Are You Feeling Invisible? You’re Not Invisible and You’re Not Alone
Feeling invisible in a world with nearly 8 billion people is not weird or abnormal.
The past couple of years has had an impact on everyone.
It varies from person to person – but nobody has been excluded. Directly or indirectly, the past couple of years has been like no others before them.
While that’s always the truth when it comes to the passage of time – the past 2 years have been overwhelming in all the ways they’ve been unexpected.
Did you expect a global pandemic to shut the world down for a month or two in 2020? After that, did you expect we’d still be altering everything we do because COVID hadn’t gone away two years later? Did you foresee essential workers, minimum wage workers, and teachers walking away after decades of abuse?
I didn’t.
Many of my friends spent a year working remotely. Several of them, then, had to return to offices – despite the pandemic not being over and proving the commute and office were unnecessary. Now they are extra-fatigued because as COVID surges come and go, offices close again for a week or two.
And don’t even get me started on schools and how much abuse teachers and the like are taking on one side – and parents are enduring on the other.
Everyone everywhere has been impacted by these things directly or indirectly. But it sure as hell can feel like you’re all alone and invisible – because how we are thinking and feeling is invisible to everyone but ourselves.
Mental and emotional health impacts everyone
Not everyone has a diagnosable mental health issue. But everyone can think and feel. And that will be impacted by outside matters.
Because our society tends to not give enough attention to mental, emotional, or spiritual health – to the same degree as physical health – there are tremendous stigmas attached to such matters. We don’t treat health concerns that aren’t physical with the same care and attention.
I can see when you have a bruise, a cut, or a broken limb. The bags beneath my eyes might tell you I’m getting insufficient sleep. Physical matters are visible.
Everything else is internal and invisible. And no scan – x-ray, MRI, or CAT scan – can turn the invisible visible.
Because of this, many people see mental health issues as purely personal and not impactful. So, if you are suffering from fatigue, exhaustion due to mental and emotional gymnastics navigating the uncertain world as it is today – it’s not obvious.
But you are not invisible. Nor are you alone.
And it’s time to stop pretending this doesn’t matter and really talk about it. Openly, loudly, and with a focus on making some necessary changes for the greater good.
No matter how personal – your issues are not invisible
I have been deeply fortunate during this time. And I know it. I’ve been able to take the chaos and uncertainty of the past 2 years and turn it into something good for me.
I wrote and published 6 books. Though the freelance job I had closed out during the height of the pandemic, I found 2 new freelance gigs that are great for me.
But there were lows among the highs. There was no fencing practice for 16 months. Something I have done weekly for over 25 years was gone. Apart from my pod, I’ve not seen many of my friends in over 2 years. Save a visit for 5 minutes at 20 feet distance, I haven’t seen my dad or stepmom in 2 years.
On top of that – I lost 6 people to COVID. While most were old friends or acquaintances I was barely connected to – their losses all hurt. Many of my friends and my niece got COVID and survived it – but that was still scary.
I consider myself rather mentally tough. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t days where I feel hopeless, frustrated, and scared. That’s why I don’t actively watch the news and have lessened my social media time. And – it’s still ongoing.
Lots of people I know have it far worse. They lost close friends and family to COVID. Many of my friends are working with their children being tossed around by school admins and governments who only care about the money and not lives. My teacher friends are all being stretched to their breaking points.
I know nobody who hasn’t felt impacted in some way or other by the world of the last 2 years. But since we talk little about mental and emotional health openly – many are feeling utterly invisible.
Let’s make the invisible visible
This is my call to action. But the only way we can do it is to take action on our own part.
Nobody but me can make my invisible issues visible. That’s why I’ve frequently written about my struggles with depression, why I take an antidepressant, and I explore other mental, emotional, and spiritual health matters that come up on my life path.
It’s time we stop fearing what will happen when we talk about our invisible issues. Why? Because then they become more visible – and show us that we are truly not alone.
Yes, there will always be people who are perpetual victims. They are as far from invisible as can be. However, I suspect their visibility is hiding invisible issues.
How many loud, overconfident braggarts and narcissists are secretly insecure, uncertain, and terrified? From what I know about psychology – all of them.
Nobody has managed to avoid being impacted by the world at large these last two years. And one of the best things we can take away from all this uncertainty is the opportunity to gain some much-needed visibility for the invisible.
If you are feeling invisible, I assure you that you’re not. You are not invisible – and you are not alone.
Kindness and compassion
Everyone is alone inside our heads. Nobody but me can truly, fully know my thoughts and feelings, heart, and soul. No matter what I share – most are not visible.
This is true for everyone. And as such – everyone feels invisible from time to time.
As we work on more visibility for the invisible – we should practice more kindness and compassion. Neither kindness nor compassion costs anything. What’s more, I don’t know anybody who doesn’t prefer to be treated with kindness and compassion.
But it begins with kindness and compassion towards ourselves. Forgiving ourselves for thoughts and feelings that are deemed weak, insufficient, and otherwise negative. Unless you intentionally cause hurt or harm in the world – like making more money than you can spend in your lifetime but paying your employees minimum wage with no benefits – you are worthy of kindness and compassion. And that begins with kindness and compassion towards yourself.
Kindness and compassion go both ways. Giving is as powerful as getting. And as we recognize we’re not invisible – that is a kindness and full of compassion. And we are all worthy of giving that to ourselves first.
You are not invisible. I see you. You are not alone – I feel it, too. Together – we can work through this.
Can you see that you are not invisible even when you feel that way?
This is the five-hundred and twenty-ninth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
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The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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