One thing I have learned with mental illness, and with basically everything in life, is that there are so many different opinions on how to recover and live your life, and so many different avenues to take. I’ve read many books on self help and they all have great advice, however those are all different opinions on how to live. And like mental illness there are different avenues to take, the avenue I took might be different than someone else’s avenue and we may have ended up in the same place, but both avenue’s and experiences mattered and worked uniquely for each individual person.
There are so many different opinions on life and recovery, and in my experience, if I think my way is right it doesn’t mean that someone else’s wasn’t right too, no one is really right or wrong, if you really think about it. However one thing I have learned in my life is that I do not, and I mean I do not judge people’s opinions on life and on mental illness, because everyone’s experience and everyone’s story matters, and there should be no judgement, no criticism, no right or wrong (as long as the opinion is respectful).
I think that is forgotten sometimes, we all believe our opinion is the right one, and you may in fact be right, but it doesn’t mean that the person disagreeing with you or the person with a different opinion is wrong, their opinion may be right too. If you are in an argument, let’s say about life, and one person says their opinion is right and another person says no their opinion is right, then who, now think about this, who is truly right. They both think, and I mean really believe they are right, so who’s right? Maybe both, maybe neither, all I am saying is, that if each person truly believes they are right, who is right? People like to think that their opinion is right, but logically, no one can be right one hundred percent of the time, all the thoughts in your head cannot be one hundred percent accurate, it’s impossible.
So, for my story, this is what worked for me, and I always say what worked for me might not work for someone else, because every individual is so unique and experiences and recovery are so individual. My way of figuring out mental health was right for me, it might not be right for someone else, but it doesn’t mean that my way was wrong, or someone else’s way was wrong, maybe we were both right or maybe we were both wrong, I guess we will never truly know, the only thing I know is everyone’s experiences matter and looking at life with the perspective that someone’s else’s opinion, be it different than yours, might be right too (again as long as the opinion is respectful).
My dad would jokingly say to me right now, Samantha, to deep, let’s chat about this later.
samantha mercanti 