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staff:

postitforward:

refinery29:

If you or someone you know are overwhelmed by sadness or anxiety, visit loveislouder.com/resources for information on reaching out for support.

Thanks to @loveislouderofficial and @postitforward for their great campaign.

We’re all in this together! Join @postitforward, @refinery29 and @loveislouderofficial and share your story or a piece of advice today using #postitforward.

You! You can help destigmatize mental health issues just by talking about your experience with them. Share your story, tag it with #postitforward, and voilå. You’re now part of a movement that is helping countless others feel a little less alone. 

Not ready to share your own story? That’s okay, too. Wait until you’re ready. Until then you can stay tuned by searching the tag, visiting @postitforward for curated original content, and following @refinery29 for the videos they’re posting on their Tumblr. A brand spankin’ new one every Tuesday. 

While I break my rule about off-topic reblogs, let me add:

-Depression doesn’t always end up feeling like “I’m always sad” or as a person who can’t get out of bed. It can also be “I have no energy, no enthusiasm, no excitement about the future, no desire to go out and do things, I can’t keep up with people my age, I’m just kind of an Eeyore and that’s how I am.” I muddled along for 20 years, held down a job and did the bare minimum, but in hindsight, I was clearly depressed all that time and just barely functioning. It cost me academic performance. It cost me a marriage. It probably cost me lots of other opportunities that I never knew I missed. I just didn’t realize that the way I felt equaled depression. I could get out of bed and do my job, so how could I be depressed?

-Anxiety doesn’t always end up feeling like “I’m so anxious about X.” It can also be “I’m just uptight, I have trouble getting my brain to shut off at night so I can sleep, it’s always busy planning or replaying events that already happened, I’m risk-averse, so I worry a bit.”

-You may have NEVER KNOWN what it is like to not be anxious or not be depressed. Not since childhood, at least. I didn’t. So your idea of what it feels like to be “normal” may be a little bit out of alignment in a way that you don’t recognize and may not be able to recognize. I didn’t know I didn’t know until I got treatment and everything changed. And then it was so obvious.

-All of these issues are a little bit different for each person. If you don’t feel right, you don’t need to find the answer yourself. Go talk to a doctor and see what they think. Yes, the answer might be pills. But if, like for me, that was the right answer and the right drug can magically transform your life and make you realize how good it feels to be able to relax, to have enthusiasm for life and to feel joy… it is so incredibly worth it. Once you start talking about it, people all around you start opening up and you find out that TONS of people are just like you. These are incredibly common conditions and we all need to get over our hangups about them. Don’t suffer for decades because you didn’t realize you were broken or because the stigma keeps you from pursuing treatment. It is SO worth it. Life is actually really good when you aren’t broken.