Don’t believe what social media tells you about someone’s life…

I just wanted to post this in hopes that it might make people think a little deeper about our society and how we relate to each other, as well as how mental health gets swept under the carpet due to it still absurdly been thought of as taboo.

OK so my picture here: all smiles and I look like I’m relaxed and calm right?

Well it couldn’t be further from the truth. I have very recently just fallen back into a very deep and dark depression after several years of being OK. As far as social media is concerned though I’m doing great, modeling, loving life, see friends often and have it all sorted so to speak. And I’m not even trying to put forth this image, I’m just posting things to distract myself, it has never been my intention to play make believe with how I am to be perceived. There’s a multitude of images old and new that say I’m acing it in life or at least have a smile on my face 99.9% of the time. Actually right now I’ve slowly been withdrawing from catching up with friends, I’ve been struggling at work but too scared to tell my employee I’m not feeling well and the reasons why, I’ve been looking in the mirror everyday and horrified at what is looking back at me as I feel ugly, used up & exhausted.

I have friends that have unfriended me and people misunderstanding me, I have been so up and down that the only things I can think of to relieve the stress is to imagine if I wasn’t here at all.

Social media has become this thing that although can be a great tool to “keep in touch” with friends in another place, and can bring feelings of togetherness even when we’re hidden away. It also masks very real social problems that our society is beginning to develop about disconnection, lack of community, lack of empathy, division and the reality of mental health issues or reality of real life in general. Nobody is up all of the time, but social media often has people scrolling through and thinking oh wow they have such a great life I have to be more like that or feeling as if they are lacking something because they aren’t perceived this way or don’t perceive themselves this way. It’s not where depression comes from, but it adds to it’s problem & veils it so it is invisible with our now more common way of communicating. My message today is, always, always, always be kind to one another. You never know the battles that someone is fighting behind those supposedly happy Facebook profiles or Insta posts. We live in a smoke and mirrors type of society. Let’s be brave & look a bit deeper & reach out to each other for real every once in a while.

#socialmediaisnotreality #beyondblue #bereal #love #kindness #smilesonlyscreendeep #survivorship

Big love 💜 xoxoxo