True Colors and mental health stress

You with the sad eyes
Don’t be discouraged, oh I realize
It’s hard to take courage
In a world full of people
You can lose sight of it all
The darkness inside you
Can make you feel so small

Show me a smile then
Don’t be unhappy
Can’t remember when
I last saw you laughing
This world makes you crazy
And you’ve taken all you can bear
Just, call me up
‘Cause I will always be there

And I see your true colors
Shining through
I see your true colors
And that’s why I love you

So don’t be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful
I see your true colors
Shining through (true colors)
I see your true colors
And that’s why I love you

So don’t be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful
Like a rainbow
Ooh ooh ooh like a rainbow

I like this song. It speaks of friendship. It also speaks of a friend trying to deal with another friend’s depression. It reminds me of a person who has a friend with PTSD or with Moral Injury or with Military Sexual Trauma who is trying to communicate with their friend, trying to get through their self-imposed shield to touch them, to reach them, to be with them. “Can’t remember when I last saw you laughing. This world makes you crazy and you’ve taken all you can bear.” It is both the lament of a friend who has seen their friend drop into the depths and does not know how to reach them and the reminder to the friend that he or she did not always feel like this. It is the encouragement to look up and the reminder that it was not always this way.

The friend, who may or may not have been a combat buddy, reminds them that they hold the friend’s true colors in trust, that if only the friend will look at them and believe then they may yet return and be together again. It is a call to the friend that they are seen by others as beautiful on the inside, regardless of what they have seen and what they have done.

Those suffering from various types of mental distress are not able to see themselves as other people see them. I am not saying that every person has been beautiful. But, it is also true that many who suffer depression have an inappropriate and mistaken view of themselves. This song expresses the best of the attempt by many friends, and even by mental health professionals to reach those in mental distress to let them know that there is much good inside of them.