#mhamarleen

[mental-health-advice]

I'm going to miss you, Marleen. <3

Hey there,

This is sweet of you! If anyone would like to keep in contact with me my personal tumblr is under the URL viledad !

Much love to you,

Marleen

[mental-health-advice]

My dad has always been an angry person, ever since I could remember. My parents split up some years ago, and after that my dad got even worse. Now that im older, i realize that he manipulated me A LOT in the couple of years following the divorce. Belittling my feelings, guilt tripping me, making me feel intimidated, but in the past year hes stopped. I still have so much anger and resentment towards, but i feel bad because hes not like that anymore. Whats wrong with me? - noodle

Hey there,

Nothing is wrong with you, alright? You're harboring a lot of emotions right now, and it's completely okay to still feel them. Just because the problem may not be prevalent anymore, doesn't mean that the feelings suddenly went away. If you're still holding onto anger, then I really do encourage you to find a way to get it out.

You said your father isn't this way anymore, so is there anyway you can talk to him about it? Try telling him that after the divorce you really struggled. I wouldn't try to place blame on him, because if you try to blame him, he will most likely not listen to you. People tend to get defensive as soon as you target them, so try talking more about yourself and your feelings rather than he did X or Y.

Do you think seeing a therapist would be helpful? Therapists can help you try to reconnect a relationship with your dad, and they can give you tips on how to forgive him. If that's what you want to do, anyways!

Remember that he is different now, and if you're able to trust him, then that's a good thing. If you're able to have a good relationship with your dad, I say go for it, because those relationships really are one of a kind. Here's our page on getting help. Here's also a few videos you might be interested in:

Forgiveness & AcceptanceWhat does it take to forgive?How do I tell my parents about my struggles?

Best of luck,

Marleen

[mental-health-advice]

I'm A, and I just saw that there was a tag for that already, so you can change the tag to Aria if you would prefer.

A

It’s okay if two people have the same tag! It’s really no problem. Also, since you already sent in the asks, we wouldn’t be able to edit them unless we resent them. Either way, it’s totally okay if more than one person have the same nickname :) 

Best of luck!

Marleen

[mental-health-advice]

I can't get on to the complaints form, i just wanted to say i feel as though some of your admins have been diagnosing people wrongly and this can have a devastating impact on the person. Instead of telling them what COULD be wrong with the, maybe just offer support and help. Im not trying to have a go at the page, i just feel although this can mislead some people and upset them. Self Diagnosis is really awful and you're just assisting by suggesting what the underlying problem may be. -Z

Z

I completely understand what you're saying! I'm personally very against self diagnosis, and our blog doesn't support it either. You can read our views on why we're anti self diagnosis here.

The thing with how we answer asks, every admin answers differently. I prefer to give self help techniques or tell people to get help, rather than list symptoms to something someone may have. Although I still do that, I try not to do it as much as possible, as like you said, it encourages self diagnosis. Yet some other admins may prefer to list symptoms rather than give them other information. It's generally just how each person here works individually.

Although some of our admins may support self diagnosis, we still don't allow it on our blog. The reason we do list symptoms to a potential disorder they may have, is because we only get that one chance to speak to them unless they send in another ask. Most people don't send in follow up asks, although some do, but there is still a majority that doesn't. With that being said, we want to include as much information as possible in the short answer we are able to give.

We are supposed to give a link to our getting help page, or something of the sort, as an indication that we want you to speak to a professional about it. I try to make it very clear when speaking to our followers that I am not a professional, nor are they, so they shouldn't try to diagnose anything.

TLDR; We just want to give our followers as much information as possible, and unfortunately sometimes it comes across as encouraging self diagnosis. But just to be clear, we don't support self diagnosis in any shape.

I hope this helped!

Marleen

[mental-health-advice]

I've alway had extremely vivid dreams and I've had a few in the past that I couldn't remember whether or not it was a dream. But they've been happening a lot more and I don't realize it wasn't real until actual evidence shows up. I'm concerned because I don't want it to get worse to where I can't know what's real and what's not. Am I just being over dramatic or am I right to be concerned? (Tag April 19 please)

April,

I can actually relate to this, as I remember most of my dreams and my dreams are very vivid and realistic. It's sometimes hard to distinguish what I actually experienced vs what I dreamt, so I hope I can help you out!

I don't think you should be concerned honestly! If you have vivid dreams, it's completely common to wake up and think they actually happened. I even have some memories from being a kid that I thought were real until I brought them up to my mom! I'm not sure if this is a common thing, but I'm the same way as you, so it can't be too rare.

If you're really concerned about this, I'd recommend you keep a dream journal. Mark the night you slept, and write down everything you can remember from the dream. You can keep this in a notepad, journal, whatever is most convenient. I recommend actually writing it down physically though, so you don't have to keep it on your phone. It just seems more convenient to actually write it down physically!

I recommend doing the dream journal as soon as you wake up because that way you can establish while you're doing it that it was a dream! If you continue to struggle with this though, try looking into getting help from a doctor or therapist for memory issues, or something along those lines! Here's our page on getting help. I hope this helped :)

Best of luck!

Marleen

[mental-health-advice]

Not sure if this is mental health related but I have an unexplainable desire to do drugs. I understand that this is a horrible decision and it will destroy me but I still really want to try that stuff(???)

Hey there,

No worries! I hope I can clear some stuff up about drugs & drug usage for you!

DISCLAIMER: All the opinions about drugs are my opinions, and they don't reflect MHA or this blog as a whole. If you disagree with these opinions, that is completely okay! This is just how I think personally.

Drugs aren't inherently bad, I want to say that right off the bat. Drugs can be abused, used wrong, and have negative effects, but drugs aren't the end all be all of life. Although a lot of them are unsafe, you can take precautions and such in order to make sure you do them safely. I also want to have a little disclaimer that by saying that I'm not encouraging you to go do it, as it can very easily lead to something bigger and more serious, but I don't want you to feel guilty for simply being curious.

A lot of people who want to do drugs, but don't want a whole lot of negative effects or things of that matter, smoke pot. Weed is proven to actually be able to help people with ADD concentrate, increase stimulation in your brain, and make you more productive. There is this stigma around weed that it makes you lazy and such, but that's really just up to the person. If you're unable to smoke weed and be responsible, that is the own person's fault.

I want to ask you though, why are you so interested in drugs? The media and internet makes them seem a whole lot better than they actually are, and can make you subconsciously think it's cool to do. Drugs can really mess you up, and can get you in a lot of trouble. Those are things they don't usually show when people pop pills at a party to have a good time, you know? Drugs can be very easily abused, and can hurt you.

Curiosity is completely normal though, so don't blame yourself for just being curious! I can't tell you not to do drugs, as it's your life, but I do want to say that if you do them, just make sure you're around people you trust and you're safe about it. Stay hydrated, eat before, and just try to be smart about the whole situation. Don't go in public, and don't try to make any drastic decisions while high. Once again, I'm not encouraging you, but if you choose to do them, please be safe.

Best of luck!

Marleen

[mental-health-advice]

I've found myself incapable of loving lately. I'm not ace/aro, I've identified as pansexual since middle school, around the time I broke up with my first real boyfriend, we didn't end on good terms exactly, we were young and we hurt each other a lot so we ended it for good, and since then I've found myself unable to forgive myself, perhaps I'm afraid of loving again, it's been about four years and I don't think I've fallen in love since then, is something wrong with me? (Tag as Latte)

Latte

No, there is nothing wrong with you. It's easy to jump to conclusions like that, but in all reality, there isn't anything wrong with you. You aren't broken, or in need of fixing or repair.

If your last relationship was unhealthy, it might've just set you off the path of relationships. There's nothing wrong with not jumping into another relationship, or not having another one for long periods of time. There's this weird standard that everybody should have a partner, and it's strange not to have one for long periods of time. This really isn't true at all, and once you remember that, you'll start feeling a lot more like yourself and a lot less like something somebody else wants you to be.

Relationships are great! Being able to share a romantic connection with another human being is absolutely lovely, but it isn't required. Maybe you just haven't found someone that's right for you yet! Which once again, there is nothing wrong with. Some people just don't really get into relationships unless they really like the person, and it's really just up to each individual person on where they stand with relationships. A lot of people have new relationships every month, and some people have maybe one every couple of years. One isn't better than the other, and one isn't worse than the other.

Everybody functions and works differently, and I don't think you should punish yourself for operating differently than someone else may! My final advice is to just give yourself time to enjoy your own company. You're a teenager, anyways! No need to tie yourself down yet <3

Best of luck,

Marleen