A LinkedIn Personality with 2.3M Followers Blocked Me Before She Died Last Week
A tribute with lessons that will leave you speechless and in tears.
I logged in to view her posts. She had blocked me.
Blocking might seem heartless. But I had no idea what she was going through. For the final six months of her life, I viewed her posts every week through someone else’s LinkedIn account.
Her name was Kirsty Bonner and she wrote inspirational posts on LinkedIn aimed at jobseekers. She suffered from post-traumatic stress (PTSD) which ended up taking her life on the 28th of August 2020.
Her work was dedicated to helping jobseekers find a new career, and find themselves in the process. I didn’t know her personally, but I did know people close to her. They all said she was a strong woman with a selfless dedication to helping others.
I’m not sure why she blocked me on LinkedIn.
I can only imagine that self-help content could be unhelpful to a person who is enduring PTSD. When a person uses the block button, often, it has nothing to do with the person they are blocking. Blocking on social media can be a way for people to decide what they do and don’t want to see.
I’m no saint. I say dumb stuff. Clearly, she decided to turn me off.
I thought about contacting her several times to find out why. I thought about talking to two mutual friends to reconnect with her. The truth was I was in love with her content. It inspired me.
What Kirsty didn’t know was that when I lost my job last year, her posts gave me hope. Her silent suffering helped me see my own suffering.
Maybe if I had reached out to her then I could have seen what was happening to her through my battle with mental illness many years ago. Or perhaps I, like many others, would have seen nothing at all.
Social media shows us people who seem to be winning all the time. Sometimes, behind closed doors, they too are suffering more than you could ever know.
Here are the heartfelt lessons Kirsty taught me.
Don’t wait until it’s too late.
It’s too late. There is nothing I can do. I can never tell Kirsty how she helped me last year. If you have something to say, then say it. Don’t wait.
You may never get a second chance to say those words. And those words could inspire someone, or even save their life.
Your memory lives on, so leave something behind.
While Kirsty may be gone she has left something behind. Her writing continues to be read by people who were inspired by her. More Kirstys have popped up on LinkedIn since she exited earth.
Before you leave this world it pays to leave something tangible behind that people can continue to learn from.
One of Kirsty’s last posts illustrates this message perfectly:
I felt awful this morning, but I got up, got dressed and showed up to record a podcast with Ricardo, to talk about job search, LinkedIn and coping with obstacles in life.
Why? Because I know that this podcast will help a lot of people.
However tough life feels, you have to find a reason to keep going.
If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for those who love and depend on you.
Tough times are TEMPORARY, and we are always stronger than we think!
No loss of life occurs without the suffering of others.
The people I know on LinkedIn who knew Kirsty, miss her. They don’t really know how to deal with the loss. They find themselves waking up and posting old interviews she did and resharing some of her posts. It’s as if, some days, she is still here with us and posting content.
When a person takes their life, it has a ripple effect.
One lot of pain ends. Another lot of pain starts for those who knew the person.
Take a chance on people.
Kirsty was known for taking a chance on people. Three weeks before she passed away she took a chance on seven people. She says that she was given a chance many years ago and wanted to continue to pay it forward.
Her philosophy was that words don’t mean much. You had to see somebody do the talking through their actions. Giving people a chance is how you motivate people to believe in themselves.
I can’t help but look at Kirsty’s final weeks and compare my life to hers. Maybe some of my work has the opportunity to do what hers has done.
Maybe I’m looking at what my own final days could look like one day. It’s hard not to contemplate your mortality when a good person exits the world forever and gets reborn as another living thing.
The best teacher is the one who has the guts to block you and never tell you why.