back story: Last year, my school’s chapter of Active Minds held an event where students spoke about their own experiences with mental illness. They happened to be short on speakers, and I was friends with one of the organizers. I ended up volunteering at the very last minute to speak about my own depression. I was nervous before I started, but somehow it just clicked and it was awesome. I drew people in, I expressed emotion, I helped the audience understand some of the struggles that people with depression go through, and I even got some laughs. People came up to me afterward and told me how great it was. It really helped me come to terms with myself as a person.
fast forward: My school is hosting a conference about mental health and I’ve been asked to be part of a panel of people who will speak and answer questions about their own mental illness. They asked me because they heard about the event I spoke at last year. I said yes, but now I’m having second thoughts. If I knew I didn’t want to do this, then I wouldn’t. I’m just afraid that I’m psyching myself out. Last time it was a last minute decision- I literally wrote my speech on the back of a receipt I dug out of my purse during the speaker before me. I didn’t have time to psych myself out, not like I do now. Also, the conference is this Sunday, and I would really be leaving them in a lurch if I backed out now.
I don’t know what to do. I could back out, feel a lot better right now, but then feel awful about leaving the conference organizers (friends of mine) in a bind. Or, maybe I’m making myself nervous for no reason, and this will be a good thing once I stop being nervous and just do it. I can see myself regretting doing it OR regretting not doing it. I’m not even sure how to approach this.
If you invite someone with a chronic illness to a speaking event about that chronic illness, I think you have to allow for the possibility that illness may prevent the person from attending on the day. Id be very disappointed if they held it against you if it does happen, so I would suggest not worrying about that. Given its a panel, they should be able to manage if you cant make it, so dont see it as ‘all on you’ is my suggestion.
If the last experience was good, Id think the chances are that this would be too. Take a risk is my view and dont be too hard on yourself if it doesnt work out, better to try and fail than never try at all, etc etc.
While I agree with Otara, is this really about the depression? It seems that psyching yourself out would be more of an anxiety thing. A depression version would be more like thinking you aren’t good enough, or not feeling like going, and, in which case, I’d say do it as part of therapy. Deal with it how you’d deal with other depressive symptoms.
But it really sounds like anticipatory anxiety. So dealing with that may be a new thing for you. The one inevitable truth is that it is worse in your mind than it can ever be out there. I’d suggest minimizing–even if you are absolutely terrible–what would it hurt? And then remember that you aren’t going to be absolutely terrible anyways. You’ve already proven that to yourself once.
Half of the work is going to be done for you, even. People will be asking questions, and all you have to do for those is answer honestly.
The other name for “anticipatory anxiety” is “stage fright”. You’re the only one who can decide whether the joy you got from your positive experience last year makes up for the nerves you’re having now or not.
Sorry, but why wouldn’t you do it? It was good last time, for you and for a bunch of other people. Just go and talk like you did before. This may turn out to be a really important thing you can do for others, and incidentally good for you. It’s worth a second go-round, at least.
My advice would also be to do it – usually (unless, maybe you have extreme anxiety related to public speaking, which I don’t think you do) the anxiety before these things is much worse than the actual doing. I would also not be wedded to the idea that this one must turn out exactly like the last one. Don’t pressure yourself to be the exact same kind of funny you were the last time, etc. Just (try to) be yourself again. It’s a different crowd now, a different night, different chemistry, and a whole new set of possibilities. If it turns out funny that’s great, but if it’s just informative and encouraging, that sounds like a success to me too. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t expect to be “entertained” necessarily in a talk on mental illness – I’d expect to be educated or helped. Good for you for being willing to speak about this very important issue.
I have struggled with minor depression (medicated for about 7 years and basically been fine since then) and I try to do my little part to destigmatize the whole mental illness thing by letting it slip in casual conversation that I take anti-depressants or whatever. So freaking what? We are getting way better as a society with this issue and I am very glad. Anyway, my advice is do it! You can do it, you’re just psyching yourself out, and you can un-psyche yourself out too.
I agree, it sounds like s case of stage fright. Most performers have some level of anxiety before a performance so you are in very good company.
Embrace the anxiety for what it is and don’t give it any more power over your decision to make this contribution. Your willingness to step up may help even just one person from going down that depression road alone.
I once outed myself at school about my history of mental health problems in an effort to build awareness. But I’ve had regret about that since then. The responses were positive, but I felt my motivations and methods for doing so weren’t very good.
If you feel your motivations for doing so are good, then go for it. The responses will likely be better than you expect.
In the grand scheme of things, even though I have regretting outing myself the way I did, I think I would’ve regretting being so afraid of social rejection that I kept silent even more.