YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I know I haven't been around the forum lately and some of you regular posters may have noticed. I don't really have a good excuse for why -- I just haven't wanted to feel vulnerable, I suppose. I didn't feel like I needed help feeling better.

Lately I've been doing fairly well, stable and happy for the most part. I've gone through almost the entirety of the Harry Potter series in almost three weeks (I've never read any of them but randomly decided that now was the time) and am halfway through the second Phoenix Wright game on my DS. I've seen all the (good) movies currently in theatres. I'm eating regularly although still worried that it's not enough. I got promoted last month so I've been managing people and feeling productive at work. I have smiled often and laughed heartily. Why would I want to come back here and feel sad?

I admit that I did feel a strong amount of guilt for not maintaining the forum presence I had simply because I was "busy." I felt guilty that I was doing so well and I knew that there were other people here that were doing terrible. There were times where I thought about checking the forum (mostly out of habit) but didn't because I worried there would be so much I missed that I would feel too overwhelmed to do anything.

I got an email last night while I was setting my alarm before going to sleep -- someone had sent me a PM on the forum. I had to read it. It was someone who I'd sent a message to weeks ago, offering an ear if they ever needed it. My guilt melted away into compassion and longing to give this person a hug.

I realized, then, why I came to this forum in the first place: I wanted to reach out. I wanted to find people who knew what I was going through, people who could relate, people who would remind me that I was not alone. I didn't come looking for a solution to a problem or to wallow in my own self-pity -- I came looking to make a connection with someone, anyone, who could understand how I felt in my darkest depths. I came looking to comfort people who reminded my of myself and just let them know that there is hope.

Because there is. There really is.

I wish you wouldn't feel guilty for living your life and doing well. I speak from experience when I say that even when you're not here on a regular basis, your presence is still felt. Sometimes when searching through old topics to see if there's anything that might help me or apply to me right now, I'll come across something that's months old, sometimes, somewhere in there, there's a post from you. And you're kind and you're supportive, and it doesn't matter how many months ago you wrote it, it's still nice and it still helps.

I just wanted to make absolutely sure that you knew that you are a comfort, and you do give hope. And I'm very grateful.

I don't really have a good excuse for why

I hate that feeling. That guilt. That feeling that "I don't want to" or "I just don't feel like it" isn't acceptable - that there has to be a "good excuse" or reason or justification to do something. I fight that all the time.

I have a weird relationship with this board as well. Sometimes I feel like I need to post a lot of my own shit, then I get self-conscious and clam the fuck up. Sometimes I compulsively check in and feel the irresistible urge to try to add supportive comments to lots of threads because I think it will make someone else's day a little better and somehow, that means I'm a good person. And sometimes I am so sick of thinking about depression and misery and anxiety (mine, my wife's, my friends in my therapy group, or you guys') that I need to stay away from it for a while.

Honestly, when I see a regular poster disappear for a while from the boards (or when someone stops showing up regularly to my therapy group), sometimes I get worried about them, but usually my first instinct is to think - good for them! They must be doing better. When someone really needs to be on here, they find a way to be on here, so if you're not on here, that's probably a good sign. Sometimes it makes me jealous to think of other people doing better (when is it my turn?), but that's another story I guess.

Churble is right, though - your posts are sprinkled throughout the site in such a way that it is hard to navigate very far without coming across something helpful and insightful you have said, so you are "here" even when you're not.