Leadership Through the Lens of Mental Health

By: Celia Dupuy

*This post has been transferred from the old CFL blog website where it was originally posted on Nov 1, 2021

Mental health hasn’t always been a hot topic of discussion. When you get together with your friends, I am sure you don’t talk about your mental health and current struggles like you would the most recent celebrity scandal. If you even bring it up at all, often it is not focused on for a lengthy amount of time. If the conversation about mental health with loved ones is structured this way now, imagine how rare it used to be. Up until recently, the attention surrounding mental health has been practically non-existent. Even bringing up the topic would result in strange stares and shocked faces. Nowadays, people have grown to be a lot more emotionally open to talking about their mental health journey. In terms of media, you could go on Instagram right now and find hundreds of posts about mental illness in a matter of seconds, but that wasn’t always the case.

Although mental health is a more prominent conversation in public and on social media platforms now, the level of exposure and awareness is still very minimal. Once in a while, someone you follow will post on their Instagram story with a little quote that says something along the lines of “take a deep breath and relax.” The point of their post is to encourage being mindful of your emotional state and to take a pause from current stressors or situations. This post gets viewed by hundreds of people and continues to get passed along on through others’ Instagram stories. Of course, awareness of one’s mental health state is incredibly important since it needs to be more prominently talked about in conversations, but people nowadays act as if activism is simply posting a quote on Instagram and moving on with their day. In terms of Leadership and trying to make a difference, does that truly count? What amount of impact is being made through this perception of leadership? I admit that I have taken part in this same process many times. I have seen a post, reposted it, and delivered myself a pat on the back, praising myself for a job well done. I can move on now, right? When I stop to think, I wonder how many people swiped past that post without giving it a second glance. Can it make a lasting impact if no one is willing to allow themselves to be impacted in the first place?

Recently, I have started to feel like I need to do more than just click a few buttons and repost the same quote as hundreds of my other peers did. I have begun to feel more empowered to stand up and speak out about mental health in a larger capacity and to strive to learn what it means to be a real leader. One of the ways I plan to do so is through another big aspect of my life that serves as a creative outlet.

Besides mental health awareness, one of the things that I am most passionate about is creative writing. When I was in middle school, I wrote books with numerous incredibly long chapters about a girl who left her life behind to travel the world and fall in love. Clearly these books were not legitimate, since I was only twelve and writing three front and back page long chapters in my green science spiral notebook. I had a vastly different perception of what a book was, but you get the point. Writing these “books” fueled my passion for telling stories and revealing my emotions within the lines of the pages I scribbled on. I took a break from writing for a few years, but in 2020, I reinvested myself and chose to take my passion for writing in a different direction. I began to write poetry. While I am not sure what inspired this sudden resurgence of passion and ideas to be displayed through poetry, I was once again immersed within the pages of my notebook. Don’t worry, I wasn’t using the green science spiral notebook anymore; I’ve upgraded since the 6th grade. This time, my writing served a different purpose. I started to write about my personal experiences with mental health, coming out, and losing friends along my personal journey of growing up and discovering the most authentic version of myself.

I recently realized that one of the ways I want to help spread awareness for mental health is through my poetry. I have written various poems centered around my battle with mental illness in addition to my loved ones’ struggles as well. I have included a personal poem that I wrote on March 12, 2021, when I was going through a difficult time and wanted to express my emotions through a creative forum.

A Crumbling Disguise

by Celia Dupuy 3/12/21

You can’t always see the pain in their eyes

Words that they say become never ending lies

They live behind a crumbling disguise

It goes into the sky

Far and wide

Wanting to speak

But their mind says they are weak

So they go on

Drowning in infinite ponds

Of pain

Of suffering

Of silence

They sit alone in the dark

Fingers tracing their marks

Wondering what could’ve been

If their mind didn’t have a two faced friend

Controlled like puppets

Thick strings attached

Will they ever be able to unlatch

Hope is withering

Suffering is present

Should they just go on and give into the evident

Tears pouring down their face

Filling up a cracked old vase

They cry out for help

But no one finds them

Except the silence only to remind them

A bolt of courage overwhelms their mind

They don’t have to leave this pain behind

Instead they can face it head on

And fight back in the war within their mind

On their own time

It might never fully go away

But now neither will they

Since they have chosen to stay

In a world where people choose silence

No one speaks out their minds violence

Many people feel this way

Even if they don’t dare say

I know you might not believe it to be true

So here I am barring myself to you

The one that I speak of is me

I have crossed the seven seas

Of denial

Of pain

Of suffering

Of silence

Of confrontation

Of acceptance

Of overcoming

I am still not done

The war has not completely been won

But I am not ashamed of where I have been

Because it has shaped the person I am within.

This poem shows a bit of insight into the battle one may face with mental health that they tend to hide from the world. From my experience, a person can hide their pain and suffering very easily by creating lies and continuing to build off of them until they can no longer differentiate between what is real and what is fake. They lie to their loved ones with ease because it prevents them from potentially realizing the painful truth. A disguise gets put up that displays untrue emotions. Even if they feel like they should speak out and get help, it is not always that easy because they fear judgement and rejection from loved ones and confidants. Often, they wonder what their life might be like if they did not live with mental illness, an unwelcome visitor present in their mind, that has the potential to take over at any moment. It tries to control every aspect of their life, leading them to feel incredible sorrow, pain, and loss of who they were before, and who they might be in the future.

Through my personal mental health battle, I have come out stronger and found the light within the previously dark tunnel that I believed had no end. I fought the war within my mind, while growing and learning from it. Like I stated in the poem, it will always be a part of me and things will not always be easy, but it has shaped who I am today and I am grateful for the positive aspects of what I have taken from my situation.

Everyone has a different story about how their mental illness impacted their life, but this is just a little insight to my personal experience. Whether I knew it or not, when I chose to start speaking out about my struggles, I was taking the first step in becoming a leader. Even now as I am writing this post, I am choosing to talk about something very personal to me but with the goal that it might encourage someone else to reach out for help or even share their own story. That is what leadership is all about. Using your experience and skills to help guide others to reach their potential, in whatever form that may be. Choosing to show leadership through the discussion about mental health can change and impact many lives in unexpected ways. Whether telling your story helps someone to seek assistance or to share their experience, it has the potential to save lives. If you do not feel comfortable sharing your own mental health story, you can still be a leader in different ways. By simply supporting those going through hard times or taking the initiative to reach out to them, it can make a world of a difference. Look within, reach out, and find the strength to take the first step in leading with passion, openness, and love.