F%ck Mental Health

Mental Health is just as important as Physical Health. It should not have a negative connontation to it. As someone with High Functioning Anxiety, Depression, Panic Disorder and complex PTSD. I can certainly attest to the struggle of Mental Illness. Those with Mental Illnesses are not broken, disabled or unworthy of a happy life. I'd like to pull back the curtain on what it's like to live everyday with Mental Illnesses. There are so many things we have to cope with everyday. Let's talk about High Functioning Anixety to start with: You see someone who is detail orientated and hardworking and always on time. What you don't see is someone who is so afraid of messing up even slightly that we have to be detail orientated. Someone who is so afraid of being a minute late that they're always on time. For fear of getting in trouble. You also don't see someone who feels like they HAVE to work all the time otherwise we feel useless or not doing enough.

Now let's talk about Depression: Depression isn't having a bad day or feeling down for a certain period of time. We all get sad from time to time. But depression is much worse. It's not easy to live with depression. Sometimes you feel like you don't want to get out of bed in the morning, even more so you don't have the mental energy to do anything. -Message to anyone with a Mental Illness: It's okay if you all you did today was breathe-

Depression is hard to deal with as is any other Mental Illness. There's no gold stars for simply surviving everyday. There's no set list of things you have to do and figuring things out on your own is difficult enough. Especially when you have Depression or Anxiety or any other Mental Illness. Have you ever heard the song "This is me Trying By Taylor Swift"? It's a great song. It talks about the struggle of Mental Illness and how we have to cope with it everyday and how we don't get gold stars for simply surviving and nobodies patting you on the back. And how sometimes we have to work so hard to even fool people that we're even slightly okay. That's exhausting. I'm not saying we're ticking time bombs we certainly aren't. But living everyday with a Mental Illness is difficult.

Nobody gives you credit for simply living everyday and actively fighting something. You're doing your best and it's not good enough.

Let's talk about Panic disorder: It's not something you can just "calm down" from. It's hell. You're scared, cold and you feel like you're having a heart attack. It's painful. You could have a panic attack at any moment and that's scary. You have to live with it daily. I've dealt with this for years and it's painful.

Finally let's talk about PTSD I have it from my last relationship, I still have flashbacks of my ex yelling at me or telling me something mean. It's hard to carry that around everyday. I can say therapy has helped a ton. I continue to share my story in hopes of helping even one person. There is not enough of a conversation going on about Mental Health. It's not okay. I can't just not think about what happened to me. I can't just block it out. It will forever change the course of my life. To those who have to deal with this as well. I'm sorry, I'm sorry you have to live everyday in Fear and lose sleep and have flashbacks of horrible trauma.