When I was younger, I knew that I had a degree of mental illness. However, I was believed by my own self that I didn’t deserve it, my levels of anxiety and depression weren’t severe enough to get treatment. I always thought that if I went to seek help that the response would be that…
You Never Know What is Behind Closed Doors
Everyone has a real self that only a small amount of people get to be in the presence in. When I had opened up about my struggles with my mental illness, I had many people shocked, along with thinking that I was overexaggerating. But I wasn’t, my anxiety and depression was a secret that only…
How My Father-Daughter Relationship Affects My Mental Health
Being abused by a parent is often thought as having a ‘present’ effect on a child, but for me, the impact of being abused from my childhood still have a hold on me. It probably doesn’t help that the source of the damage is always present in my life, but the abuse that I heard…
My 6 Year Old’s Needs
When you’re a child, you desire the acceptance and approval from your parents, because of the biological connection the pair hold. The needs and desires of my 6-year-old self is a frequent topic that mentioned by my psychologist. No one is perfect, and I believe parents know that, but still feel that their children are…
The Correlation Between Abuse and Mental Illness
I’m a firm believer in specific events in our lives having the ability to affect how we respond and react to particular situations. That one can suffer through a traumatic period of time and learn about themselves. But there is that stage where you don’t realise what you’re going through will have a severe impact on…
My Mental Illnesses & My Younger Self
I wasn’t born with my anxiety and depression, I grew up, and it developed with me as I had suffered in an unhealthy environment for 18 years. That led to the problems of diagnosing when, why, and how, in particular, my anxiety emerged. Probably one of the reasons why I had not investigated into my…
Stop Making Mental Illness Cool to Have
Mental illness isn’t a joke, a trend, a meme, or cool. It is real. It isn’t something that is pleasant to have, and I feel that sometimes when I will voice my own feelings towards anxiety and depression, others go “oh yeah, I’m the same”. But here’s the thing, it isn’t. I spend most of my…
How to Ask, Listen, and Respond // R U OK? DAY 2017
One thing I noticed when I told people about my mental illness was that the most common reply would be along the lines of ‘everyone feels the same’, or ‘people have it much worse than you’. And in some circumstances they are right, and I know that I am somewhat lucky, so don’t make me…
My Semicolon Tattoo
I have known for many years what having a semicolon tattooed meant, yet the idea of having every person that sees the tattoo assume that I’m weak, turned me off of the idea. Although I sit here with a semicolon inked into my skin for the rest of my life, and to be completely honest…
Mental Illness is …
Mental illness isn’t just feeling depressed or anxious, any and every type of mental illness discretely changes the way one goes by their day to day life. It’s only just now that I have the ability to reflect back on the past few years and realise that my anxiety and depressed made myself do and not…