Last week I shared something on my social media accounts that told a very personal story to anyone who bothered to read the post. I shared that I have struggled for many years with both an eating disorder and severe clinical depression. That’s a lot to put out there for all those eyes to see. But I admit that sharing myself like that really wasn’t as difficult as you may think. To help illustrate why, I want to talk about what has happened since I shared that information.

Since I shared a website I had developed and details about a presentation I have coming up this fall, both about my eating disorder and depression, I have received communication from many people about the topic of mental health. I have talked to people who have told me of their struggles with eating disorders, depression, and addiction. I have talked to people who have a family member who struggles with a similar issue. I have heard from people who are worried about a friend or loved one, and some who are worried about their own mental health. I don’t pretend to be a therapist, but I certainly am willing to listen, suggest resources, and share stories. Having been working toward overcoming my own hurdles for so many years, I know how difficult it can be to talk about these often controversial, humiliating, shameful, guilt-inducing, and stigmatic issues. I also know that many people struggle with these, or similar issues, and could use help, support, and to know they aren’t alone and that success and happiness are possible. That’s why it wasn’t hard to make my experience public. More important to me than the people who won’t understand, will say it is all in my head, think I can just, “get over it”, or want to say any number of other negative and unsupportive things about the topics, are the people who will find value in knowing that someone else has faced these struggles. Someone who is in the public and appears to, “have it all together” (not my own self-description by any stretch of the imagination). Reaching those people is more important and holds more weight than anything negative ever could.

We all have information, experiences, and talents that we can share that would help others. Sometimes we aren’t very willing to share. Maybe it is because we are embarrassed, or maybe because we don’t think our skills or experience are good enough to share. Maybe we don’t want to share because we don’t think people will see us as knowledgeable or helpful. Maybe we think others may see it as attention-seeking or gloating. There are probably plenty of other reasons why we keep our talents, knowledge, skills, and experience to ourselves and don’t use it to help others. I thought about going public for many years before I did because I had those same fears. Embarrassed? Absolutely! There is a huge amount of shame and humiliation in thinking differently about food and hiding actions surrounding food because they aren’t healthy. I absolutely felt like my knowledge on the topics wasn’t enough. I will likely battle with the eating disorder thoughts forever, so sharing made me feel like a fake, because I didn’t think I should share until I was 100 percent better. If that was true, I’d never share. I used to doubt that my story would actually impact people so it wasn’t worth it to share. It wasn’t severe enough (I never found myself in a dangerously low weight, my hair never fell out from malnutrition) to be an example for other people. Was I just seeking attention? I often felt that others might feel that way. Even though I knew the truth about it, I couldn’t stand to think that others might think I just wanted sympathy.

That type of thinking is flawed and is what keeps us from helping others. It keeps us from sharing ourselves, our talents, and our experiences, to make someone else’s life better. What good is it to keep those things locked up? Twice recently I heard reference to the saying, “the love we give away is the only love we keep,” and I can’t help but relate that to this topic. The gifts we share are the gifts we receive the greatest value from. These things are meant to be shared, and are meant to be used to help impact the lives of others.

Jackie Krawczak is president/CEO of the Alpena Area Chamber of Commerce. Her column runs bi-weekly on Thursdays. Follow Jackie on Twitter @jkrawczak.