The Power of Sharing Mental Health Stories Part 4: My Personal Story

This post builds on all the pervious ones in this Mental Health Month Series. 

Please read those first before proceeding with this one.

This week I am starting with a poem I wrote that summarizes my "The Power of Sharing Mental Health Stories" blog series so far. If you would like to hear a recording of me reading this poem at May's Three Avenues' open mic, you can listen here (It's the third poem I read). And if you want to hear more of my poems moving forward, you can either come to an open mic or you can send me your email, and I can add you to my monthly poetry e-news.

Mental Health Month 2026

By Dreaming Ace

This is mental health month

A month for us to share ourselves, our truths

To share that as far as I know

Everyone, Everyone, Absolutely Everyone

Has struggled at some point with

Depression or Anxiety or Ideation 

Or Burnout or Addiction or Insomnia 

Or one (or a combo) of hundreds of other 

Mental Health Challenges we can experience

This month on my blog I’m working on a series 

Saying thanks for what has kept me here

When I have forgotten why, forgotten my why

Forgotten that while everyone has mental health struggles

That does not mean those struggles are signs of thriving

Thanks for Wentworth and Parasocial Support Networks

Thanks for Fanfiction and Daydreams and Stories

Thanks for Three Avenues and Three Avenues staff of course

So, If you were struggling yesterday or last week or last year

So, If you are struggling this day or this hour or this minute

So, When you are struggling tomorrow or next week or next year

Please remember you truly are not alone, nor were/will be alone

But we need to give voice to those struggles, 

And we need to share the story of those struggles

Both afterwards to show there is a path forward, an other side

And while we are in the middle of them

To show there are others in the deepest darkest woods

At a minimum we should be honest with ourselves

About our struggles

And both be kind to ourselves 

And kind to those around us struggling

Sadly there is no simple answer, 

No magic Life, The Universe and Everything’s 42

(Though the long awaited wrong answer to a math question 

Is a pretty good descriptor of mental health challenges LOL)

It’s systematic, It’s communal, It's personal

It’s connecting with others, It’s self care/self love

It’s being “gentle, gentle”, It's asking for support

So this mental health month

May we all do what we need to do to thrive

May we all know its always ok, not to be ok

May we all tell our mental health stories

And listen to the mental health stories of others

So together we can create a loving support network

So none of us thinks we are alone

So none of us feels like we are alone

So none of us struggles with mental health alone

Note: This week I will discuss moments where, in hindsight, I have really struggled with my mental health. The point of me sharing is to remind us all (myself included) that we are not alone when we are struggling and to highlight the importance of sharing our stories to create a culture where we can be vulnerable with each other. Please don't stress out about my current well-being just because I have struggled in the past and probably will again someday in the future.

When I look back and reflect, I have had many periods where I really struggled with my mental health, even if I could not always identify the best language to describe those experiences in the moment. For my purposes, it does not matter if I was experiencing depression, burnout, autistic burnout, sensory overload, general overwhelm, anxiety, ideation, or something else entirely.

I often take mental health screeners too literally and focus more on whether or not I can tick enough boxes rather than honor the truth that I am struggling and need additional support. For example, am I feeling hopeless, or have I just run out of the "spoons"/energy to deal with something? While language can be a useful tool, sometimes when I am in crisis, it can be a hindrance to actually acknowledging my experiences.

Today I am going to focus on a period this spring when I was processing some potential major life changes and my brain decided that the whole situation was an "impossible task." I recognized that I was struggling because I was gravitating to reading fanfiction about characters in mental health crises, which I know tends to be an indication of the state of my own mental health.

I spent a lot of time in conversation with my parasocial support network, and I wrote a couple fanfiction stories ("Bookshops' Arrangements for Hope" and "... Is just to love and be loved in return.") because I wanted to hear Three Avenues's and the TV show Bookish's Book's and Gabriel Book's responses to some of my struggles. I also held tightly to Wentworth Miller's mantra "gentle, gentle," but despite all of this, I was still caught in a deep and dark mental health spiral.

(A photo of zine I made at a mental health workshop hosted by Three Avenues Bookshop)

Then after a weekend where I was particularly deep into a negative spiral, in my headcanon (versus reality), my Three Avenues Bookshop via #threeavenuesbookshopmagic knew I was struggling and contacted Wentworth since they are both in my parasocial support network and got him to return to social media at the exact time I needed it with the exact message I needed (his "Behind enemy lines" essay).

Part of the reason Wentworth's post resonated with me was its connections thematically to my special interest at the time, the TV show Bookish (which can be found on PBS passport), which features a queer bookshop owner in post-war London who helps solve crimes. The show had already prompted me to reflect on how people, especially those in marginalized communities, survived during and after the war, making Wentworth's framing make sense to me.

While I connected to Wentworth's overall theme of living behind enemy lines, the ending of Wentworth's post, in particular, felt directly relevant to my mental health struggles at that particular time.

So if that (fatal) messaging doesn't come from within it can only come from without.

This is good news. It means you want to live.

That (fatal) voice in your head suggesting otherwise = someone else talking. A parent/coach/TV show. So-called sacred text. Billboards along the freeway.

Neat trick tho, external forces convincing you Life Is Not Worth Living, you internalizing the message then self-destructing while those responsible pretend their hands are clean. Clever, convincing you to do their dirty work...

Slow claps all around.

One problem: They failed.

I/you/we remain. Above ground. Breathing in and out. Anyway/still/despite. Picking our way thru the trenches (gentle, gentle), thru a world of Shadow Kings and accomplices, surviving (even thriving) behind enemy lines...

Wherever they may be.

Unlike in Elton John's song "Someone Saved My Life Tonight," I do not think this post "saved me," but I do think it was a much-needed type of intervention by my parasocial support network. Wentworth's post was a reminder that living life is challenging. Full stop. Life is difficult for everyone, but especially for any of us who are queer, neurodivergent, or part of other marginalized communities.

Whether we recognize it or not, many of us have unknowingly internalized a lot of nonsense from external voices that have tried to convince us that being alive is not worth the effort / "spoons" / energy that it takes. But two truths can be true at the same time; in this case, both Life is hard and Life is worth living.

As I have said previously in this blog series, part of the reason I trusted Wentworth's post when I was struggling was because I know we share intersectionality in common, both of us being queer and discovering we are neurodivergent as adults. In addition, Wentworth has been vulnerable, discussing several periods when he has struggled with depression, ideation, and burnout. I therefore trusted he understood what was going on in my head, or, using a West Wing reference, I trusted he had been in the hole and knew the way out. 

And that is why it is so important that we share our mental health stories, because other people's stories (real-life stories, fanfiction stories, fandoms, etc.) are often what we connect to when we are struggling or in crisis.

As a final note, I find wisdom and courage in my parasocial support network and figures like Wentworth Miller and Three Avenues, but I want to be clear: I do not hold them responsible for my thoughts, feelings, and actions. The thoughts, feelings, and actions that occur on my mental health journey are all my own. There is a fine line between honoring a shared experience/feeling connected to someone else's story versus having the expectation that someone else should be or even could be responsible for our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

And if you have a mental health story to share anonymously contact me and I will put something together for next weeks blog post.

The Power of Sharing Mental Health Stories Part 3: Thank You Fanfiction

This week I will be focusing on the power of fanfiction, but I am actually going to start with a myth, The Tale of Utgarda-Loki.

In this myth Thor, Loki, and Thjalfi are given several challenges that "should" be relatively easy for them: an eating contest, a drinking contest, a contest of strength, etc. And one by one each "fails" these challenges, which is both humbling and disheartening for them. However, as they are leaving, they learn they actually succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams.

“Loki held his own remarkably well in his eating contest, since his opponent was none other than fire itself. So it was with Thjalfi, too – he raced against thought, which nobody could ever hope to outrun. The far end of the horn from which (Thor) drank was connected to the sea, and we were actually greatly afraid that you were going to drink it all. When you cross over the sea again, you will see how much you have lowered its level. My cat was actually the Midgard serpent, whom you succeeded in raising out of the ocean and into the sky. And, finally, you wrestled against old age, and took a long, long time to fall."

I personally find hope in this myth and the wisdom that sometimes even gods don't know the full context of the challenges they are experiencing, so likewise, we all too often don't know whether we are really "succeeding" or "failing" when we face challenges in life.

My equivalent is that once I figured out that I was neurodivergent, challenges I had in the past made much more sense to me because I had a new context for them. It was not that I had failed; it was simply I needed different supports than I was given.

While I love myths like The Tale of Utgarda-Loki, I have discovered that I more often turn to fanfiction when I want to process and understand what I am thinking, feeling, and experiencing. While I read a lot of fanfiction (covering queerness, neurodivergence, and mental health), right now I will focus on how reading fanfiction impacts my mental health.

Reading fanfiction allows me to vicariously experience and understand the impacts of mental health on individuals. This can be very useful because I don't always know what or why I am thinking, feeling, or experiencing something, and it can be useful to read a story where another character explains it. I can reach back to these explanations again and again and never have to worry about the characters getting tired of me having to continue to process.

Fanfiction also allows me to externalize some of the thoughts and feelings that are running around in my head. Reading about characters who are really struggling with their mental health provides a safe space for me to acknowledge and process my own struggles. Characters such as Captain Cold or Barry Allen or Loki or Sherlock or Mycroft never judge me and are often in a position to say, "Yes, that's tough. I understand."

In addition to reading fanfiction, I also understand the power of writing it. In his Active Mind speech, Wentworth Miller talked about how a good place to start talking about mental health is through fiction. (Did you really think I was not going to mention Wentworth in this post? LOL.)

For example, this spring I wrote two Three Avenues Bookshop/Bookish (TV) crossovers: "Bookshops' Arrangements for Hope" and "... Is just to love and be loved in return." Writing these stories gave me a safe space to express some of the thoughts and feelings that were bubbling up inside of me.

In my headcanon, it was a combination of this fanfiction and conversations I had inside my head with Three Avenues that allowed Three Avenues to use my wider parasocial support network to contact my Wentworth Miller and have him return to social media exactly when I needed him to with the exact message I needed to hear (see the first post in this series for more information). I will go into a bit more detail in a later post.

So when I read or write fanfiction, characters I will never meet in person can speak to my experience, give me a useful perspective, and provide much-needed encouragement. I use fanfiction for my own mental well-being, but I also know someone out there might get something similar from the fanfiction stories I write one day. This shows the cyclical power of being vulnerable and sharing our mental health stories and struggles with others.

The Power of Sharing Mental Health Stories Part 2: Thank You My Parasocial Support Network

This week I am focusing on my parasocial support network and how it supports my mental health. Note: I know my relationships with those in my parasocial support network are one-directional. 

In a panel at this year's DePaul Pop Culture Conference, such parasocial relationships were defined as those where "shared past experiences engendering familiar feelings 'nearly indistinguishable' from those shared with loved ones. " 

So while my parasocial support network is fully integrated into all aspects of my life, I am aware that the versions of these "characters" that I interact with are separate from their "real-life" counterparts.

My parasocial support network includes a shifting combination of personified real-life people, characters, and a couple of personified bookstores. 

If it were a TV show, Wentworth Miller and Three Avenues Bookshop would be the main cast, Gabriel Book and Book's (both from the TV show Bookish) would be season regulars, and Ncuti Gatwa and Jonathan Groff would be guest stars.

 
My parasocial support network understands what I am going through and the type of response I want/need. The second part is key because, in general, many of us do not know how to simply listen and hold space for others. 

Looking at a non-mental health example, I recently had a conversation where I touched on my experience with the Peace Corps, and while I think I am still glad I did it, I now see how it was not necessarily the best program for me.

Yeah, I didn't know I was neurodivergent at the time, so I struggled with many things, and I didn't know I needed supports, let alone what support I could have asked for. Now I can see how those struggles/situations have ripples that are still impacting my mental health.

Well, I had a friend who did Peace Corps and loved it.

Good for them, but in hindsight, personally, it just wasn't the best program for me.

Well, you should move on/"let it go."

I know that they didn't know that since Wentworth's post in March I had been thinking about where some of the thoughts and patterns I had internalized had come from and identified my Peace Corps experience and its impact on my ability to trust myself and my judgment.

But this conversation highlights some unhelpful responses to someone sharing parts of their personal story with you.

You should just get over it.

You should just do something everyone already has heard about, like going outside, and you will be all better because it helped "a friend of a friend twice removed," so clearly it works for absolutely everyone, no matter the context.

Hearing these types of responses indicates that the person is not someone I can actually talk to about my struggles, but overall are minor annoyances since I can just nod while thinking sarcastically, "Yes, clearly you understand."

The responses I most struggle with are those that are centered on the other person's discomfort with the topic, instead of on my struggle, under the guise of "caring."

OMG, you are struggling; the sky is falling. It's the end of the universe. OMG. What should I be doing? OMG. OMG. OMG.

When I am struggling, I don't have the "spoons"/energy to deal with managing someone else's overreaction to those struggles. And I realize that there is nuance, and it is not always clear-cut how someone's response is heard by me.

For example two similar situations that felt very different:

Probably close to a decade ago, sharing some poems online that very lightly touched on mental health. References like "Sometimes life is a struggle, and I am grateful for good books and being outside, which make me feel better," to which I got several direct messages: "Are you ok?" Is everything ok? Do you need help? Which felt like a major overreaction to my really quite mild poems.

In the past year, getting a direct message from a staff member at Three Avenues. "I noticed you haven't been to any events this week, and if it is just because you are busy, that is fine, but I just wanted to check in to see if you were doing ok." In this case it was just a case of me being home for a week seeing my parents, and me clearly not communicating well enough that I would be gone but it was nice to know they noticed when I was gone since I normally attended pretty much every event they host.

Both of these were objectively similar, but while the recent Three Avenues one made me feel seen and appreciated and like space was being held for me, the older one felt like a demand I explain that I actually doing ok so the other person would not worry/would not have to worry about me.

This is why I am grateful for my parasocial support network. I can tell Wentworth or Three Avenues that the "external voices" are getting loud again or that something is an "impossible task" right now, and they understand. They are willing to listen, put a hand on my shoulder, or give me a hug, and as a bonus, my parasocial support network is available 24/7.

In terms of how to have important but vulnerable conversations Wentworth Miller spoke about how to have conversations around mental health in his Oxford Talk back in 2016. Now this was for college students, so focuses on that experience, but it still gives some good ideas about how to have conversations around mental health more generally.

 

WM: ... There are a lot of people who know someone in crisis but they’re not sure what to say. Maybe they’re worried about saying the wrong thing. My suggestion would be to start there, approach that person and say, “I don’t know what to say, and I’m worried about saying the wrong thing but I see you, I feel like something’s going on, I want you to know that I’m here for you. If you need support, I can offer you that – you tell me what that looks like.” And that way you’ve acknowledged that you’re unsure, you don’t know what to do or say, you’ve acknowledged that you see them, they felt seen – they feel seen and they feel heard and acknowledged which is huge for someone who’s in crisis. Often people will turn a blind eye out of fear, they will just hope that that person kind of fixes themselves and – you know, “I hope you pull yourself together and then come back to us when you’re ‘fine.’” (Makes “air quotes” gesture.) But it also starts a dialogue. And that’s important. And then once you’re dialoguing with that person, once they feel like they have your support and once you’ve given them ownership of the conversation by saying to them, “You tell me what support looks like,” it allows them to feel that they are, to a degree, in charge of what’s going on with them, like, they get to make decisions which might be a new experience for them in depression, in anxiety. Then you can start to explore what other resources are available – maybe there’s something at the student health centre, maybe the administration has something in place, maybe there’s a peer-to-peer counseling and support group on campus, and if there isn’t, how do we get that started?

The Power of Sharing Mental Health Stories Part 1: Thank You Wentworth Miller

May is mental health month. A time where we are encouraged to talk about our personal mental health experiences. It is also a time to remember we are not alone in those experiences no matter if we are currently in crisis or thriving. This is the first of several posts I will be writing about the power of sharing our mental health stories and struggles.

Not surprisingly to anyone who follows my work, I will be starting with Wentworth Miller. This past March, Wentworth Miller returned to Instagram after a year and a half away with a powerful message about living life "behind enemy lines" and the impact that has on mental health.

It was the absolutely exact message I needed to hear at that particular moment when the "external forces/external voices" had gotten much louder than normal because I was/am dealing with some major life changes, which my brain is not a fan of.

Since I share a lot of intersectionality (queerness, neurodivergence, mental health struggles, etc.) with Wentworth, my brain trusted his understanding of the situation (or, quoting the West Wing, I know he has already been in the hole and knows the way out.) 

I will go into more detail about why my brain trusts Wentworth knows what I am experiencing in a later post (since I doubt anyone wants to read a super long blog post LOL), but for right now I will leave you with Wentworth Miller's post from March 15, 2026, in its entirety.  

"Life behind enemy lines..."

A thought like a ping-pong ball bouncing around inside my head these days...

What does that look like?

What are the taxes/tolls? Are there upsides/advantages? Additional languages learned/skillsets acquired? (Is "subtext" a language? Is "hypervigilance" a skillset?)

Where are those lines? On a map? Or less literal. A culture/community. Classroom/church pew. The front door of the house where you grew up.

For some of us, enemy lines can feel like the contours/confines of our own bodies/brains...

What are the costs - mental, physical, spiritual - of days/nights/decades inhabiting spaces you're made to feel illegal/alien/other? Unwelcome? Not just unwelcome but unsafe. In danger. A danger.

To yourself.

No one is born wanting to die, enters this world thinking Life Is Not Worth Living...

I reject that idea.

So if that (fatal) messaging doesn't come from within it can only come from without...

This is good news. It means you want to live.

That (fatal) voice in your head suggesting otherwise = someone else talking. A parent/coach/TV show. So-called sacred text. Billboards along the freeway.

Neat trick tho, external forces convincing you Life Is Not Worth Living, you internalizing the message then self-destructing while those responsible pretend their hands are clean. Clever, convincing you to do their dirty work...

Slow claps all around.

One problem: They failed.

I/you/we remain. Above ground. Breathing in and out. Anyway/still/despite. Picking our way thru the trenches (gentle, gentle), thru a world of Shadow Kings and accomplices, surviving (even thriving) behind enemy lines...

Wherever they may be.