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 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 my brain trusted Wentworth's post and his wisdom when I was struggling was because I knew he had been in the hole and knew the way out (a West Wing reference). 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 what we connect to when we find ourselves struggling.

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.