It’s 2020 and the labels that were once put upon people suffering from mental illness have fallen away. It’s finally okay to let people know you’re struggling with anxiety or depression. However, there is still one place that still stigmatizes mental illness and that place is the Costco checkout line.
Have we truly progressed as a society if we cannot have a loud, manic episode in front of dozens of people while attempting to buy five rotisserie chickens, a pallet of cat food, and a seventy-inch plasma screen TV? People should not be giving me sour looks as I openly list all of my medications as they try to buy their egg whites and wine.
Sure, maybe it is a little off-putting for me to be wandering the aisles while screaming a list of my biggest fears, but it doesn’t have to be that way if we as a society don’t let it. Also, maybe it isn’t me that’s weird for calling my therapist while sitting on the model patio furniture and putting him on speakerphone. Maybe, it is society that’s weird. Yeah.
Okay so maybe I shouldn’t have explained the complicated relationship I have with my mother to the free sample lady. But it is her fault for asking me how my day was. And had those taquito samples been ready when I walked up then this exchange would have never happened in the first place.
The point is that if we are open about our own suffering then others will be open to show theirs. This way we all heal. Costco doesn’t seem to understand this and that’s probably why they fired me two months ago.