Today is World Mental Health Day. Be good to one another. Your feelings and emotions are valid and they matter. Please take care of yourself and talk to someone if you need to. Mental illness is NOT a personal failure. You’re important and you are not alone.
Like most people don’t like to admit this, but one of the reasons a lot of us have so many mental health issues is because we live in a world that has basically become untenable. People can’t afford basic necessities, let alone to cultivate their interests or take breaks and rest or do any of the things necessary for good mental health. People my age are wracked with debt, working at jobs they hate or studying topics they hate, living in a shitty apartment with five roommates. We live in a world that’s very hard to be healthy in. So while yeah, a lot of people obviously do have mental illnesses that would need medication no matter what, they are greatly exacerbated by these issues, and a lot of people have basically just been thrust into an eternal situational depression. So if that doesn’t change, medication is just a band-aid.
One of the main critiques that I’ve heard from older generations about how our current lives are impacting our mental health is that “Well do you think I liked the desk job/secretary/bank teller/construction job I got right out of college? I hated that too!”
And it’s like sure, that’s all well and good, but you still got paid a decent salary that provided the opportunity for upward mobility and you could buy a home and invest all without worrying about your livelihood, because you were making enough money to pay off the little debt that you had (if at all)and get going with your life! not to mention you all got promoted and moved up in your jobs when I know people around the age of 30 that are still working in retail or fast food or as a server because that’s all they can get
A reminder to all of the mentally ill kids seeking treatment and other people new to the psych system:
If you absolutely hate going to your therapist, you have the wrong therapist
If you feel like your therapist doesn’t understand you, has misdiagnosed you, or is focusing on the wrong things, you have the wrong therapist
If your therapist is too old to understand the things you’re going through, like cyberbullying or LGBT related issues, you have the wrong therapist
If you feel like therapy isn’t working for you, YOU HAVE THE WRONG THERAPIST!
I went through five therapists before finding mine. FIVE. Sometimes it takes a while to find someone who works for you, but you do NOT have to be stuck with a therapist you don’t enjoy seeing or you don’t feel is helping you!
Okay so I’m sure you’ve all heard of the quiet place project. Well if not I am going to tell you because it has stopped me from doing serious damage more than once.
This gem right here is where you can literally create a 100% anonymous username and just absolutely spill your guts. Then people can read it and give you advice, and it honestly is so helpful. Because the other people on it are in the same situations as you, and they understand. You can comment and give advice on other peoples posts too, and it’s just really great.
This little beauty is similar to the comfort spot. Except instead of posting your thoughts, you type them into the box and then when you press enter they disappear and turn into stars against the blue sky. There is a whole bunch of different languages to choose from at the start, so if English is not your first language then you can probably find it here. There is the most comforting music that plays in the background as well, which is so great.
Which is so good for panic related things because it silences all of your other tabs and when you make it full screen it talks to you very calmly and then literally forces you stop for just 30 seconds and do nothing and just breathe.
Okay, so this is my actual favourite, it’s called the dawn room
The dawn room is so great for stopping you from self harming. It begins by telling you that its going to be alright, then it asks you to write something about someone you love. After that messages from other people, just like you, appear on the screen, one after the other, and the background slowly become brighter and happier. This page has genuinely stopped me from hurting myself more times than I can count. I’m not suggesting that it will work for everyone, but it is an absolute gem.
This page runs for about 5 minutes, and it is basically a typing simulator that tries to convince you that everything is going to be alright. It is very calming, and good for lonely times.
I can honestly say that this website has done me so so much good. I appreciate it with every bit of my being.
please reblog
this sounds so lovely
I love this
if you wanna help people, please.
reblog it.
So I reblogged (rebloged?) it before using, and now that I used I can say.
Kudos to fanfiction writers for writing about all the trauma and emotional and mental turmoil that the original content creators dont acknowledge when putting characters through hell
This has evolved to one of fanfiction’s major assets in my eyes. To every author that cares enough about the characters in their stories to examine trauma, but also the slow, tedious processes of healing and recovery: your stories mean so much to me and other persons with mental health problems. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I really like the point about healing processes being written about in fanfic in a way that other media often skips over as not dramatic enough.
depressed kids in the media: I don’t wanna go to therapy! I don’t need help! I’m not some specimen for you to dissect!
me, rollin up to my therapist’s office and collapsing in relief: what is UP my homeboy I fuckin missed you,, hope ur ready to hear some Bull Shit that fuckin happened to me this week
Favorite
Depressed kids in the media: I don’t need DRUGS that will turn me into a ZOMBIE.
Me, licking the citalopram box: Love me some pills in the morning. Mm-mm. Happiness is chalky and comes in a blister pack
do u ever feel like you’ve accidentally tricked certain people into thinking you are smarter and have more potential than you actually do and do you ever think about how disappointed they’ll be when you inevitably crash and burn
Fun fact: Impostor Syndrome is ridiculously common among high-achievers, particularly women. If you identify with this post, odds are pretty good that you’re exactly as smart as people think you are, and the failure you’re afraid of isn’t inevitable at all.
and don’t forget this is one of the psychological barriers placed in by thousands years of patriarchy and male supremacy.
My computer science professor actually talked about this on the first day, it was really cool.
Fun brutal fact: in addition to the existence of imposter syndrome, being “twice exceptional” (also known as 2e) is also a thing. That means being intellectually gifted AND ALSO having a disability that affects your ability to succeed at study or work. Such as ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyscalculia, etc etc etc. A lot of people believe that it’s not possible to be both, but it very much is.
Society tends to have very high expectations for how well gifted people will perform. Society tends to have low expectations for how well disabled people will perform. Society tends to attribute invisible disabilities, including mental illness, to a failure of willpower or effort or a bad attitude.
So if you read this post and went “no, but seriously, this is not just low self esteem on my part, people keep thinking I’m smart and then I keep crashing and burning and disappointing them and they can’t understand why I didn’t live up to their expectations, it happens again and again and when I tell someone how I feel and ask for help, they just tell me to stop being so hard on myself and that I’ll succeed if I have more self-confidence,” it is not just you.
(Also, one of the previous posts in this thread buried the lede a little. Imposter syndrome is ridiculously common in people from underrepresented groups in academia and other high pressure/high status fields, particularly women and people of colour. Maya Angelou did not only feel out of place because she was a woman.)
This essay also totally changed my view on the intersection of impostor syndrome and mental illness.
“Even when I was on a psychiatric ward, I felt I was not really depressed – I was only simulating the condition in order to avoid work, or in the infernally paradoxical logic of depression, I was simulating it in order to conceal the fact that I was not capable of working,”
Question of Smoke 