This week, I’ve been doing a lot of research and reflection about self-doubt, what it looks like and the mental health challenges it creates. Even though it’s been helpful to understand more about doubt and the role it plays in our mental health, managing or overcoming self-doubt is more than just being aware of it. Here are five tips that I hope will be helpful to you on your journey to better manage your self-doubt.
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Going A Little Easier On Myself
One of the things I’ve learned on my mental health journey is that I can be extremely hard on myself. When I make mistakes or experience setbacks, I am quick to place the blame squarely on my shoulders. When I succeed, I’m reluctant to take any of the credit or share in any part of the praise. And while I know many of the reasons behind this (and since I don’t want to turn this post into a pseudo-therapy session), I’ve never really known what to do about it – which is what I’d like to talk about today.
Continue readingWhat Do I Do With My Emotions?
Part of living with depression and anxiety means that sometimes, my emotions are…heightened. I don’t always know the reasoning behind it, but there are a lot of emotions I feel more intensely than I’d like to feel. I know a part of this is my empathetic nature, part of it is life and part of it is just in my personality, but it can be tricky. I don’t always know what to do with my emotions – and in some situations, this can get in the way of being mentally healthy.
Continue readingWhen It Comes to Mental Health, Simple Doesn’t Mean Easy
People say it all the time – easier said than done. That phrase can extend to a lot of different situations for a lot of different reasons. In fact I don’t think I realized just how often I said it (to myself or to others) during my day-to-day life. And while I think that this extends to plenty of situations in our lives, there’s no area where this plays out for me in a clearer way then when my mental health is involved. When it comes to mental health challenges and finding ways to improve my mental wellness, it is always, always, always easier said than done. Because even though mental health solutions might sound simple, they are anything but easy.
Continue readingThe Challenge of Celebrating Yourself
This past week was my birthday. I’ll be honest – historically speaking, I’m not big on birthdays. Actually, let me be more specific: I’m not that big on my birthday. I’ll help anyone else celebrate the day they were born. Name the time and place and I am in there, ready to do it up big. But when it comes to my own birthday, there have always been a few challenges that have gotten in the way of enjoying my birthday the way I’d like to. There are plenty of reasons for why I feel this way, but since this is a mental health blog, I’ll focus on what one of the most challenging reasons that birthdays are difficult for me, which is one of the simplest aspects of a birthday: celebrating yourself.
Continue readingWalking Out of the Darkness in 2021
This year, for the fifth year in a row, I raised money and participated in the Washington, D.C. Out of the Darkness Community Walk, an annual event held by the National Capital Area Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). I was very fortunate to learn about this organization and the work they do and every single year, I’m reminded about how much I’ve learned and grown from being part of this event.
Continue readingWhy Your Mental Health Journey Is Unique
A lot of people face mental health challenges on a daily basis. That might sound like it’s a lot to deal with, but there’s something that’s easy to forget when we talk about mental health and the challenges that people can face – each person, and each challenge, is unique. There is a sense of community and togetherness that is important when it comes to the mental health discourse (think about ‘you are not alone’ and phrases in that vein), but it can be difficult to remember that even though we’re in this together, each person is on their own mental health journey. This means that our challenges will be faced in many different ways, which can get left out of how we talk about mental health.
Continue readingWhen Relaxing Is the Point
As any reader of this blog knows, I tend to overthink things. Maybe it’s my anxiety, maybe it’s just part of my personality, who knows – either way, decisions aren’t made lightly when it comes to how I live my life. That’s one of the reasons I struggled over the weekend, but also one of the ways that I was taught a valuable lesson in how to spend and enjoy my time. I operate with the mindset that every single moment of my day has to have a vague, undefined sense of meaning and importance, and I’m starting to learn that this doesn’t have to be true. Sometimes, the only reason we do things is to feel good and enjoy ourselves – and that can be a very good thing.
Continue readingWhat Is Clinical Depression, And What Does It Look Like?
Note: This is a guest post I wrote that previously appeared on Prairie Health’s blog.
As someone who has lived with clinical depression for almost a decade, I’ve learned a lot about what depression is, what it means to me, and how it looks in my day-to-day life. One of the most important things that’s helped me manage my clinical depression is to do research on what it is, why it’s different from other forms of depression, and what that means for me.
Continue readingLearning to Find Comfort in Messing Up
I get annoyed at myself a lot. Like, a lot. Multiple times a day. Part of that is my natural inclination after years of experiencing depression and anxiety, but part of it feels like human nature. No one is is happy about every single choice they make. We’re humans and we make mistakes. The problem is, I can hear that a million times, but an aspect of that never sinks in. Failing is extremely uncomfortable to me, and even though I’m discovering why, that doesn’t make it any easier to manage.
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My Brain's Not Broken 