#mhakelly

[mental-health-advice]

I have been disconnected recently, maybe it is stress or something but, things I used to find exciting like books and tv shows seem mediocre and uninteresting, I don't know how to be more interested and in touch with things. Any advice? - Ella

Ella<3,

Can I ask you how long this has been going on? Do you remember what happened before it started? For me, sometimes i realise that I have no feelings. I want to do nothing but sit and stare at a wall all day and I have no idea why. It could be stress or it could simply be mental exhaustion if you’ve been thinking about something for too long and your brain just doesn’t want to work anymore. I know none of this sounds scientific or anything but it’s really hard to pinpoint what it really is, you know? Have you tried watching other types of telly programs? Sometimes the shows we were into before become uninteresting as our interests change over the years and we may not even realise it if we haven’t engaged in it for a while. I suggest trying other shows and see if anything will spark your interest. But I think it really helps if you try to engage in something more physical. I know you’ve probably heard about exercising can help release neurotransmitters and hormones that’ll make you feel happy, right? Well doing something physical can help your body begin to produce those again in excess and by doing that you can help balance out any deficit. If it’s stress or exhaustion, it can hinder the secretion of those neurotransmitters and hormones that may help you become engaged and interested in things.

Try going for a walk every once in a while. Incorporate more active things in your lifestyle even if you find it uninteresting. Then perhaps find some new things. Have you tried a cooking class? Perhaps drawing or learning the piano. Nothing will seem interesting at first but if you give everything about two weeks, it can start to make a difference. Everyone’s different so it depends on what activity really sparks to them but nothing says you can’t try everything, right? I also suggest doing some yoga or meditation to help you lower stress in your body and your mind. Getting some more sleep. Take a nap if you feel tired. Sleep early so you can have a fresh start. All of these are steps I think that may help you get back on your feet again. However, like you said you’re not sure of what it is, I am not sure either. If this continues, I think you should talk to a doctor and see if s/he can suggest anything. It could be mental health but it could be stress. Whatever it is, the things I listed can help a little.

Lots of love,

Kelly

[mental-health-advice]

I need the world to change or I never be confortable in it. If not, what am I suposed to do? I hate this. A.

A,

You need the world to change? Then change it. Who says someone has to change it? Who says you can’t do it? If you need it to change, you make the change happen. You petition. You debate. You fight. You do what is necessary to change it. Like Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” I admit that there are a lot of things that I’d like differently in this world and yes there are only so much that I can do before I’m drained but that doesn’t mean I’ll give up before then. I want the world to remove its stigma on mental illnesses. I want children to get the help they deserve and need before killing themselves. I want people to stop feeling like they should die because they’re different. So I’m doing this. I’m helping in the only way I can. I participate in walks that help raise money for suicide prevention. I raise my voice when necessary. If you’d like the world to change, don’t be afraid to change it. Okay? If you’re not sure where to start, seek out adults or advocates in your local area and seek for their help. I’m sure there are organisations that support your cause and wouldn’t mind sending supplies to help you get started.

Lots of love,

Kelly

[mental-health-advice]

To Kelly. You said some significant things to me that made me think. You are good at this. I'd like people be more like you.

Dear anon,

Thank you. Thank you so much. You have no idea what these words mean to me. Thank you. Thank you so so so so much. I hope that you can get through whatever it is you’re struggling with. I hope that one day you and I can be truly happy with everything that’s happened and with ourselves. Perhaps one day, you’ll come to be where I am and give your own advice to someone else that will make them think too. Please stay for that day. Thank you again for your kind words.

Lots of love,

Kelly

[mental-health-advice]

I need help but I can't find the words for what I am feeling if people ask. How do I deal with that? I need to talk to a therapist but what's the point if I can't tell them anything, every word feels wrong when I try to describe my issues. Going would just be a waste of time and they might diagnose me wrong if I use the wrong words. What should I do? - Lost for words

Hello lovely,

Here’s a secret: you don’t have to fully explain yourself. When I first started therapy I wasn’t sure what I would tell my therapist either. i wasn’t sure what I wanted to say that would accurately convey my feelings and my thoughts. I was jumbled and scared and terrified but I don’t know how she did it but she understood me. She understood what I meant and what I felt even though i couldn’t even explain it myself. I know that you’re scared and you think it’ll be all in vain but it won’t be. Sometimes expressing yourself means to just speak what’s on your mind and allowing that to make sense on its own. Don’t try to sound right. Don’t try to make it sound accurate. Just explain it as it is. If you feel scared, the say you’re scared. IMagine that your therapist isn’t there and you want the universe to hear your rants, your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions, and everything that you want to say. That, for me, is the best method of conveying how I feel. Typically they don’t diagnose you on the issues you think you have but rather than through a long process of observation. I’m not too familiar with how they do it but there’s a list of things that you must have and behaviours you show that make you likely for this diagnosis and not for that. If you’re worried about that, you can definitely voice it with your therapist and doctors and they can tell you the process in which they go through to pin a diagnosis.

I suggest you try journaling to get into the habit of talking about your feelings. There are not right or wrong way to talk about how you feel because it’s your own feelings. No one can really say that it’s right or wrong and how you describe issues probably won’t change what the issue is by much if any at all. You can write down everything you think and feel in that journal. With that you’re welcome to burn it, trash it, delete it, or bring it to therapy if you desire. But what this does is get you into the habit of speaking how you feel without feeling pressured to put it in pretty words. I would say don’t worry about your therapist not understanding you. They’re pretty good at picking things up and piece them together and chances are if there’s anything they want you to clear up, they’ll ask you.

Take a deep breath, okay? Please don’t say that it’ll be all for nothing because you won’t know the impact it’ll have unless you’ve tried it. You deserve at least that. You deserve to be heard and helped. So please, seek help.

Lots of love,

Kelly

[mental-health-advice]

(Tag 678) I don't know if I sent the second part (or either) on anon! If I didn't can you change it? And if not, can you not post it publicly? Thank you!

Hi love! 

We typically answer non-anon asks privately to the user so no worried if it’s not on anon! However, if it’s not a blog that you use often, I can easily resubmit it on anon for you<3 

Lots of love,

Kelly

[mental-health-advice]

life isn't for me but I don't want to leave either. I am not that young so things won't change.

Hey love,

I’ve been where you are. Heck, sometimes I think I’m still there. Feeling like you have nothing left in this earth but unsure of what might happen if you leave. Feeling torn between should I stay or should I leave. It’s a dreaded feeling of hoping for something to change but knowing that something may never change. It’s not a good place to be at because it torments you. It makes you hopeful while at the same time destroying those hopes as soon as they appear. I used to think that things are never going to change because I’ve seen it unfold the same way over and over again for years. I’ve battled with depression for 5 five years and nothing’s changed. I’d try to recover. I’d do good for a couple of months. I’d relapse. I’d become suicidal again. Then I become hopeful. And the cycle repeats. Nothing ever changed. It has happened the same way over and over and over and over again and I could accurately predict what was going to happen next. That was my train of thought. I didn’t think anything was going to change if I died today or in ten years because I’ll be stuck in this cycle of self-hatred. But you know what? I was wrong. I wasn’t wrong because something wonderful happen like falling in love or meeting someone who changed my life. I was wrong because I lived. Because I allowed myself to stay. Allowed myself to be hopeful long enough that something did change.

My philosophy teacher was talking about free-will and the future one day and he said something that will stay with me forever. He said we think we know what’s going to happen next. He says we think we know so much because we have observed it so well for so many years. Yes, we could accurately predict what our mom is going to make for dinner because for the past six years, Fridays was lasagna. We could predict the weather. We think we can predict the future from all we’ve learned but in the reality? We can’t. We only know yesterday. We don’t know tomorrow. He told us, what I now refer to as the-washing-machine-lesson, about his washing machine. For 10 years, he has the same washing machine. Every time he puts his clothes, put in detergent, and press a button for it to run. For 10 years it has worked. It worked yesterday. It worked today. It’ll work tomorrow. And for 10 years he was right every single time. Except this time. He said if we trust our understanding of yesterday to predict today and tomorrow, then the washing machine should’ve worked. Because it has worked for over 10 thousand yesterdays. But it didn’t.

My point of telling you this is that you’re never too old for change to happen. No matter how many days you’ve lived I still believe that you’re still young. Today is the youngest you’ll be. You may have been able to predict what life is like and where you’re heading right now and yesterday and many yesterdays before but you can’t accurately predict what’s going to happen tomorrow or many tomorrows from now. Something is capable of changing if you give it enough time. Something is capable of changing if you make a change. Why do you think life isn’t for you? Because you’ve been depressed? Because someone said so? Then change it. Make it into something else that is for you. Don’t let yourself be stuck. Tomorrow is unplanned. Tomorrow is a new beginning, as cliche as that may sound. I thought I was never going to get better. For 6 years that was the case but today I am 8 months clean and I’ve woken up about two times feeling thankful that I lived. It’s not much but it’s a change. So please, don’t give up until you’ve woken up feeling thankful a million times over.

If you want to talk, please don’t be afraid to lean on a trusted friend or seek help from a counselor/therapist in your area. You’re worth it.

Lots of love,

Kelly

[mental-health-advice]

My best friend just told me that she's going to move away from our town. I'm so scared that I started crying but told myself to stop in fear of a panic attack. I'm happy for her, because she got into a school, which is awesome. But I'm scared our relationship will start to fade away. I almost know it, because I'm horrible at keeping in touch with my friends, even though I'd really really really like to. Usually I feel like I'm just a bother. I'm so scared and this was so sudden. - Pearl

Hi Pearl,

I think I know how you feel. I think I can also tell you what it’s like to be on the other end as well. College was a dreaded experience for me because everyone was going different places and I knew that we wouldn’t see each other as much. When you don’t see someone often, it makes it harder to keep in touch and continue to be close. I was terrified of that and of course it happened. I’ve got friends that I used to be best friends with who don’t even remember we attend to the same college anymore. However, with that being said, I have friends who have worked together with me to maintain the friendship we had. You know that you’re bad at keeping in touch. Knowing your flaws, instead of letting it control the fate of your friendship, you can use that to make it work. If you’re the type that doesn’t know how to reply to a message or forget to, your friend may know you well enough to spam you until you reply or call you instead. When my friend went to college, I told him that he has to be the first person to contact me. He was my best friend so how we work is different but there were conditions that he agreed to in order to make our friendship work. He bugs me about visiting him since he can’t drive and to be honest, I never really visit him because of personal reasons but it never affected our friendship. When he’s home, he tries to contact me to hang out. When it’s his or my birthday, we make plans to see a movie. We don’t see each other too often but our friendship never really changed. I think all of that worked because we talked about it beforehand. We talked about how we can make this work because neither of us want to lose the other. We don’t have any other friends, to be honest, so we knew that if something were to change it would be equally devastating.

I think it may help for you to talk to your friend about this. She’s probably scared too. Work out a plan other because you know her personality and she knows yours. Let her know that you probably won’t be the first person to text or call because you feel that you’ll be a bother, but you’re willing to try and contact her at least once a week regardless. Make plans to facetime, skype, or meet up once a month or once a week. I can’t say that if you try to make it work, it’ll always work but as long as you’ve tried no matter what happen later I don’t think you’ll regret it. I know you’re scared but she probably is too. Talk to her, okay?

Lots of love,

Kelly

[mental-health-advice]

Thanks Kelly. I promise I'll write to you again.

I hope to hear from you again, dear<3

lots of love,

Kelly