We are not going through the same storm in
the same boats.

When we talk about COVID specifically, it’s easy to say that we’re all going through the same storm. It’s really important to remember that we are not going through the same storm in the same boats. Some people don’t even have a boat. Some people have been swimming, just trying to keep their head above water for over a year now.

Some communities have really disproportionately been impacted — farming and agricultural communities, black communities and BIPOC populations have just really had a tough year with additional discrimination and not being heard and dismissed and additional layers of societal trauma. And so we can’t say that it’s just COVID that’s been a shared experience. Some communities in particular, especially BIPOC populations, have had additional layers of trauma this year in addition to COVID. While we’ve gone through COVID as a society, not everybody’s gone through it the same way. And so even the COVID experience, we can’t say one size fits all. It just doesn’t.

While we’ve gone through COVID as a society, not everybody’s gone through it the same way.

The same thing comes true with mental health and substance use disorders and suicide prevention. If you know one person who struggled with suicide ideation, you know one person who struggled with suicide ideation. The same thing is true for depression or alcoholism or trauma history. You know one person with that, you know one person with that. Those experiences are not generalizable. What is generalizable is compassion and empathy and kindness and offering strength and offering an ear. Everybody needs those things.

Those sources of support can all be sources of support to everybody. The value in compassion, the value in empathy, lending somebody your kindness, reaching out that arm instead of opening your mouth is building up somebody’s strength.