Someone I know said they don't understand why people don't talk about their health or mental health problems...

I had a short answer that I gave her but I have since thought about it more. Sometimes there are things I don't talk about. With anyone. Those things are not always health related but some things are.

My reasons are varied. Sometimes it's a sense of self-preservation. Sometimes I don't want to upset other people. Sometimes I don't want people to think I'm just after the attention it could bring. Sometimes I am uncomfortable with things about me, myself. Sometimes I don't want people to feel obligated to help me, pity me, helpless to do anything that helps me, etc.

Some things about me that I don't typically talk about and why are...

1.  I'm bisexual and polyamorous. For a long while I kept it to myself because I wasn't comfortable being who I was. I also kept it to myself because a lot of my family would react poorly. It wasn't that I thought they would, I knew they would. You see my grandfather was gay and I saw how my family reacted to that. It was funny to me when my grandfather's answer to how he could be gay and catholic involved 'love thy neighbor like thy self' but the fact that the argument of that and other arguments were a repeated scene in his time with us made me feel kind of pushed away. It was a feeling of either something is wrong with me or was seen as wrong. I fought who I was for many years before accepting who I am and simply keeping it primarily to myself.
2. In my history, I was a victim of abuse. There are many years of my youth I have blocked out. I remember enough to be content with the memories I do have. Self-preservation.
3. I was a self-injurer. This stemmed mostly from my past, a misguided method of coping with it and the resulting depression I was dealing with while I kept it all to myself. I have overheard people around me (including at my current work place) talking about how it is 'suicide light' and only attention seeking and they laugh. I never sought out attention. I tried to hide it as much as I could. I was using it to cope with what I was going through so I didn't go to the point of killing myself. As you can see, there are several reasons behind my silence on this issue.
4. My joints... they suck. I have a healed fractured disc, a curve in my spine that I didn't used to have, and degenerative disc disease that's been diagnosed. I have decreased range of motion in an ankle because I got 'several moderate to severe stress fractures' that the military took almost a year to figure out - at which point it had healed itself incorrectly. I have joint problems throughout my body at this point in my life. Between my symptoms and my family medical history, I have good cause to believe it is Rheumatoid Arthritis. (I know many people with a diagnosis take self-diagnosis with more than one grain of sand and tend to scoff at those who diagnose themselves but keep reading and you will see why I choose to not seek a medical diagnosis...) I looked into potential treatments to see if there was anything I could do without having to pay a specialist I couldn't afford and I looked at the medications currently available and their side effects. With my family history (lung,heart, cancer, etc problems are fairly prevalent) I could not find any medical treatment that was worth the risk of taking it... For me personally that is. I then found out that my grandmother's doctor said her cancer was brought on by her RA meds. That only cemented it further that they were not for me. I would rather be relatively healthy and in pain sometimes than dying but not in as much pain. For the most part Ibuprofen and Tiger Balm help, even when my lungs are inflamed. This I keep to myself mostly because there is no sense in whining about it. What good would that do? None. Also, I get tired of repeating myself to tell people 'what happened' when I wear a brace (or multiple). I don't want people to think they have to do things for me, I don't want them to feel helpless to help with the pain, etc. I try very hard to not show my discomfort or pain. If I am limping it's serious. 

I get that she thinks there needs to be more awareness on some issues and some health problems and for people to realize that it isn't made up and it does affect more than one person but I see both sides of being vocal and have chosen in the above and other areas of my life not to be. It is because that is what is right for me and my life and situation. I could go further into it, list more things I keep to myself, or go into my husband's health issues but I think my list displays enough as it is and my husband's story is his own to tell - even when it overlaps with my own.

It took me a few days to write this out but there it is.