It's Always the Quiet Ones You Have to Watch Out For
Behind the calm exterior lies a story of hidden struggles and resilience. I explore the unseen challenges of mental health and the courage to speak up.
🤯 Cheryl.wTf 🍴 | 🔔 Subscribe | 📖 Shop Books | 👕 Shop Merch
"It's always the quiet ones you have to watch out for," they whisper behind the crime scene tape.
There are imposters walking among you. People who look and sound perfectly normal. People who have learned to "pass". I don't like that word, "pass". Let's call a spade a spade. People who have learned to pretend, to act, to set themselves aside for the benefit and comfort of others. People sitting right next to you who are silently screaming in pain and agony and you will never know it. Because they do not feel safe.
When I first wrote this, it was at the behest of a trade organization who invited me to speak at their event. In the 2 months since I received my invitation from them, there is one thought that plagued me, day and night. "I'll never work in this industry again. I'm throwing away a 20 year career as a consultant."
We don't feel safe.
But here I am anyway, because it's always the quiet ones you have to watch out for, and if I don't speak up, who will? If I don't speak up, nothing gets any better.
Did you know that 1 in 5 US adults live with a mental illness. (Mental Health By the Numbers | NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness) (NIMH » Mental Illness (nih.gov))
Look around you. Think of everyone you know. Can you identify 1/5th of your friends, family and colleagues who have a mental illness? Probably not.
That's because we do not feel safe to speak up.
You or someone you know are more likely to be diagnosed with a mental illness than you are to hit a hole in one in golf. (1 in 12,000) (35 Things More Likely to Happen to You Than Winning the Powerball Lottery (yahoo.com))
Look around you.
You or someone you know are more likely to be diagnosed with a mental illness than you are to be audited by the IRS (1 in 161) (35 Things More Likely to Happen to You Than Winning the Powerball Lottery (yahoo.com)) But which one do you think about more?
Look around you. You are surrounded by people who are silently screaming and do not feel safe enough to speak up.
It's always the quiet ones you have to watch out for.
Well, I have found my voice and I will use it on behalf of all those who are still silently screaming because we cannot be silent anymore!
I am an imposter. I walk among you. I "blend." I didn't receive a formal diagnosis until I was 36 years old, even though I was still a child when I realized there was something different about me. After I was diagnosed, I told someone I'd been good friends and colleagues with for almost 20 years. We'd worked side by side closing hundreds of loans. "No way," they said, "you don't seem like someone with Bipolar or ADHD."
"You don't see me on the really bad days," I responded. "I don't leave my house on the really bad days. I also pretend really well, for short periods of time."
You know, doctors have told me that I don't qualify for disability, not because my illness is mild, but because I present too well? Can you believe that? I'm too good of an actress to be deserving of help? Hollywood? Where's my starring role?
I have spent a lifetime being told that I am… Too emotional; too cold and business like. Too smart, too ditzy, too quiet, too loud, too bossy, too passive, too abrasive, too….. You fill in the blank…because everyone does.
Ultimately, it's all code for "too different."
So I learned to watch people. I learned how to observe, how to mimic, how to act. I learned how to pretend to be someone I am not. I learned how to pretend that I am ok, when I am not ok.
I learned that the comfort and well-being of those around me wasn't just more important than my own comfort and well-being….I learned that how other people, neurotypical people feel, is the only thing that matters.
I learned to be silent. My suffering was my own and no one else's.
Now maybe you're thinking, oh, that's just her. Maybe her parents were abusive. Maybe she's old enough to have gone to school before they had 504's and IEP's and snowflakes.
Maybe…maybe…I can ignore her message and pretend it happened to someone else, and it's not happening to someone I know and love right now, that it's not happening to me.
Look around you. 1 in 5. You know someone. You know many someone's.
Maybe you're thinking. Maybe…maybe…I can ignore her message and pretend that I've never made another person feel like their experience didn't matter or wasn't real. And I never will.
It's the quiet ones that I watch out for, because I will not be silenced. Never again will I be silenced.
It is not just my story I tell here today.
I am the Lorax and I speak for the Trees for the trees have no tongues.
If you love my writing, get value out of it, and believe in paying people for their work, please consider a paid subscription so that I can continue to share my stories.
I’m just a left handed girl in a right handed world trying to figure out
“What the Fork🍴?!?” is going on ~ 🤯 Cheryl.wTf 🍴
🔔 More from me…
🪄 Magically Thriving Business | 🐐 Wicked Real Estate | 🌈 Go on a Side Quest
DISCLAIMER
Some outbound links may financially benefit me and the page through affiliate programs. The affiliate relationship doesn’t influence my opinion, and I would never endorse programs, products, or services I didn’t use, approve of or feel familiar with. So If you use it, I will get compensated — but there’s no additional cost to you.