Please stop giving me (unsolicited) mental health advice on social media. I’m fed up!

Speaking publicly about my mental health online has been, for the most part, rewarding. I’ve made lifelong friendships with people who truly understand what I’m going through and have had opportunities to make a difference to the conversation around something that has impacted my life so deeply.

But can we take a moment to talk about something that has been relentlessly and consistently a proper pain in the ass? That is the hundreds (maybe even thousands) of little bits of unsolicited advice I’ve had from total strangers on the Internet who think that they know my mental health needs better than me or the medical professionals in my life.

I’m lucky. I’m connected to some awesome people – the real thought leaders of the mental health community and people who I’ve been dizzyingly in awe of. I have the chance to share my story with the people who follow me and beyond. Not everyone gets the chance to feel heard. I know that I am lucky.

And I’m grateful. I am! I enjoy talking about mental health and recovery and self care more than just about any other topic. It’s so nice to properly connect with people; to skip the chitchat and hear how someone is really doing or to open up about my hopes and dreams. And every now and then I get to have a conversation that changes me.

I’m not always looking for advice

I just sometimes wish that I could say stuff about how I’m feeling and the conversation could be just that, y’know. I could express myself without it being seen as an open invitation for people to tell me what I’m doing wrong, what I could be doing better or what worked for them.

That, for once, my feelings could just be heard and validated and shared with my community. And that nobody would tell me to go for a walk or to meditate or ask me when I last saw my doctor. That nobody would project their diagnosis or treatment plan onto me. That I could just say stuff and be heard. But that isn’t the Internet, is it?

And, here’s the thing, I know that it’s usually born from good intentions. I know that people just want to share what’s worked for them. I know that it usually comes from a place of kindness. It does.

But not always. Not all of it. Sometimes people tell me that I’d feel better if I stopped talking about it. People often respond by telling me to try to forget about (or forgive) my abuser. I don’t find that helpful and I don’t think it’s kind.

I’ve had some really bad advice online

I’ve been told that my diagnosis is wrong, that I should lose weight or that my partner will leave me because I’ve been sexually assaulted and am “damaged goods”.

More than once, and often at my most vulnerable, someone has told me that my only option is to die.

(Here’s 100 Reasons to Stay Alive for anyone who needs it)

And this is on top of all the nonsense and trolling that comes my way for just being a woman on the Internet. It’s exhausting. I’m exhausted.

It’s a spectrum, of course. Some of the advice is harmless, some of it is thoughtful and some of it is just mundane and predictable. But it compounds and it adds up. And, just because you can see it coming, doesn’t mean that it isn’t taking its toll.

When it happens day in day out, even the advice that would otherwise seem harmless feels toxic.

I just want to express myself

I just wish that sometimes I could say “today is a bad day” without being told to do some yoga or have a 7 hour bath or down a bottle of CBD oil or whatever self care thing is trending today.

If I am distressed and talking about it, that’s a good thing. We need to encourage people to open up more, not silence them with a solution. Who cares if I haven’t done all of my squats today, don’t you want to just celebrate the fact that I have chosen to stop internalising my pain?

Don’t you want to chat to me about what’s really going on in our lives without me trying to send you off to the gym? Stay here and talk to me for a bit. Let’s have one of those real conversations that might make us both feel less alone for a bit. Please.

Because, when you send unsolicited mental health advice to someone who is struggling, what you are really saying – what they are hearing – is this:

You are not taking enough responsibility for your recovery and it is your fault that you are unwell because you haven’t tried to do things the way I do things.

So, please, before you offer your advice to a stranger on the Internet, stop and ask yourself whether they have asked you for it. Because, yes, it’s good to share the things you’ve learned with the people who need to hear it. But we’re all really really tired. And, when we want to hear it, we’ll ask.

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