As An Advocate I Can’t Do Everything But Together We Might

One of the worst ways I’ve seen people wreck their mental health is by not knowing their limits.

If I may borrow a sports metaphor, one sure way to lose at any sport is to try to do too much. Let’s take my favorite sport, hockey, for example. There are six players on the ice to start the game, and 14 more ready to substitute on and off throughout the game. Each player has a role. None of them play for all 60 minutes, except for the goaltender, and they pretty much stick to what they are good at. You don’t see a smallish, fast skater trying to start fights most nights. You shouldn’t see one player skating with the puck by himself against 5 defenders and no teammates, and so on. That would be silly and counterproductive to the goal of winning the game. When you see a player doing too much, it can often be painful to watch, and rarely ends well.

Sadly, I’ve seen many advocates against child abuse or advocates for mental health trying to do too much. Usually, they appear on the scene with a lot of bluster, promising to do everything for the cause, and then they are usually gone about as quickly as they appeared, victims of burnout or their own demons.

So, instead of jumping in head first and doing everything, what would I recommend to any budding advocate?

Do what you can. 

Now, of course, the caveat to that is to know what you can do.

Let me discuss what that means for me, and then provide some examples of how other people are doing things that I can’t, or shouldn’t.

First, I need to be aware of what I can do or what I’m good at. I’ve been active online since the late 90s, blogging since 2001. So I’m doing that. I’ve been active on social media, and my wife works in social media, so I’ve got plenty of help if I need it. Check! I’ve spent much of my professional life training, absorbing a great deal of information, and sharing it with others. I’m good at keeping up with information, learning new things, and have a heart for teaching others the things I learn.

Over the years, those skills have evolved into this website and its various social media presences. I can take in a lot of information about child abuse and mental health, and use it to help educate people about it.

I’ve also learned a lot about public speaking over the years, but because my work required a lot of travel, I never really had the opportunity to commit to it. Now that I’m pretty much off the road, that is something I’d like to get involved in once I find some opportunities. (If you know of any opportunities, feel free to reach out!)

I only bring that up because I think that’s a perfect example in my own life of knowing my limits. When I was traveling and speaking to groups all the time, I had the skill to do some public speaking about child abuse, but given my schedule and the lack of consistency in it, I knew that I couldn’t commit to it, so I didn’t put that stress on myself. I stuck with what I could do, which was this site and the work that went into it.

Recently, I took a solid look at some of the people and organizations that I interact with online, and started thinking about all of the things they do that I can’t. Yes, there’s plenty I can do by sharing stories and information, and talking to people around me about mental health and abuse. Those of you with social media accounts can do the same, provided that it is safe for you to be identified with the topic. But there are a lot of things I can’t do, but I can still offer my support by promoting the people who do:

I can’t do educational programs with kids in India.

I can’t run a podcast as a trained mental health provider or a psychologist.

I can’t write music for the Venice Beach skater scene promoting overcoming child abuse, or sell band merchandise to raise money for child abuse programs. Or play classical music to raise money for a child abuse foundation. 

I can’t promote stage productions of people telling their mental health stories.

I can’t put together a foundation in Florida.

I can’t run programs to support male survivors in the UK.

I can’t appear in court to advocate for kids.

And while I might be able to write a book someday, I haven’t yet. However, I’ve seen many others who have done the same.

What I can do, though, is help ensure that people are aware of these other advocates who are capable of doing things that I am not. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, a small list off the top of my head of all the people out there doing good things in this area. I’m always sharing more as I find them on the various platforms. You can help. Click these links. Take a look at what these individuals are doing. Share these, and any others you come across, whether it’s from following my little corner of cyberspace or wherever you find them. Follow them on social media and share their updates. Help raise money for charities that do good work.

None of us needs to do everything to advocate for abuse survivors. But we can all do something. Figure out what your something is. The entire community is improved each time someone does something. Figure out where you can do good, and jump in.