Opinion: Empowerment comes from community

The idea of empowerment through individuality is wrong.

I have noticed an increase in stigma of mental health, and the stigma is coming from people inside the community. We have grown more and more competitive with each other over the course of time, or maybe people have always been this way. Regardless, humanity can definitely do a lot better. 

I first noticed the growing mental health stigma as a 14 year old in school. Junior high is a confusing environment, but when you add in the discussions that take place in those lunchrooms, your head spins even more. With the increase of mental health awareness, I often found myself hurled into debates and discussions surrounding mental health and the communities which revolved around it.

I noticed something then, and it’s bothered me ever since: Why do we feel the need to compete with each other’s mental health hurdles?

We don’t see someone with a broken neck and say “well, I broke my femur when I was 3,” because it’s rude to try to relate someone’s present pain to a pain we have experienced in the past. So why do we compare our mental and emotional pains to the pains of others?

When someone has recently lost a loved one, why do we immediately tell them about our losses and how painful it was? When we learn of a loved one’s struggles with anxiety, why do we tell them about our battles with depression? Why do we say, “I know how you feel?” 

Giving humanity the benefit of the doubt, I would suggest that by confirming that we have felt these losses and pains, we think we will relieve some of that pain from those who are presently experiencing it. The more cynical assumption is that we feel insecure in our mental and emotional struggles, so we fight that insecurity by competing to be the most damaged person in the room.

Either way, we talk about our own issues rather than listening to someone else’s struggles because we want to be closer to them. However, these words do just the opposite.

When we focus more on our personal experiences rather than listening to someone else’s, we are furthering the stigma of mental health. According to a publication referenced by the US Department of Health and Human Services, “Self-disclosure should be reciprocal, meaning listening to the other person and using that to guide us in the amount of information we disclose about ourselves.”

In other words, relaying our personal experiences to others is not inherently negative as long as we are truly listening to their struggles. 

Our struggles usually don’t make a difference alone, but together, our struggles can be heard and create change. We need people banded together to make a difference. Change happens with communities, not with individuals.

Likewise, empowerment and growth can only be achieved through community. 

In high school, I took Math 1050 and failed the midterm. Failed as in 53%. After class, I broke down in tears while talking to my teacher, Mrs. Waller, because I thought I wouldn’t be able to pass the class. After I had sobbed for a good 10 minutes, she looked at me and said, “Emily, this doesn’t make you a bad person: this makes you normal.”

Normal as in anxiety. Normal as in ups and downs. Normal as in losses. Normal as in wins. So if all of us “normal” people could come together, refrain from constant comparisons and listen to each other, think of what we could do. 

It’s difficult, at times, to fully be a member of a community, especially when independence appears to be critical to success. While we are all individuals with different personalities, struggles and joys, we are all more similar than we are different. There are a lot of people in this world and it’s constantly growing in size. When we realize that communicating our similarities can be interchangeable with refraining from eclipsing the experiences of others, we can empower each other and grow together. 

We have to learn to be okay with being a part of a community, even though we have our individual experiences. It’s ironic, isn’t it? In order for us to create a positive community for our individual needs, we have to share that positive space with others.

Everyone wants to be loved and appreciated. Everyone wants to be a part of something bigger than themselves, to make their mark, to change the world for the better.

If we can truly start listening to each other and being there for each other, we will surely find more love, appreciation and positive change for the world. We will find empowerment from our communities, as long as we listen to each other and grow together.

Emily White is a third year student studying English and broadcast journalism.

emily.white@usu.edu