Links

  • Sharing – How To Support Your Depressed Friend When You’re Depressed Too

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    As you know, I’ve been quick to share links and even write about what your depressed friends need, and how to help people struggling with their own mental health. What I’ve come to realize more and more is that I am also struggling, and failing at being a very good friend for many of these same reasons. I’m burned out, I’m tired, I have little mental energy beyond just getting through each workday, and taking care of myself, for reaching out, chatting, or virtually meeting up with people.

    In short, I am experiencing exactly what Annie is talking about. I want to reach out and be supportive to my friends, but I haven’t recognized my own struggles. No, I don’t believe I am depressed in a major way, but I’m definitely suffering from anxiety, stress, and it’s exhausting me.

    That makes it hard to be the supportive one in any relationship, even though I want to be.

    To combat that, I’m going to be reviewing this article a few times, and thinking about how I might still be supportive, and how maybe people in my life be supportive of each other.

  • Sharing – New Study: Sleep Is Literally a Deep Clean for Your Brain

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    Having trouble with stress and anxiety? The suggested solutions often require adding even more to our to-do list. Meditate, practice mindfulness, do acts of self-care, etc. But we often forget that maybe the most important act of self-care is getting enough sleep.

    Don’t even get me started on the fitness industry and the number of people who talk about “earning your food/sleep” through exercise. Argh!

    This study would indicate that sleep is not something you want to mess with. Simply getting enough would help us with our mental “junk”. No, it won’t cure depression or eliminate symptoms of bipolar, or any of the other things that some of your friends will, unfortunately, suggest, but it does serve a core function for the healthy functioning of your brain, and that is certainly one place to start making things better, no?

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    Would Everyone Benefit From Having a Therapist?

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    She goes on to document the appallingly low percentage of people who manage to get therapy, as well as the difference between white patients and minorities. She then goes on to talk about this in the context of the quote above, which I had not considered previously. If finding a therapist is truly like dating, and it is in my experience as well, how do we not only make sure that therapy is available, but that there is more than one to choose from?

  • Sharing – Small Talk With A Stranger Can Still Save Lives, Says Samaritans

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    I’ve talked about this a little bit, but maybe not in detail. When I was really struggling, I can’t necessarily say that someone starting a conversation with me made the difference that day. I don’t think I was self-aware enough to know that. What I do know, however, is that being seen makes a huge difference. In my depression, I did not want to be seen. I wanted to fade away. That was the driver behind my desire, to simply not be here. To disconnect from everything in order to disconnect from the pain I was in. Small connections helped me understand what I was giving up, and why I might want to rethink that.

  • Sharing – Why I Post About My Mental Health on Facebook

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Those folks need the opportunity to see another side to the story, and the more people who can safely tell their stories, the more we can let those folks know that they are, in fact, not alone.

    If I’ve learned one thing from having this website for close to 20 years and being active on various social media platforms, it’s that you never know who is reading, and how it might impact them. Some people will tell you, and others will never mention it, but they are reading it. Would you rather be the person who helped someone feel less alone, and provided some hope, or the person who shut them down?

    I know which one I have chosen.