The Power of Disclosure

My editor initially rejected Burn Rate.

He said he had no interest in a “chest-thumping memoir of entrepreneurial success.” That said, if I were to “write an unvarnished story about mental illness told through the lens of an entrepreneur,” well, then, we might be onto something.

Confronting my demons required twin recognitions: nobody is judging us and everybody hurts sometimes.

Out came the pen. 

Nobody is judging us

Nobody is judging us as much as you’re judging ourselves.

I spent years worried about what it might mean when my “shameful” diagnosis, “humiliating” behavior, and “career-limiting” stories were exposed.

What I’ve learned from sharing my story is that people aren’t thinking that much about me. In all the conversations I had stimulated by the book, the dialogue always quickly turned to that human’s struggle, their family’s hidden stories, and the issues they face. 

My story was but a prompt, a conversation starter.

We’re all focused on ourselves—and rightfully so. We are the people who… do the stuff? We’re the ones we have agency over, so it makes sense that we are constantly thinking about our own lives.

We are the ones we are looking for.

Everybody hurts

Nobody makes it too far in life without having experienced some psychological hardship.

Let’s just catalog a few mental health issues: anxiety, panic, OCD, ADHD, depression, bipolar, PTSD, schizophrenia, borderline, dissociative, narcissism, paranoia, and postpartum depression. And then a few hundred more.

Everybody has dealt with something. Whether it’s grief, a family crisis, relationship stuff, financial stress, career dissatisfaction, eating disorders, physical illness, interpersonal harm, sexual trauma, the process of aging, fertility issues, burnout—the list goes on—the range of things that can potentially affect our mental health is dizzying, even if there isn’t technically a diagnosis.

Separate from categorizable diagnoses, there is no one on this planet of age who has not experienced a mental health challenge at some point in their lives. Mental health challenges are as universal as breathing. Most of us acknowledge this. Many of us, though, say things like “I’d never take meds for that” or “I don’t need therapy.” Or my favorite: “I’ve never experienced any mental health issues.” I think to myself: that might be a mental health issue right there… it’s called: you’re delusional.

Everyone has a story of their own plight; most of them simply remain hidden. Every family tree is marked by struggle.

Since my book came out, the outpouring of such stories has been astonishing. People open up to me on social media DM’s and in real life, to tell me about their stuff.  Sometimes I have to remind myself: I’m not a mental health professional, I’m a mental health patient. 

I’m starting to believe the world would be a healthier place if we saw mental health as an issue we all face rather than the particular cross to bear of those of us with a clear-cut challenge.

Becoming ourselves

The hardest things about our lives—the things that we are most inclined to hide—are actually our most powerful resources for connecting with others. If we want to form close relationships and community, it’s not projecting strength that will pave the way. Our disclosure of vulnerability is what draws people in. This might be obvious to the 60 million people who have watched Brené Brown’s TED talk, but I was startled by just how true it is. 

Hiding our stories and life experiences robs us of a chance to be fully known, and robs others of a chance to feel less alone.

But how the hell do we get started?

The first step in being able to be vulnerable with others is being vulnerable with ourselves. Looking at ourselves in the mirror, and seeing who we are rather than who we want to see.

There might be an aha moment where we internally figure out how to do this. A meditation retreat, a spiritual quest, or a good psilocybin trip. I can’t speak to that experience because it wasn’t mine. It was only when I almost lost everything that I was jolted into doing the work of seeing the real me.

It turns out this work isn’t something I could do alone. It took three hundred sessions of therapy to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. And that therapy is still going, twice a week.

That’s the real story of the story I was privileged to tell last year.

Telling others was the easy part. 

It was telling myself the truth first that took the most work.

Which reminds me of Alice in Wonderland:

“Who are you?” said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, Sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”

“What do you mean by that?” said the Caterpillar, sternly. “Explain yourself!”

“I ca’n’t explain myself, I’m afraid, Sir,” said Alice, “because I am not myself, you see.”
— Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll