truth teller and has been open about her challenge with alcohol and mental health with humility and humor. Everyone’s posts are heartfelt, and the OG blogging community is shocked and saddened, she had an influence on their careers and her many followers. Apparently the past decade has been difficult, she has gone to the keyboard perhaps before taking a pause and deep breath, and in these rants she created questions from others, and some cruel feedback (according to posts of others this week).
Everyone shared that she was the best, she was smart, talented, humorous, edgy, and honest. Some admired her success and sass, others put it and her down (over the years), anything to take someone down a few notches. Heather took her own life this week, tragically there is more to her story than any of us might know.
In posts, a common theme from other well meaning moms or influencers was that in addition to all her amazing qualities and incredible success was that she was flawed.
“She wasn’t perfect”, “she had flaws”, seem to be the consistent description. These were all well meaning and the context of each post was positive, emotional and in support of her and her family.
I could not help but think this…..
Perhaps she is not flawed, perhaps she is whole, like we all are and in that we have our light and we have our dark. If flawed means mental illness, addiction or unhinged behavior than we have a ton of work to do. When are we going to normalize mental health, when are we going to allow people to be whole and when are we going to create a kinder community and circles that embrace the whole human (with grace and kindness as anchors)? I don’t know her personally and I don’t have all the details, from what I gather there has been an unraveling of sorts, which can happen, it can happen to all of us. If you have been judged, attacked, put down and it has been repeated, it is mental abuse and for those that are highly sensitive people (which I am guessing she is), it is really difficult. I can’t imagine the volume of critics on line, and also, because she was successful, she became a target for some. A few women even admitted being jealous of her (because as women, we get jealous). We need to do better. We need to pay more attention to how we treat each other as women, we also need to pay more attention how women and mom’s care for themselves and others. I have been saying this for years and I feel like I am banging my head against a wall (not because I do it all, because I have had all of the challenges, the push back and we just need to lead with love and not our insecurities and fears). Women are burnt out, especially Moms, it is next to impossible to keep your head above water some days. The pressure is real, the challenges behind the scenes are real, and we spend more time talking about what is on the outside of a woman (her purse, her dress, her shoes, her lipstick) than what is going on, on the inside which is far more important like her thoughts, her fears, her desires, her challenges, her truths, her heart.
This is a throw down, I don’t have the amazing following that she had, I need you all to help me share my voice.
Enough is enough and women and moms need to put themselves and their mental health first (period end) and support each other and not judge each other.
She is not flawed, she is human and she is whole. What that means is that she has amazing strengths and she has challenges and vulnerabilities, She is you, she is me, she is us.
Why are we waiting for the extreme to happen and say we’ve got to do better. Why is it that we don’t have conversations about mental health for all Mothers? Why is it that we have been bamboozled by the gateway drug Alcohol and not made the connection that it is connected to Mental Health yet we normalize it like it is all good. Big industry markets to Moms and women and drinking has gone up significantly—there is a direct connection to alcohol and it’s negative impact on mental health (among the physical damage it causes to our bodies). This comes from the girl that used to love her drinks, until I realized I had my own challenge with it and had to navigate my own path to freedom. We are hardwired to believe it is all so normal, it’s not normal, it’s toxic and it is time to shine light on this and other ways we are poisoning each other and ourselves.
If we call mental health, alcohol misuse or other behaviors flawed, we are setting everyone up for failure and setting a bar high that is not real and does not exist. However, social media would say differently, as women compare their crazy lives to the Pinterest worthy images on line. It is all BS, no one is immune from any of it be it situational or genetic.
Can we celebrate and acknowledge and level the playing field that we are all Whole, not perfect, not flawed, not measured by anything or anyone? Imagine if it did not matter what others thought (no stigma) and we did nothing but support one another, can you imagine the love and compassion we would create?
I created Living HIPP years ago because I finally put self care first for myself, little did I know it would become by tracks to run on over the next decade, and I would learn more about my own mental health and how I needed to support myself with grace, compassion and lower the bar some days. The lifestyle is progress over perfection, can we please celebrate each other, can we please celebrate progress and can we please make it clear that perfect does not nor should it exist. How does she do it all? She doesn’t period end. Somehow “balance” got to be a bad word, because we know Moms are busy and get things done. If I did not focus on balance, I think I would have hit absolute melt down and burn out, which exists for many, we just don’t see it.
More over, can we please judge each other less and love each other more. It is pretty damn simple yet we either put ourselves down or we put others down, we have to change our ways and create more positive, loving, heart centered, kind behavior between women, we are the ones that will change the world when we change how we treat ourselves and others.
My prayers are with everyone impacted and with every person that struggles out there. I especially pray for her children, and as mother’s we need to look at this like it could be any one of us. Can we shift the conversation more, can we support each other more, can we be real with each other, life is hard, and we need each other, we need encouragement and we need to lift each other up, not tear each other down. It begins with us. It begins with how we talk to ourselves. It begins with how we discover ourselves and get to know the whole human, the dynamic woman that is talented, funny, pretty, successful and the parts of her that are more vulnerable, that need extra love, extra grace and extra compassion. She is not flawed, she is human and she is whole. Remind her of that.
I believe in a world that is kinder and in communities where women stand up for each other. We need this more than ever and our strength is not in pretending perfection, it is on being real, being whole, being human and being kind. The picture on this post is my first blog, HIPP Moms, a place to be self aware and practice self care, and to lock arms together as Moms and raise the spirit of our Nation and World. The pillar Inspiration in Living HIPP is being inspired, not threatened, by the amazing women and world around you. XO