Mental Health Awareness Month – Introduction

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IMPORTANT NOTE: I am NOT a mental health professional. I’m just a person who loves you and has been through some things myself. If you need professional help, please start here.

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May is Mental Health Awareness Month.

And every year, the internet does its thing. Pretty graphics. Soft pastel campaigns. Carefully worded corporate statements about “prioritizing well-being.” Hashtags. Webinars. A LinkedIn post from your company’s HR department with a stock photo of someone meditating in a field.

And then June 1st rolls around and we go back to pretending everything’s fine.

I’ve been writing about mental health for a few years now, and I’m not going to stop. If anything, I’m going to push harder this month — because the conversations I’ve had with people after those posts tell me that this stuff matters, that a lot of you are carrying more than you let on, and that there’s still way too much we won’t say out loud.

So let’s say it out loud.

This Isn’t Theoretical for Me

I’m not writing this from the outside looking in.

I’ve wrestled with ADHD my whole life. Some days it’s a genuine superpower. Other days it’s a curse that makes me feel like I’m failing at the most basic things other people seem to do effortlessly. I’ve battled addiction. I’ve hit walls I didn’t think I’d climb back over. I’ve had long stretches where “holding it together” was the most exhausting thing I did all day — and nobody knew.

I’ve also watched people I love — good people, strong people, people who laughed the loudest in the room — quietly fall apart while the rest of us missed every sign.

And I’ve lost friends to suicide.

Let me sit on that for a second, because I think it deserves more than a quick mention: I have lost friends to suicide. Friends who mattered. Friends who are gone. And every single time, the same thought hits me like a punch to the gut: what if we had just talked about it?

That question doesn’t leave you.

The Double Standard We Don’t Talk About

(or we don’t talk about enough, with honesty)

Here’s something that genuinely pisses me off.

If I told you I had high blood pressure, you’d ask how I was managing it. You’d tell me to watch my sodium. Maybe share what worked for you. Nobody would look at me sideways. Nobody would quietly wonder if I was “really cut out” for my job or my life.

Now imagine I told you I was struggling with anxiety. Or depression. Or that my brain just doesn’t work the way everyone else’s seems to.

Different reaction, right?

That’s the double standard. And it is 100% complete bullshit.

Your brain is an organ. It gets sick. It gets overwhelmed. It needs care. Why we’ve decided that this particular organ is the one we’re supposed to suffer through in silence — while we openly discuss every other part of our physical health — is beyond me. We’ve been sold a lie that needing mental health support is a character flaw. A weakness. Something to hide.

And people are dying because of it.

What This Month Is About

Throughout May, I’m going to publish posts that say the things most people are actually thinking but don’t feel comfortable talking about.

I’ll get personal. I’ll step on some toes — including my own. I’m not going to wrap everything up neatly or hand you a list of feel-good tips. That’s not what this is. What this is, is a real conversation between people who are done pretending.

I can’t promise it’ll be comfortable. I can promise it’ll be honest.

Before We Start

If you’re struggling right now — not in a “rough week” kind of way, but in a real, deep, I-don’t-know-how-much-longer-I-can-do-this-shit kind of way — please don’t wait for one of my blog posts.

Talk to someone. A friend, a family member, a therapist, a crisis line. Just tell one person the real truth about how you’re doing. I know it can be scary. I know it can feel lonely, like nobody is going to understand.

Trust me, it’s worth the risk. You are worth the risk.

If you don’t know where to start, here’s a place you can.

The posts start Tuesday. See you then.
— Evan