Julie's Request

Hi Shelley-Ann and Caroline.

I was wondering if you would consider writing a bit of your story for display at
Glimpses, our mental health Sunday on May 3.

It was really amazing for me to read Shelley-Ann’s FB post on Bell Let’s Talk Day about
how you weren’t ready to share at last year’s Glimpses, but you were ready to share now.
You shared, and then to have Caroline step in and say “Me too!” – WOW!

It was impactful for me for a few different reasons. One, I didn’t appreciate the
debilitating nature of your phobia. When both of you had mentioned having issues
around vomit prior to this post, I kind of put it up there with my issues around spiders.
Through your story, I learned about entire new levels, and began to direct the required
respect and empathy towards it. Two, I couldn’t help but feel a bit of pride in having the
Nexus mental health Sunday mentioned. This exchange was exactly what I was hoping
would come from it: something to combat feelings of isolation, dialogue that could
hopefully lead to helpful discussions. Three, “Me Too’s” mean the world to me,
especially when it comes to mental health. I believe we can improve our health
individually and collectively if we begin to understand how common (and not atypical)
mental health issues are.

Perhaps you’d be willing to write about what it was like for you to discover you shared
the phobia, or what it’s like to talk about it.

Gratefully, Julie