#normalizementalillness

✨ My New Year’s Eve did not go as planned, and that’s okay. In the end, I spent it with my love @kaydeelayne and our two kitties. Mental health can be unpredictable, and people with mental health disorders still need and deserve love, validation, support, understanding, empathy & compassion. 🎆 I hope 2019 continues to bring me more opportunities to extend that love and support to those around me personally, and professionally as I go into my first practicum experience. 🧠 Please don’t be afraid to talk about mental illness, about depression or anxiety or personality disorders or bipolar disorder or schizophrenia or whatever diagnosis you may have (if any). The world and culture won’t change unless we help it to. Please check in on friends and loved ones if you notice them struggling or distancing themselves. Please seek our services like counseling and therapy, and if you think it’s right for you, talk to professionals like psychiatrists and physicians about medication to help manage mental illness. Overall, Please never stop loving and caring for one another. 💕💖💞 . . . Image description: Myself and Kaydee laying and cuddling together in bed, with our black kitten Jonathan between us. . . . #EndTheStigma #MentalHealthAwareness #mentalhealth #NormalizeMentalIllness (at The Gaslight Village, Iowa City, IA) https://www.instagram.com/p/BsFcUERBeOn/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1h0kppql2d60z

#MyDepressionFeelsLike: Living with depression is a constant struggle, but being open & honest about it helps me cope. #NormalizeMentalIllness -@naziejoon

I haven't traveled more then a couple hours in any direction of my hometown since I started having panic attacks when I was about 16 years old because I was afraid I was going to have a monster panic attack and not be able to escape easily to my safe place, which has always been my room/bed. I had convinced myself that if I didn't travel, I would be safe from what I feared the most; which was having a massive panic attack and somehow graduating from panic disorder to schizophrenia, and completely loosing my mind (I'm not trying to imply that people with schizophrenia or other similar illnesses don't live fulfilling and happy lives, this is just what i convinced would happen to me). I've missed funerals, weddings, never visited my best friends when they went away to college, all because I was convinced that I was safer from anxiety in my comfort zone. I'm so sorry for the things I've missed, but I can't change the past but only continue to grow and do better. But look, I survived! I got on a plane and traveled 5+ hours over the pacific ocean, hung out in hawaii for 5 days and fucking survived! I had anxiety, but I lived through it! I think the most important thought I've acquired throughout years of learning about my disorder is that anxiety fills you with a whole lot of discomfort, but never real danger. There's no place or no one keeping you safe from your anxiety. Escaping from places that make you anxious will only make you more anxious in the long run. Power through whatever makes you nervous and stick through it, I know you can! I did two things that I avoided for about 10 years; going on a plane and being far from my "safe" place, and the amount of pride I have for myself is unexplainable! On and ever onward! #panicdisorder #agoraphobia #normalizementalillness