#it's also destigmatized a lot of the shit i do for myself to keep myself safe

[hanzi83]

Why It Will Remain Difficult to Destigmatize Mental Illness

There are 2 main things I want to cover to get off of my chest and yes there has to always be disclaimers, it is the only way for me to ease myself into writing shit, like I already accept the fact that there is way too much going on in my mind, it is a constantly loop of information and feelings and then as the loop continues, one more gets thrown in there per loop  to add to the mental space  until it becomes excessive baggage and I can’t retain, and now that I do the blogs first then talk about it later for the most part, since I might be able to explain certain thoughts better in writing than me speaking it where I am stammering and stuttering all over the fucking place. But when it comes to mental illness and the layers within it that don’t get explained. And before I continue, I don’t want to think that there are not good people trying to lessen the stigmatization of mental illness in our society which is a good thing obviously but if the bigger questions of why this mental illness is getting worse and it continues despite us as a society saying we are ready to have that talk, because if we were really ready to have that talk about mental illness, we would have to talk about how there is a constant force of mentally ill leaders and bosses within different entertainment institutions, factions and cliques that are sub groups funded by the establishment who don’t want anyone or anything to get better, they will pretend to call out villainous figures in the most on surface way but still building up their own cults of mentally ill people who will use their mental illness, not to do any real good with it, but also create chaos with the culture war discourse because if they can’t get any better being in the system mentally, then their thought process is that nothing can get better because if everyone gets better, then the entertainment that we are so attached to, would not be seen as exciting. People can keep pointing out social media and the politics and policies, but if you can’t even accept that a lot of our favorite entertainment on some level is playing a part in how people behave, whether your absorb and want to become your favorite character or public figure, or people being given incentive to get people to act horribly and ruin their lives through parasocial relationships. It is normally the “sports entertainment” fandom thought leaders who are given incentive from people who have the power to gaslight and create chaos and then get the most obvious and transparent shit heads to say the most horrible shit on the fucking planet, and then act like they are above those people because they are pointing out how fucked up the fandom is, but they are the ones who are help organizing it. In my personal opinion, I always believed someone like a Howard Stern or Vince McMahon and now to some extent Tony Khan, people who suffer from some mental problems, and by being in this mafia world, you would have to have mental problems by default, but they are the ones who give incentive to people to either create chaos or have these Arkham Asylum weirdos who do the stalking and all out harassment on a transparent level a chance to exist and we make these incidents just a one off when it serves a bigger pattern in this world. Meaning we can’t improve our mental health and pinpoint the mental illness if we are constantly going into nonstop chaotic mode with trying to always get people to argue to push another culture war, like the world isn’t already burning enough. The shills who pretend they haven’t done anything wrong in this scenario are people who have institutional boss aspirations, how are you different than a Vince McMahon or a Donald Trump, you just have an online cult that will do whatever you fucking say because the constant push for negative discourse is seen as real because the positive shit is presented as “fake” and “forced” like the constant scripted viral videos of gender wars or race baiting isn’t enough, because people are obsessed with wanting to have sitcom level dialogue and making it feel like it is the realest shit, we have to accept entertainment plays a role in manufacturing consent and changing people’s behavior. You can call out other things as well, but entertainment is so overlooked, I mean if you have fundamentalist religious people talking about the devil and doing it from that angle, no one's gonna want to listen, which is why I always feel the entertainment and fundamentalism have strong ties despite seeming like they are on opposite sides. When you consume sports entertainment for most of your life, you tend to look at everything on the surface as that because it guarantees people will still side with the problematic side even if it doesn’t seem like it is part of the same coin. Like I will give you an example, recently pro wrestler Dax Harwood has said he is stepping away from his podcast which is getting negative reviews from the anti Punk contingent, I have heard the podcast time to time, it is a pretty good podcast that talks about other shit like mental health, and his family life and stuff about wrestling philosophy etc, but of course the mentally ill discourse is to talk about the sports entertainment of him mentioning Punk and being pro Punk, which is the main goal of why it was put out there and probably approved, even though people want to think these wrestlers now under Tony Khan have freedom, but I am willing to bet this is partly why the podcast was supposed to be boosted and talked about so it facilitates part of the worked shoot, so the people who are pro Punk are gonna use the extreme examples of people saying the worst shit to Dax which is why he is stopping the podcast, and I know those kinds of people exist, but it is designed by the thought leaders online to manipulate in thinking it was just simply a podcast that people overreacted to, because now these over the top accounts I feel are funded online, like a lot of accounts are. Then you have the other side of the argument where people are using this as an example of why talents shouldn’t be allowed to speak freely and ultimately they start advocating for Vince McMahon level aspirations because even though I believe this is a worked shoot, I feel Dax complaining time to time, because all human beings need to get it off our chest, it will not help future people who want to complain about how they were fucked over, it is like they focused on this being the main case to make it look bad on purpose, which is why situations like ACH and Big Swole will happen time to time, the pro FTR and Punk people will be about airing our grievances in this worked shoot way if it helps the people they are advocating for, but people you don’t have investment into and don’t see as valuable, you can literally pile on them and make their mental illness worse because they didn’t have the proper mental breakdown you would’ve liked where it comes with a nice pink ribbon. So when people say they advocate for mental health and there are people who are genuine I believe, but to counter the evil, we have to expose the bigger game being played in how by default being in this entertainment and political shit, you are gonna have severe mental illness, and some will be cogs who will be piled on by permitted accounts from these billionaires, or you will become a social climber who will pretend to care about plight because it affected the almighty CM Punk, but for the most part you will continue to do the status quo by ignoring the bigger problems, and you are finding out that being put in a position of authority even if it is minor compared to others in the system, you can’t really handle it all that well, because whether you want to bill yourself as a person of the people, you know on a genuine level, that is out the window because you are just a liaison for the system to put out “genuine fandom opinions” And these institutional bosses are just like a Tony Soprano prototype and everyone wants to be that kind of boss, where their mental illness is what matters but everyone else’s trauma that is being caused by those in power is something you have to get over and not bitch about. So both sides of this argument are still part of the same coin. I hope the social climbers and shills are happy with themselves because they helped create all of this so they can get their preferred entertainment, you don’t think that makes you a sociopath? People don’t want to expand their minds, they use their sophistication to dumb down the argument and reduce it to being reactionary. The WWE shills are and have always been really bad but since the AEW sector has shown themselves and how they will overlook shit and not call out the system as a whole, they are never gonna be in a position to think they are more pure when this has shown how fucking crazy all of this has gotten. People want to believe that these talents aren’t being encouraged to take the attitude era and regressive aspect of the 90’s to the internet and on alt media platforms, this is why this shit is like attitude era on super serum, where now the talents are being exposed way more than you could see them on television during that era, because now we know when the talents are taking a shit, and we somehow know the specific smells that came out of someone’s ass, we are that fucking intiment with the these public figures now. It has made me dread even seeing them on television. I know it was designed to go this way but I don’t have to fucking like it and guess what, I know no one has to cater it to me, but I am also allowed to not like what is going on and express myself because when the worst is being normalized and people are climbing up a system to expand that shit even further, than yeah people like me who think this is complete shit have to deal with other people who are absorbing the propaganda. Keep downplaying the entertainment propaganda, it only becomes a problem when new conservatives pose as leftist accounts to cancel shit they don’t like because another billionaire is funding them to be anti that product so they can promote other shit, but since they like that other shit, it must mean that is completely uncompromised. Like this blog won’t get propped up or boosted up, and the people who already have control of the online narratives etc, will read this secretly in their group chat with other hateful people, and will have a problem with one person calling the whole process out, even though their narratives are what is going to be talked about nonstop. Why would my shit get talked about when I am trying to expand our thoughts? I might not have the best vernacular, maybe my days of reading Glenn Greenwald tweets, has made me kind of try to force bigger words that I probably wouldn’t use in my everyday life. 

Like what do you do think will get more boosted up or propped up, an overall examination of the entertainment world and how it has been used as a political tool most of our fucking lives, or will it be reduced to identity politics and culture wars in the most on surface way possible, Like with Jonathan Majors, I can point out how there is an overall thing going on the last decade where the entertainment world has had these kinds of situations happen, they turn heel to the masses, and they still continue on with their lives and do their art, some of the people who do time on some level will still be in the discourse where social currency is being used to profit off these horrendous situations. Is there a race related thing involved with how black celebrities will be thrown under the bus faster than their white counterparts, but since no one is really gonna suffer real repercussions, maybe kayfabed ones, like on the surface they will lose their “PR team”, their “manager”, their “promoted gigs” but if they are making a pivot to the conservative side, it is showing you that Hollywood is fucked up but it has to be under the guise of it being liberal which it is not but this is a way for problematic celebrities to have their issues put out there and we analyze it in the most simplistic way possible because the MSM is dumbed down, some people will market a campaign the man’s innocence and the ones leading the charge are from the new conservative sector etc, and we will apply the same rules that Jonathan Majors will go through and compare it to the plight of regular people dealing with shit worse ona systemic level, and if Jonathan Majors is innocent and being falsely accused, he becomes the be all end all of the issue, then you have conservative women accounts who are making this a gender issue on the most basic level, and the people who get propped up to do this discourse are the same people socially climbing up in this same system that will make you do horrible shit when you are initiated, and whatever horrible shit they make you say or do, they will then tie that all into the good shit you represent for and make it seem like the entire movement is now suspect. This is why it is dangerous to use celebs as your examples because showbiz is now expanded to these scripted and orchestrated scandals, they will make a lot of social currency and a lot of money in the media when this shit is discussed, people will get interviewed for their minimal take on the situation, we don’t want to admit the system gimmicks up the trauma and scandals and this is why no one in the entertainment world is ever gonna be mentally well. Even when we are pointing out the evil of the system, we do it by “Oh look they overlooked Dana White’s situation” yeah that is by design so that becomes the focused talking point, you would think we would see the overall picture and how people are getting canceled by design, whether they are being lured into the right wing side or they are forced to seek refuge from that side since the supposed “liberals” are no longer fucking with you. I believe cancel culture has been by design to get people to go more into the fundamentalist side in the very end. These celebs are backed by systems where they can get away with shit until they are supposed to be used for entertainment fodder, and you would think if critical thinkers existed, we could see the bigger picture, but people think conspiratorial thinking is horrible and wrong because everything is lumped with the right wing which is why they win the narratives online because they at least make acknowledgement there is organization going on to control shit, but the ironic thing is they are on the side that wants to control, when you have liberal types who snoot at people for theories etc, then it pushes them into this right wing framing and you think because someone is doing a show on youtube or twitch or Rumble that they are not apart of Hollywood and Showbiz, it is kind of like how for so long people thought the talk radio world and pro wrestling were not considered Hollywood even though there is a chance they could be different sectors of that world, even the stuff on these social media platforms are now another part of Hollywood. That bothers people because they want to think their opinions are the most genuine and if it is online then how can it really be compromised because we define compromised by what it would’ve meant by 90’s standard. 

I know by saying I am conspiratorial you will say I am crazy plus you will use the online propaganda that has been built up against me by the Stern contingent if I do get back any kind of relevancy, and I know a lot of my theories might be hard to swallow but can you really look at me and say I am the one who is the main crazy and fucked up one when you are literally having public figures who act more like Whack Packers than anything I could’ve ever done. You draw the line at me having coping mechanism conspiracies so I don’t break down and cry at night, which is why I have to think there are clones and transferring of the consciousness into new bodies, but is that even anymore crazier than people advocating for child marriage and justifying why a 10 year old who was raped has to keep the baby because of these religious fundamentalists beliefs and their normalization of wanting fascist ideas being the norm. You have fucking grown and respected men literally freaking out about the genders and race of movie and television characters when this shit is designed for product placement? Look at how crazy the entertainment has fucking made us where we think we are fighting this good fight because you took the bait in one of Ben Shapiro’s obvious troll baiting, not saying you can’t call it out but what ends up happening is it seems that when people counter, they are also finding a way to do product placement but in a culture war and how is that gonna help. Unless you tell me that representation for certain groups and ideologies being implemented into the entertainment is a symbolism win where it gives your marginalized community’s delegation more social clout in the conversation and that is why conservatives only what their ideology and their beliefs to be the be all end all while they pretend to have this anti corporate message, maybe I could kind of get why these culture wars exist. But it is amazing the people who pretend to call shit out are using it for their own sick gain to implement anti progressive and more regressive ideas because it comes off cooler, because that is what is healthy, a bunch of 30 and 40 year olds can only get behind something if it is cool. All this entertainment shit between abusive celebs and other scandals etc, it will be a constant thing but I am afraid we will never get to the bottom of this shit if it is gonna be presented in a simplistic way. Like people are generalizing anyone like Jonathan Majors who is doing the display of their feminine side and being for feminist rights etc and then go “Look he did all of this but this whole time he was abusing women” but when you are an entertainer, you will be repping for all kinds of shit, especially since the conservative sector of showbiz will think that “feminist” and “gay baiting” is forced by the gay delegation in the system to show you are down for a cause, so when someone is now breaking free from that delegation and is gonna go the route of having a storyline about the fraternity ritual where he had to do become a violent person and now being backed by a lot of conservatives online, it means now he is gonna be embraced through gimmicked identity politics from bad faith actors. And the reason why I bring up delegations because even if someone who is from the LGBTQ delegation and will cater to their general community of regular powerless people living their lives etc, if they are caught with something scandalous, the far right wing uses that as an example of why “LGBTQ” needs to be stopped. This is why when abused sexually from straight or gay people in the system, the celebs who have dealt with that and experienced different delegations in the system, they come out and join the fundamentalist side of religion to speak in generalities about the entire community and then the argument gets twisted. That is how I view it because there are conspiracies afoot but the far right wing are taking it and twisting it into their fundamentalist shit. Now you have normalization of powerful platforms normalizing how different communities are dangerous and they have different conservatives from different backgrounds pretending like they are for the overall wellbeing of their community but will never tell you they are in bed with the same white supremacist system, even if they can call out a sector by weaponizing it against liberals because of the fucked up shit democrats have done. Sorry if me ranting about this is ruining your fun in enjoying the entertainment in these scandals and building your brand in the process, I am just one person who literally doesn’t have any social clout, so if you are reading my gibberish,  you chose to come in here and get triggered by what I said, but again enjoy the entertainment and not discussing the real dangers it has caused because it has helped manufacture people’s behavior into accepting horrible policies, and now the entertainment has carried over to the politics where every day a politician says some crazy fucking shit. But we will keep focusing on this on an individual case and not analyze why the entire system is fucked and why mental illness will never heal with the way things go. I know I can never see people I used to know because they are entrenched into this life where they might exude this caricature behavior and it feels I can never heal properly because to get momentum in the system you have to put that banana on the top of your head and do a funny dance while talking your truth because people can only take in their information if they are allowed to laugh and view it under a comedic lensing. Anyways. I know this was probably not the best structured but these are my thoughts that will surely piss off the vultures who will find ways to now gaslight me more by amplifying more negative propaganda to dominate, it just proves me right when people do that because they are so angry they have to have a discord and group chat meeting how to make the discourse make my head explode since they know I analyze it, but don’t worry the stuff they do isn’t counted as mental illness because they have a cult to make it seem like they are the most normal people on the planet. Like is it crazy to think things are this organized when I see guys like Nathan Fielder do a show where it shows how they can organize people to be actors and be background players, they show you that kind of funded entertainment and orchestration but I am not allowed to expand my thoughts and think that is not some genius idea Nathan came up with but maybe exposing that this kind of goes on more than you think. I am allowed to interpret that since they show me every day through entertainment of what they could really be doing. We live in a world where Pras from the Fugees is apparently a Chinese spy or some shit, I don’t know, but do you really think these celebrities are just “boring assholes’ if someone who hasn’t been relevant in pop culture in the last 20 or so years is now a key person in some trial where he was organizing on a political level, it just makes me think how many more celebrities and public figures are working with the feds and are political tools. I forgot you can only be a political tool if you are more liberal. Anyways. Thanks for reading this mess but I just needed to get shit off my chest and see if I can articulate a bit better with the writing even though I have not written that often but I kind of like that I am getting back into the groove. I am not this super intellectual, I am just a very dumbed down person who has never understood the official narratives of this world, especially with the inconsistencies and the lies being exposed, once I see that play out, I am allowed to now interpret the world the way I see it, it doesn’t mean I am right about everything but I believe you can be conspiratorial and ask questions as long as you are also questioning the far right and the funding online going on because everything in our culture is mainstream in my personal opinion.

[bisexualamy]

i do this every 3-6 months where i consider that i may be autistic and then i just decide it's not worth it to investigate. instead i've just kinda settled on allowing myself to do stimming behaviors and routine setting and managing overstiumlation in a way that keeps me comfortable and not label myself as anything

[majesticnerdyvee]

What I like a lot while plotting potterlock is the concepts that I can develop further than what had happened in the original plots (duh, the beauty of fanfic)

For example, for my johnlock timeline (1980s) I was inspired by the Marauders dynamic, but of course I spiced it up a notch because I can. There were 4 Marauders, but for the johnlock crew in my fic there is going to be 7 people involved. Let’s list them:

John Watson (Gryffindor)

Sherlock Holmes (Ravenclaw)

Greg Lestrade (Hufflepuff)

Jim Moriarty (Gryffindor - there is a reason for this that is yet to be shown)

Carl Powers (Gryffindor)

Molly Hooper (Ravenclaw)

Mary Morstan (Slytherin)

Now while there is an obvious imbalance between the members of the Houses, the crew dynamics will be important. Mary is not very popular because of the bbc Sherlock canon (which I allign with too, and I like evil Mary plots, but I challenged myself to write her differently here, which means that she will not interfere with John and Sherlock as a potential romantic interest just because she is a girl). I made her a Slytherin because, well, she is. And I love her to death in this fic. More on that later.

Next, Carl Powers and Jim Moriarty. Jim’s Gryffindor arc will remain unveiled for now, but I really wanted to include Carl Powers beside being dead. And I like to have them established as close friends before joining J&S&G. They both have things to offer to the Detective Trio, and will contribute to their developments too (especially Sherlock’s, because we know how he is regarding ‘friends’). 

Molly Hooper is a sweetheart. She also is not going to pose as this infatuated fragile girl to the boys. While she is lovely and definitely interested in dating, it’s not with the main trio because?? Girl knows her worth. She befriends Sherlock in Year 1, but that is an added detail to that chapter which I will keep secret until it is updated. (which I dunno when it is pls dont kill meh) She a great friend, supportive, and all around smarter than Sherlock in certain situations. These two Ravenclaws will have a great friendship. Once Sherlock stops being so aloof he’ll take her as his little sister most likely.

Greg Lestrade. My man. We could argue he could be a Gryffindor but nah fam. My boy here is a pure Hufflepuff who puts up with the fiery egos of his two best friends with ease. There is a lot of clashing in this group at first. You have three Gryffindors who are not afraid to butt heads (respectfully if needed), a smartass Ravenclaw that has no filter, a second Ravenclaw that likes to watch the chaos as long as nobody gets hurt... Someone needs to keep them in line. And that someone is Greg. Does it tire him? Yes. Does he care? Eh, he got used to it. He and Mary will get along well. The biggest theme in my fic is to destigmatize that awful Slytherin-Gryffindor rivalry. Mary is chill. Slytherpuff duo of Common Sense. Are they wary of each other at first? Yeah, but the point is that they ignore the surface-level House bullshit and grow over first impressions. 

John and Sherlock, dudes. You know the drill. They’re the core members, but they are in for a whooping. They cannot be in a bubble, even if they’re the other pair of the protagonists. They both have to cooperate with others to grow as people. And what better way to do it than to put them into a crew that fucks shit up? I’d like to develop this thought but that would contain spoilers, and I have to remind myself that I havenpt update in... an abominable amount of time. So I’m making up with this post lol. 

Now, the name of the crew. - I don’t know

The main trio that is John, Sherlock, and Greg I have already titled the Detective Trio. But the whole crew of 7... Lucky Seven? Oh, that actually isn’t bad and will correlate with the later plot development in the 1997 timeline... I’m a genius

I think Lucky Seven can be the shield name for now anyway, hah

Thank you for coming to my TED talk

oh yeah and one the aforementioned peeps will become a werewolf haha

(Part 2 of this post where Bee asked about their Animagi powers)

[filispretends]

Can't afford food? Check online for local food pantries. You don't have to use just one. I use 3 in my area to keep myself and my landlady fed. Usually it's churches that run them so they might ask for you to pray with them. It's a small price to put your hands together and close your eyes to get free food when you need it. They might also ask for ID and proof of address so bring a letter addressed to your government name. Bring others from your home whether they're family or not since some places ask for how many people are in your household and that will affect how much food you get.

If your college has a food pantry use it. At my school students and staff who don't necessarily need the pantry are encouraged to use it so the organization gets more attention and to destigmatize using it.

Pantries during quarantine are usually working on a restricted schedule so keep track.

If you get a kind of food you can't eat gift or trade for it to someone who can. If you're getting food prepacked by volunteers and they include meat and you are morally against meat either redonate it or give it to a friend who needs it. Don't make a big fuss. Pantries do good work and don't need sass from a recipient. Lots of families need the meat to feed their loved ones including me. I've seen a girl my age throw a tantrum in her car and lash out at volunteers for including sausage patties in her box of Free Food. It wasn't pretty and made the volunteers just doing good work feel like shit.

Keep track of the food you get and the expiration dates. Milk and eggs usually need to be consumed right away since they're already donated close to the sticker date.

If you're lucky some pantries have a section of stuff they have in excess and you can take as much as you need. It's usually stuff that's going to go bad soon or it isn't in high demand. My landlady gets canned green beans from our local pantry every time since no one seems to take them.

Know that most of what's getting donated by middle class people is stuff from their home pantries that they don't want. Be creative with what you get and find. Get comfortable with eating canned goods and dry pasta, that's most of what you'll get.

Grocery stores and restaurants donate items that are out of date or close to it. If you work at somewhere like that see if your work would be interested in donating as well. Starbucks (in my area) donates its frozen sandwiches and treats. The local Jewel donates bakery items and milk. Food that isn't good to sell isn't necessarily not good to eat and goes to waste in the trash. Companies like a good public image and donating food they aren't going to sell anyway can be a win-win.

Finally, if you can, donate what you can! Good pantries these days take all kinds of items, frozen food, feminine hygiene products, paper towels and toilet paper, pet food, condoms, toothbrushes, shampoo, soap, whatever! Call and ask what they need the most. Most of this kind of stuff doesn't expire but is in very high demand for those who can't afford them. If nothing else donate money to the pantry so they can make the call on what to get.

[natkat-140]

World Mental Health Day

Today, October 10th, is World Mental Health Day. I thought it might be appropriate to share some things.

*This isn’t me trying to bitch about being sad. I’ve got a rad therapist for that :) I believe that transparency is important in destigmatization of mental health (and other) issues. Visibility and social acceptance will help to decrease the shame that people might feel, preventing them from reaching out for help.

**I’m also not trying to claim that this is “how depression and anxiety” are or how to treat either one. I’m simply sharing my own personal experiences and what has and has not worked for me.

I’ve been struggling with anxiety and depression for several years now, but I always managed to brush it aside as a mood or a phase or a funk - anything other than depression - that was transient and dismissable. I felt I didn’t have a good enough reason to be depressed - I have a good job, great friends, a loving family; I’m able-bodied, I’m of sound mind, I haven’t had any recent traumas or abuse or huge losses. I felt like my life was not bad enough to be depressed. I often feel like I am not enough. (I felt like I wasn’t enough for depression. Talk about inadequacy issues, hah!)

Fake-it-till-you-make-it behavior can be shitty or constructive depending on how it’s done. I found myself exhibiting a lot of shitty fake-it-till-you-make-it behavior before I was able to confront my mental health and admit that I was depressed. I only listened to fun pop music and I made sure my room had lots of bright colors and I only watched comedy TV and I carried glowsticks everywhere and I went out partying 3x per week and I did my very best to make people laugh and I made sure everyone knew that I was having fun and that I was happy because then maybe I could convince myself that I was having fun and that I was happy. I was pretending to be the person I wanted to be. Fake it till you make it. It was only a temporary fix, a band-aid, because of the fact that I hadn’t confronted the reason(s) why I wasn’t the person I wanted to be. I could fake it till the cows came home, but I wouldn’t make it unless I accepted that I needed to do more than just faking it alone.

More like “FAKE-IT-TILL-YOU-are-able-to-identify-the-mental-illness-that-is-holding-you-hostage-and-then-take-steps-to-address-the-probably-deeply-rooted-issues-that-may-or-may-not-have-contributed-to-its-manifestation-and-work-on-managing-it-consistently-for-a-long-time-and-make-it-part-of-your-daily-life-to-take-better-care-of-yourself-and-don’t-beat-yourself-up-when-you’re-not-able-to-manage-it-that-well-but-always-try-to-get-back-on-that-goddamned-horse-so-that-you-can-fucking-MAKE-IT!”

You feel me?

This year, I got to a point where I couldn’t fake it to myself anymore. Even if I had fooled other people, I knew that I was kidding myself and that I couldn’t keep avoiding an obvious issue. I worked with my primary care physician (who, by the way, noticed early on in our patient-physician relationship that I was showing signs of depression and suggested I go to therapy like 3 years ago) and we decided that therapy had indeed become a very necessary treatment. I happened to have enough motivation that day to look up psychologists within my insurance network and research them individually to see if we’d be a good fit and I made a bunch of phone calls and left a bunch of messages and only ONE person called me back (BTW, WTF?) and he’s my therapist now and he’s amazing and I love going to therapy! And, good grief, did I NEED THERAPY.

So I magically got better after my first therapy session! Just kidding. I still felt like shit. I was still embarrassed and ashamed for feeling depressed when I had “no reason” to. I told my therapist about how I had been faking it, and that I knew I should stop doing that and that it was unhealthy. I was surprised when he suggested that I keep faking it. He said something like (paraphrasing) “For most people, motivation precedes action. When you’re depressed, sometimes you need to force the action to spark the motivation. You’ve acknowledged that your depression exists and you’re actively taking steps to manage it, you’re not being delusional, you’re not doing it to avoid a problem anymore. There is a healthy way to fake it.” 

So I did. I often forced myself to go out when all I wanted to do was stay in my bed under the covers, safe from the judgement and criticism that I was sure I would receive from the world. I took photos of myself being goofy and smiling so that I could look at them and … visualize myself being goofy and smiling, hah. I made myself go anywhere but home so that I wouldn’t get sucked into the island of isolation that is my bed. It helped, a lot. A few times, the actions still weren’t quite enough and the motivation never came out but the monsters did and they weren’t the kind of monsters I could run from so they nested in my head and they feasted on my confidence and my self-worth and my rationality and shit out self-doubt and self-loathing and fear and hopelessness.

So I would be forced to house the monsters, temporarily. Eventually they’d die. Since April, I’ve had probably five or six mini-episodes of highly depressive states.

The monsters re-spawn, apparently.

This happened as recently as this past weekend. I stayed in bed for three days straight, leaving it only for the restroom or to receive my Doordash delivery. I went four days without showering or changing my clothes or having significant human contact. I would go through cycles of being harshly critical of myself, over-analyzing how others thought of me, feeling insignificant and worthless, deciding to give up on being happy, and drowning in tears of self-pity until I fell asleep. Think, cry, repeat.

I was forced out of bed on Monday for an appointment with my physician (and I showered!). Thank fucking goodness. That same day I saw my therapist. Thank fucking goodness.

I had nothing to do yesterday so I slept until like 2:30pm and since I had no reason to do anything, I did nothing. At least, until I had to get dressed for a birthday party, so I got dressed. I had lots of reasons to NOT go to the party, and I wrote out multiple cancellation texts and I thought about how the monsters knew exactly where the party was and they had been there before and what if they came out again tonight and I kept looking at my fucking bed and wanting to climb into it and feel the comfort of my comforter and the pretend comfort of my body pillow but then I remembered that I could feel very real comfort from laughter and hugs and songs so I deleted the texts and I went. I cried first and I had to redo my fucking makeup but I did that and then I went.

I went to my favorite bar with some of my favorite people and did some of my favorite things, and I was elated. I laughed and I sang and I danced and I hugged and I laughed more, and I wasn’t faking it this time. I made it! I MADE IT!

 But guess the fuck what? I’m probably going to feel overwhelmingly anxious and depressed again real soon. I don’t want to, but realistically, yeah, it’s gonna happen. And guess the fuck also what? I’m gonna keep seeing my therapist and doing my gratitude exercises and catching my unhelpful thinking patterns and working through my negative automatic thoughts and breathing with my diaphragm in counts of four and two and six and

FAKING-IT-TILL-I-work-on-managing-my-depression-and-anxiety-consistently-for-a-long-time-and-make-it-part-of-my-daily-life-to-take-better-care-of-myself-and-I-won’t-beat-myself-up-when-I’m-not-able-to-manage-it-that-well-but-I-will-always-try-to-get-back-on-that-goddamned-horse-so-that-I-can-fucking-MAKE-IT!

...again.

[useyourrwords]

Down the TBR Hole // To Read Soon – Part 1/4

Two more shelves and then I am finally done!

Now for those of you who don’t know, I’ve been doing the Down the TBR Hole posts as a way to organise my Goodreads shelves because oh boy, do they need it!

This has been a long road, much longer than I anticipated!

I wish that this being the second to last shelf means that I’m very close to being done but alas, no, it is not.

These two shelves are my biggest yet and come in at a total of 339 books! So in order to ensure that these posts aren’t incredibly long, I’ll be breaking them up a bit.

For my first To Read Soon Shelf post, I’ll be going through all the books I added from October 2015 to October 2016, which will make it 40 books total.

For my second post, I’ll be going through November 2016 to April 2017, totalling 51 books for that post.

For my third post, I’ll be going through May 2017 to October 2017, totalling 50 books.

For my final To Read Soon Shelf post, I’ll be going through November 2017 onward. totalling 55 books!

That brings this shelf’s total to 197 books!

When I set up these shelves it was my way of trying to prioritize my TBR but I don’t think it’s really worked at all. So while I’m going through these last shelves I’ll be moving the books I choose to keep to the normal Want to Read Shelf.

Before I had kept all my owned books on this shelf but I’ve moved them to a new TBR-Owned shelf.

I hope this new system is going to help me a lot more!

Now, this time around I’m going to try and be my most ruthless in purging these books because 339 books is ridiculous and I know I’m never gonna get around to all of them!

     Added October 2015

1.│Winter Girls│Laurie Halse Anderson│

│ I added this because…I was interested in reading a book about anorexia at the time. Stay or Go? Go! As much there’s still a part of me that wants to read this, I know I shouldn’t for my own mental health as someone who has dealt with disordered eating in the past. That is a slippery slope I should try and avoid.

Added January 2016

2.│Firsts│Laurie Elizabeth Flynn│ I added this because…This book seems like it asks a lot of questions that may or may not be possible to answer. At least not easily. It’s a book that seems to live in the grey and guys…That’s my shit! Also, this sounds like the book version of Easy A and I loved that movie! Stay or Go? Stay!

3.│The Memory of Light│Added Jan 2016│

│ I added this because…“Somewhere in me I probably had the strength to not kill myself. But I was tired of looking for strength. Tired of being strong. That’s what I did to make it through… each day, go through the motions of being strong. I put on strong every morning. I’m sick of faking strong.” Stay or Go? Stay! Believe it or not, as someone who’s battled depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts, unlike disordered eating, I’m not really triggered by it. Or maybe that’s the wrong wording? Reading about suicide hasn’t ever been something that has made me more susceptible to being suicidal. Only feeling so utterly hopeless because of what is going on in my life does that. Does that make sense? Ooh Boy, we’re getting DEEP to begin with!

4.│The Way I Used to Be│Amber Smith│

│ I added this because…I chose to read books about rape because they’re important when done correctly, and help destigmatize survivors. Stay or Go? Go! I’ve heard that it might sway into torture porn area and I’m not sure I want to read that.

5.│Heartless│Marissa Meyer│ I added this because…The hype, man. Stay or Go? Stay! I am intrigued enough to stay on the hype train…Even if I’m I might be the very last one aboard!

6.│Violent Ends│Shaun David Hutchinson│ I added this because…With America’s track record I feel like this is an important book to read and I am still yet to read a book about a school shooting??? I mean how is that possible? Stay or Go? Stay!

Past Down The TBR Hole

 Down the TBR Hole 1.12 // Unreleased – Part 3/4 2019 Month Release Unknown

 Down the TBR Hole 1.11 // Unreleased – Part 2/4 2019 Month Release Known

Added August 2016

7.│Talking As Fast As I Can│Lauren Graham│ I added this because…Gilmore Girls was my favourite TV show for years and I need the inside goss. Also, I am currently the closest I have ever been to living the Gilmore Girls life with just me and my mum living together! I’d watch it with my mum but she can’t fucking stand Emily. Stay or Go? Moved to my new Memoir Shelf.

8.│The Help│Kathryn Stockett│

│ I added this because…I watched the film and was interested in what the book was like. Stay or Go? Go! Plays a bit into the white saviour trope.

9.│The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas│John Boyne│

│ I added this because…I remember watching the film for this in school…Anyway, I was interested in reading the book. Stay or Go? Go! I think I’m good with having just watched the film. Don’t come after me with pitchforks thanks.

10.│Code Name Verity│Code Name Verity #1│ I added this because…Is it spies?? Is it spies?? I’m going with spies. Is it spies?? Imagine if it’s spies! (If you’re wondering what the hell I am badly referencing its this video) Stay or Go? Stay!

11.│Chains│Seeds of America #1│

│ I added this because…I am interested in reading a book about slavery. Stay or Go? Go! I feel like starting with one written by a white woman probably isn’t the wisest choice I could make.

12.│The Butterfly Garden│The Collector #1│

│ I added this because…“I was good at escaping people, not manipulating them.”  Stay or Go? Stay!

13.│Smoke Gets in Your Eyes│Caitlin Doughty│ I added this because…I added this while I was reading a lot of memoirs and this looked really interesting. I love a dark sense of humour. Stay or Go? Moved to my new Memoir Shelf.

14.│Stalking Jack the Ripper│Kerri Maniscalo│ I added this because…Murder. History. Dead bodies. Forensic Medicine. This is everything 14-year-old Grey would have loved and 25-year-old Grey still loves.  Stay or Go? Stay!

15.│It Ends with Us│Colleen Hoover│

│ I added this because…I am yet to read a Colleen Hoover book and this seemed like a good a start as any? Stay or Go? Stay! This still seems like the best place to start.

16.│Girl in Pieces│Kathleen Glasgow│

│ I added this because…I saw that is was for fans of Girl, Interrupted and I loved that movie (No, I haven’t read the book leave me alone). Stay or Go? Go! I don’t think I’ll like the writing style.

17.│Forbidden│Tabitha Suzuma│

│ I added this because…Here’s the thing: I don’t like incest narratives. They make me feel sick. The only reason I got through TMI was that I already knew

spoiler.

they weren’t brother and sister.

(Don’t fight me. I marked the spoiler, and if you didn’t already know there was an incest narrative in that series then how?????) But so many people have given this 4-5 stars on Goodreads so I thought maybe I should give it a go. Stay or Go? Go! Yeah, the incest thing is just never gonna be something I wanna read.

Added September 2016

18.│The Queen of Blood│The Queens of Renthia #1│Sarah Beth Durst│ I added this because…This sounds like a better version of Red Queen that also has strong female friendships. Stay or Go? Stay!

19.│This is Not a Test│This is Not a Test #1│Courtney Summers│

│ I added this because…This sounds creepy and interesting and I’ve liked Summers’ work so far. Stay or Go? Stay!

20.│The Casquette Girls│The Casquette Girls #1│Alys Arden│ I added this because…I’m always drawn to stories set in New Orleans for some reason. Stay or Go? Go! The setting is not enough to keep me interested.

21.│Wrecked│Maria Padian│

│ I added this because…As you’ve probably noticed, I’m drawn to books about rape and sexual assault for many reasons, mostly so that I can understand what it’s like to go through something so traumatic, as best as possible, without going through it myself. Which is usually the case for most books representing experiences I’ve never had. With rape and sexual assault books, it’s different though, because as a woman in today’s society I always live with the threat that one day it could be me. Stay or Go? Stay! I’m yet to read one set on a college campus.

22.│Want│Want #1│Cindy Pon│

│ I added this because…Most people seem to really enjoy it! Stay or Go? Go! I need to learn to accept that sci-fi isn’t really for me and your stereotypical dystopian is probably not really something I’m going to enjoy.

23.│Saint Death│Marcus Sedgwick│

│ I added this because…It’s a book about immigration rights. Stay or Go? Stay! Hello? Can you say fucking RELEVANT?

Past Grey Reads

 Book Review // Girl Made of Stars – I Am Broken

 Book Review // Everything Leads To You – A Quite Love Story

Added October 2016

24.│A Mortal Song│Megan Crewe│

│ I added this because…This sounded interesting enough. Stay or Go? Go! This one hasn’t held my interest and is hard for me to get a hold of.

25.│The Nightingale│Kristin Hannah│ I added this because…People seem to really love this one and also: “If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.” Stay or Go? Stay!

26.│The Blade Itself│The First Law #1│Joe Abercrombie│ I added this because…Listen, sometimes I add things because I see one good review and all of a sudden I’m interested in a book I’d never actually pick up. It’s a problem I’m trying to get under control for my own sake. Stay or Go? Go! Though I am almost tempted to keep because one reviewer likens a character to Deadpool…

27.│Highly Illogical Behavior│John Corey Whaley│

│ I added this because…This sounds so bloody interesting! I don’t think I’ve read about a character with agoraphobia, and what I’ve seen of them in film, tend to be made fun of. Stay or Go? Stay!

28.│Wolf by Wolf│Wolf by Wolf #1│Ryan Graudin│ I added this because…This sounds so weird and so good! Stay or Go? Go! And, I don’t feel any drive to pick this one up.

29.│In the Woods│Dublin Murder Squad #1│ I added this because...Every now and then I’ll add a mystery thriller that I never seem to pick up because I’m always worried they’re gonna be stereotypical trash filled with old and played cliches and offensive tropes.  Stay or Go? Stay! Right now I am all about the mystery thrillers and I seem to be getting better at finding the good shit. 

30.│The V Girl│Mya Robarts│

│ I added this because…Everyone I’ve seen read it has loved it and I’ve been recommended it more than once.  Stay or Go? Go! Me and sex slavery don’t really get along. I guess it affects me more than contemporary rape narratives. 

31.│Daughter of Smoke & Bone│Daughter of Smoke & Bone #1│Laini Taylor│ I added this because…Two words: Demon’s assistant. Stay or Go? Stay!

32.│The Nix│Nathan Hill│ I added this because…I. Don’t. Know???? Like honestly have no idea?? None of this screams a Greyson read??? Stay or Go? Go!

33.│My Favourite Manson Girl│Alison Umminger│ I added this because…Umm??? Hello??? It’s about the Manson girls! Stay or Go? Stay!

34.│The Truth Commission│Susan Juby│ I added this because…I read Emily May’s review and she seemed to really enjoy it. Stay or Go? Go! I gotta start getting tougher with this purge!

35.│Railhead│Philip Reeve│ I added this because…This sounded interesting enough and Emily May’s review called it a book for the curious and I am definitely that. Stay or Go? Go! Curiosity isn’t enough to get me to pick this one up.

36.│Homegoing│Yaa Gyasi│

│ I added this because…“What I know now, my son: Evil begets evil. It grows. It transmutes, so that sometimes you cannot see that the evil in the world began as the evil in your own home.” This is a family saga and after the mess my family has been for at least the last year, I feel like this could be very cathartic for me. Stay or Go? Stay!

37.│Behold the Dreamers│Imbolo Mbue│

│ I added this because…This sounded interesting enough, covering many topics that are quite relevant at the moment. Stay or Go? Go! It’s not holding my attention.

38.│The Fifth Season│The Broken Earth #1│N.K. Jemisin│

│ I added this because…“—for all those who have to fight for the respect others are given without question.” When a book starts with that kind of dedication then I know it’s a book for me. Stay or Go? Stay!

39.│The Bird and the Sword│The Bird and the Sword Chronicles #1│Amy Harmon│ I added this because…Basically, everyone that reads this falls a bit in love with it. Stay or Go? Stay!

40.│Bad Romance│Heather Demetrios│

│★★★★★│ I have read this book since writing this post and it was so good, I totally made the right call. I added this because…“Something in me is dimming, something that I already know I can’t get back. But you’re worth it. You are. I will tell myself this for several more months. And when I realize you aren’t worth it, it’ll be too late.” I am always looking for good representations of abusive relationships of all kinds and this seems to be one of them. Stay or Go? Stay! In fact, I just requested it at my library.

October 2016 was a crazy busy adding month!

So how did I do?

Well, I got rid of a whopping 17 books! Kept 21 and moved 2! If I can keep this up then I might be able to cut my TBR by half!

What books are you reading right now? Have you got any books on your TBR that match mine? Are there any books you’ve read that I’m keeping or getting rid of? What did you think of them?

│Blog│Goodreads│Instagram│Twitter│Tumblr│

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[granvarones]

Louie: So where did you grow up?

Freddy: I was born in West Covina, California and was raised by both my parents in La Puente, California but when my parents divorced my mom moved to Phoenix, Arizona, which is where I spend most of my time now. We moved to a somewhat rural town that has primarily Black and Latinx populations where the white people live in the nice neighborhoods and the people of color lived in the "other neighborhoods." I almost never interacted with white people. My classmates were always people of color with a sprinkle of white people every now and then. However, growing up here was a living hell.

Louie: How so?

Freddy: The first time I was ever bullied was in 5th grade when someone wrote "FAG" in one of my notebooks and it just got worse from there. At that point in my life I knew I was gay but just tried not to think about it and I was also pretty religious so I tried to "pray the gay away.” It didn’t work (lol). 7th grade was the worst year of my life because I was physically, emotionally, and psychologically bullied every single day that resulted in me switching schools. There was not one day where someone wouldn't call me a “fag” or try to fight me because I was "looking at their dick". They would also call me a cocksucker which I never really understood why they called me that because they were just stating a fact. My mom got worried when I came home crying one day from basically being assaulted and we went to the principal and he did absolutely nothing. It was a really dark time for me because even my friends at the time would tell me, "Just come out already" and at that point I just was not ready.

Louie: How did you sustain yourself during that time?

Freddy: I've always used humor to deflect my feelings and emotions so I would just laugh because it was all I could do. In high school it got better but people still would call me a fag and other annoying ass terms. I also dated girls, which blows my mind now but it was the easiest way to deflect rumors. I came out to my friends as bisexual my junior year and my senior year of high school but when I got my first boyfriend and I came out as gay. My friends weren’t surprised but were happy I was living my truth. I came out to my mom October of 2015, which is pretty recent, and while it didn't damage our relationship she doesn’t acknowledge my queerness but it'll take time and I know she'll get there.

Louie: Who was the first person you told actually told?

Freddy: My senior year of high school when I had my first boyfriend. I was so in love with him and because of him I realized that I was gay. I had dated girls before but being with a boy was just so different. I loved this boy, truly, and because of that I wanted to come out and tell everyone I was with him because for once in my life I was happy. One of the most important people in my life is my Grandma on my dad’s side and I decided to tell her first. She did not react the way I expected her to. She told me I was a disappointment to the family and that my family had high hopes for me and now they were gone. She also told me to keep it a secret forever and to never ever tell anyone else. It hurt. It hurt a lot. I cried for a while and told myself I was not going to tell anyone else until I graduated college and had a career. I didn’t talk to my grandma for a while and talked to her for the first time a couple months ago. I do want to have a relationship with her again but every time I see her, her words echo in the back of my head, so it’s a work in progress.

A couple months later I came out to my little brother because one: He is one of the most important people in my life and two: I wanted him to know so I could hookup with guys easier in my room. I told him in the car when I picked him up from school and I remember being so nervous and feeling my heart beat so fast. So I tell him “I’m gay" and he just looked at me and said "Yeah, that’s cool, can we go eat?" I was in shock because it was big secret and he just like curved it completely. Later on he told me he loved me and I lowkey cried because it was the first time a family member had said that. I always look back at that moment because I feel like that’s what coming out should be, not a big deal because I would've reacted the same way if my brother came out to me as straight.

Louie: Did you have any Latino gay men to look up to when you were growing up?

Freddy: I had absolutely zero gay Latino men to look up to. No one is gay in my family except for yours truly. It wasn't until a couple years ago that I found out that I did have a gay cousin but he was kicked out of the family for being gay so he moved to Spain. He reached out to me in 2013 and we talked for a bit but at that time I didn't know he was gay. Unfortunately, he died of AIDS complications a couple months after. I still wish I could have gotten to know him better.

Oddly enough even though my mom is a cis-heterosexual woman, she took a part in developing my queer identity because I felt like she always knew and lowkey supported it. My mom is a very religious woman from El Salvador who fled her home country because it was going through a violent civil war. She came to the States and married my dad but they divorced after 7 years and she raised me as a single mother. Growing up, she always took me shopping and I always helped her pick her outfits and she would always ask me for my opinion. She would always sit me down after her long work shifts and gossiped about her coworkers which I lived for because Latinx chisme is the absolute best. I also remember she would always tell me "Los hombres no sirven para nada" which basically is "men ain’t shit" and would warn me to be watchful of men. Which is why I now have IMPECCABLE fashion (not really), a big ol chismoso, and have always been watchful of the men that try to enter my life.

Louie: What did you think we as a community need to do to survive the next four years?

Freddy: There is so much we need to do as a community to survive the next four years. First we need to talk about anti-blackness in the Latinx community and start by talking to our racist ass family members who are contributing to the problem. The fact that we stay silent when our Tia'sbe saying racist shit is a problem. Also acknowledging our privilege for those of us who are citizens of the United States and stand up for the rights of undocumented immigrants. The easiest thing to do is to stop referring to immigrants as illegal because it paints them as criminals which contributes to this rhetoric that immigrants are dangerous when they're just trying to escape from their home countries that in most cases the US has fucked up. I'm also going to need gay men to stop with this obsession with performing masculinity and femme shaming because its toxic as fuck. I fucking hate it when guys ask me if I'm masc or femme and I’m just like “the fuck???” What does that even mean? Also destigmatize HIV and stop othering those who are HIV+ because it’s dehumanizing as fuck. I’ve heard some pretty ignorant shit about HIV and it’s something that we need to work on. We need to stand up for Trans women of color because the LGB+ community be forgetting that T especially when they are out here dying with a presidential administration who doesn't give a fuck about people of color and even less about the LGBT+ community and even less about our trans siblings. I mention all these problems in our community because in order to survive an oppressive, fascist, racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic government, we have to be able to dismantle these in our own communities so we can come together to resist combat and survive the Trump Administration. We literally cannot afford to be silent any longer. This country hates my existence but my existence is also resisting and I am absolutely proud of being a Queer Ecuadorian/Salvadoran man living in a country that despises me. To survive these next four years, we just need to keep living, keep resisting, keep protesting, keep dismantling systems of oppression, keep holding our government accountable, keep being unapologetically Latinx and of course keep being unapologetically queer as fuck.

Freddy Christian Bernardino, Phoenix, AZ

Interviewed and photographed by: Louie A. Ortiz-Fonseca

[sarcasticsober-blog]

This is not a Self-Help Blog

This is not a self-help blog. I am not here to convince you of the “sober” life especially since I can’t even convince myself of that, or help you find your god because that’s a personal problem and I am especially not here to garner your pitty. Perhaps a few laughs and at most a distraction from something shitty happening at the moment in your life [but please deal with that soon because I know firsthand that suppressing it can make for a real pain in the ass later]. Quite simply I am here out of pure self-involvement as this blog is a form of rehab. In a desperate attempt to quit drinking cold turkey as someone who has remained in a toxic relationship with alcohol for three years, I am attempting to fill my drunken void with writing. However as a highly anxious, over-achieving, did book reports over summer break in middle school person I can’t just simply write in a private diary. No, instead I enjoy sharing my embarrassments and failures with as many people that are willing to watch. But really, drinking is a serious matter and sharing stories represents the first steps in destigmatizing issues society sweeps under the rug or romanticizes.

Firstly, drinking is not fucking romantic. The way I talk about alcohol may be risque and arousing but maintaining a dependency on booze is not romantic. Vomiting all over a gas station parking lot, dry-heaving all day over a stranger’s toilet and  getting into screaming matches with your elderly grandmother is definitely not romantic. Albeit great stories that I will most certainly share in following posts, that shit is not cute. For those reasons and so many more I decided that my intimate, long-lasting love affair with alcohol must come to an end. At the moment I certainly do not expect this break-up to last forever, or even very long as I am daydreaming about an extra dirty martini with a blue cheese stuffed olive as I type this. But I do hope that it will last long enough that I can gain some independence from this vile, sweet, desirable juice and maybe get a column in the New York Times. Really though my goal is to take this journey one step at a time [why does rehabilitation always talk about fucking steps?] and the first step is distraction. So far I have been writing this blog, drinking infused waters that are truly overrated and drowning myself in work. That last part however was not by choice and unfortunately also happens to be a major trigger for drinking. However I have been counteracting work-stress with watching Thrillers on Netflix before bed. The suspense that causes my heart to race almost fools me into thinking I’m a little buzzed.

Despite these little hobbies though, I would be lying if I said it wasn’t hard already only 4 days in. And I do need to point out that I have omitted the term alcoholic as alcoholism is a disease that I’ve personally witnessed folks struggle with. Although I very well may have had early symptoms and been on the track to developing it, my struggle is not of alcoholism and I refuse to co-opt that language. Yet, I do have a drinking problem and though I have used not being an alcoholic as an excuse to continue binge drinking, that will no longer be the case. Self-destructive is self-destructive and I am ready to call myself out on it. So if you would like to join me in this little voyage of sobriety and witness how I avoid death by boredom keep checking out these posts. If not, you totally just wasted your time and might as well stick with it.

Thanks for tuning in!

[jessicakehoe]

These Celebs Are Destigmatizing Mental Illness

Many campaigns have worked to normalize the discussion around mental health (Bell Let’s Talk and CAMH’s One Brave Night among them). But one thing that really reaches the masses is when a celebrity speaks out about his or her struggle to spread the message that it’s okay to have a mental illness; it doesn’t make you weak.

Anyone who has ever suffered from depression or anxiety—whether temporary or chronic—knows the feeling of wanting to crawl into bed and stay there until things seem okay again. And somehow when these celebrities who seem to have it all come out and say that they actually don’t have their shit together, it is encouraging to us. By focusing on their health, it normalizes the conversation and gives us the courage to take care of ourselves (and be vocal about it).

Below, see the celebrities who are helping to fight the stigma against mental health by being open about their own struggles. Want to learn more about mental illness? Here are 5 myths about anxiety and depression, and information about different types of treatment.

Post Malone

In an interview with GQ Style, the Grammy nominee opened up about dealing with an unshakeable sadness from a very young age. “Middle school, I would cry myself to sleep every f**kin’ day,” he reveals. “High school, the same thing. I tried to drink some beers to get rid of that shit but it just never goes away. And I don’t think that’s anybody’s fault; it has to do with something predisposed in you.” Music has become his way of coping with these struggles, and of processing what he’s going through. “I’m trying,” he says. “It’s difficult. Through my songs, I can talk about whatever I want. But sitting here, face to face, it’s difficult.”

View this post on Instagram

"Through my songs, I can talk about whatever I want. But sitting here, face-to-face, it's difficult.”–@PostMalone Photographs by @jason_nocito_studio. Styled by @mobolajidawodu. #gqstyle #postmalone

A post shared by GQ Style (@gqstyle) on Mar 2, 2020 at 8:16am PST

Prince Harry

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Day two of #SussexRoyalTour is underway, and The Duke and Duchess have joined young South Africans and @WavesForChange to focus on mental health and take part in ‘surf therapy’. • Hundreds of young people from Cape Town’s townships meet every week at Monwabisi beach to surf, but also share stories with mentors and talk through the daily challenges they face. Their Royal Highnesses were able to hear how the sessions are building trust, confidence, and belonging, and they also got to join in as children took part in ‘power hand’, which teaches them how to keep calm down reflect on strengths. While on the beach The Duke and Duchess met @TheLunchBoxFund – which was one of the charities they nominated to benefit from donations following the birth of their son, Archie. Almost 30,000 meals are provided by the charity every day across South Africa, including for three @WavesForChange projects. And before they left The Duke and Duchess joined the Commonwealth Litter Programme (CLiP) – which was teaching the surfers about the impact of plastic waste on the ocean. #RoyalVisitSouthAfrica • Photo ©️ photos EMPICS / PA images / SussexRoyal

A post shared by The Duke and Duchess of Sussex (@sussexroyal) on Sep 24, 2019 at 5:00am PDT

The Duke of Sussex has spoken out extensively about his own mental health journey, and the trauma he suffered as a result of losing his mother, Princess Diana, at a young age. In an interview with Bryony Gordon for her podcast about mental health, Mad World, the royal said, “I can safely say that losing my mum at the age of 12, and therefore shutting down all of my emotions for the last 20 years, has had a quite serious effect on not only my personal life but my work as well.”

“I have probably been very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions when all sorts of grief and sort of lies and misconceptions and everything are coming to you from every angle,” he added.

After seeking out counselling and learning to open up about his struggles with friends and family, the royal co-founded Heads Together, a mental health awareness campaign, with Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2016. While on a recent trip to South Africa with Meghan Markle, the royal couple met with Waves For Change, an organization promoting mental wellbeing through surf therapy, and spoke out about the need to counter the stigma against mental illness in our society.

“I think most of the stigma is around mental illness [and] we need to separate the two… mental health, which is every single one of us, and mental illness, which could be every single one of us,” he said. “I think they need to be separated; the mental health element touches on so much of what we’re exposed to, these experiences that these kids and every single one of us have been through. Everyone has experienced trauma or likely to experience trauma at some point during their lives. We need to try, not [to] eradicate it, but to learn from previous generations so there’s not a perpetual cycle.”

Ariana Grande

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A post shared by Ariana Grande (@arianagrande) on Mar 30, 2019 at 9:57am PDT

In British Vogue’s July 2018 issue, Ariana Grande opened up on her experience with PTSD after the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing. “It’s hard to talk about because so many people have suffered such severe tremendous loss. But, yeah, it’s a real thing,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll ever know how to talk about it and not cry.”

In November 2018, the singer/songwriter dropped a single titled “thank u, next,” dedicated to all of her exes, including the late-Mac Miller (who died this past September of a drug overdose) and ex-fiancé Pete Davidson, which resulted in fans wondering who her therapist is. “Therapy has saved my life so many times,” Grande tweeted in response. “If you’re afraid to ask for help, don’t be.”

photography via instagram/@arianagrande

In an Instagram story posted on April 11, Grande shared a side-by-side image of a healthy brain and a brain affected by PTSD. She also included an image of what is allegedly her brain, which appears to show incredibly high levels of PTSD. “Not a joke,” she captioned the story. In a follow-up story, Grande posted a selfie containing the captions “life is wild,” “she’s trying her muthafukin best,” and “my brain is tired.”

Selena Gomez

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I have a lot to be thankful for this year.. My year has been the hardest yet most rewarding one yet. I've finally fought the fight of not 'being enough'. I have only wanted to reflect the love you guys have given me for years and show how important it is to take care of YOU. By grace through faith. Kindness always wins. I love you guys. God bless

A post shared by Selena Gomez (@selenagomez) on Nov 24, 2016 at 6:21pm PST

In August 2016, Selena Gomez announced that she would be taking a break from her career to deal with anxiety, depression and panic attacks associated with lupus (an autoimmune condition from which she suffers). She made a return to the spotlight in November that year at the American Music Awards, where she delivered an emotional, heartfelt speech, briefly touching on her battle with mental health issues.

“I had to stop because I had everything and I was absolutely broken inside. I kept it all together enough to where I would never let you down but I kept it too much together to where I let myself down,” she said. “If you are broken, you do not have to stay broken.”

The songstress also opened up about her issues with mental health in the April 2017 issue of Vogue (which she covered). “Tours are a really lonely place for me,” she told the magazine. “My self-esteem was shot. I was depressed, anxious. I started to have panic attacks right before getting onstage, or right after leaving the stage. Basically I felt I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t capable. I felt I wasn’t giving my fans anything, and they could see it—which, I think, was a complete distortion.”

She revealed she spent 90 days in a mental health facility in Tennessee, surrendering her cell phone and taking part in various forms of therapy. And while Gomez is the second most-followed person on Instagram, she told Vogue she no longer had it on her phone, and an assistant had her password.

“It felt like I was seeing things I didn’t want to see, like it was putting things in my head that I didn’t want to care about,” she said. “I always end up feeling like shit when I look at Instagram. Which is why I’m kind of under the radar, ghosting it a bit.”

Camila Cabello

Former Fifth Harmony member Camila Cabello made headlines in September 2016 after she left the stage early during a performance under the guise of a wardrobe malfunction. She later revealed, on Snapchat, that the cause was excessive anxiety, even tweeting, “just wanna sleep for 3 days.”

Cabello had already been open about her struggles with anxiety prior to the incident, however, telling Billboard that 2015 was a “low” for her, personally.

“I was having terrible anxiety, nonstop. My heart would beat really fast the whole day. Two hours after I woke up, I’d need a nap because my body was so hyperactive,” she recalled. “I was scared of what would happen to me, of the things my brain might tell me. I realized the stuff I thought was important isn’t worth my health. Now I write in a diary every day, work out and meditate.”

In March 2017, the Cuban-born star revealed to Latina magazine that she also deals with obsessive compulsive disorder. “It was just totally out of control,” Cabello told the magazine of her OCD. “I would wake up with a super-accelerated heartbeat and really negative, intrusive, compulsive thoughts. I was so inside my head, and I didn’t know what was happening.”

She continued, “I totally understand now, being in it, why there shouldn’t be such a stigma on mental illness, because it’s a pretty common thing for people. But you can get help. If you’re dedicated to making it better, you can—because I’m in a much better place now. I started reading books about it and it really helped a lot when I understood [the illness], and that [the thoughts I was having] weren’t real. Sometimes you have to remind yourself to slow down and take care of yourself.”

Zayn Malik

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A post shared by Zayn Malik (@zayn) on Aug 14, 2018 at 10:01pm PDT

In June 2016, former One Direction member Zayn Malik cancelled a U.K. concert due to anxiety. He made the announcement on Instagram, writing, “Unfortunately, my anxiety that has haunted me throughout the last few months has gotten the better of me. With the magnitude of the live event, I have suffered the worst anxiety of my career.”

Later that year, Malik revealed in his memoir, Pillow Talk, that panic attacks have stopped him from performing on more than one occasion. “I just couldn’t go through with it,” he wrote. “Mentally, the anxiety had won. Physically, I knew I couldn’t function. I would have to pull out.”

And while a member of his team offered to say he was sick, Malik insisted on being open about his struggle. “I was done with putting out statements that masked what was really going on. I wanted to tell the truth. Anxiety is nothing to be ashamed of; it affects millions of people every day,” he explained. “I don’t want to say I’m sick. I want to tell people what’s going on, and I’m not gonna be ashamed of what’s happening.”

Cara Delevingne

In 2016, Cara Delevingne took to Twitter to reveal she took a break from modelling due to depression. “I suffer from depression and was a model during a particularly rough patch of self hatred,” she explained. Later that year, she told Esquire she had been struggling with mental illness since she was a teen, more specifically, after she discovered her mother’s drug addiction.

“I was suicidal. I couldn’t deal with it anymore. I realized how lucky and privileged I was, but all I wanted to do was die,” she told the magazine, adding a six-month break from school and medication might have helped save her life at 16.

However, Cara stopped the meds at age 18, saying “I get depressed still but I would rather learn to figure it out myself rather then be dependant on meds, ever.”

Adele

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Auckland / Mt Smart Stadium / Mar 25

A post shared by Adele (@adele) on Mar 25, 2017 at 9:41pm PDT

Despite being a 15-time Grammy winner, Adele still experiences stage fright. In March 2017, she admitted to her New Zealand concertgoers that she may never tour again, due to the ongoing issue. “Touring isn’t something I’m good at–applause makes me feel a bit vulnerable. I don’t know if I will ever tour again,” she told the audience. “I get so nervous with live performances that I’m too frightened to try anything new. It’s actually getting worse. Or it’s just not getting better, so I feel like it’s getting worse, because it should’ve gotten better by now.”

Lady Gaga

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I felt like a princess in custom @tiffanyandco made just for me for the #GoldenGlobes 🤗 The Aurora necklace was named after the Aurora Borealis as an homage to #AStarIsBorn 🌟 #TiffanyAndCo

A post shared by Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) on Jan 8, 2019 at 10:29am PST

In 2016, Lady Gaga revealed she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after she was raped at age 19. “I suffer from PTSD, I’ve never told anyone that before,” she said on the Today show in December 2016. “But the kindness that’s been shown to me, by doctors as well as family and friends, has really saved my life.”

More recently, Gaga opened up about her mental health struggles in a conversation with Prince William, as part of the royal’s Heads Together #oktosay series, which aims to end the stigma with the help of celebrities.

“For me, waking up every day and feeling sad and going on stage is something that is very hard to describe. There’s a lot of shame attached to mental illness. You feel like something’s wrong with you,” she told the Duke of Cambridge via FaceTime. “In my life, I go, ‘Oh my goodness, look at all these beautiful, wonderful things that I have. I should be so happy,’ but you can’t help it if, in the morning when you wake up, you are so tired, you are so sad, you are so full of anxiety and the shakes that you can barely think.”

But despite her hardships, the A Star is Born actress told William “the best thing that could come out of my mental illness was to share it with other people.”

“I feel like we are not hiding anymore, we’re starting to talk, and that’s what we need to do really,” she said.

Demi Lovato

Demi Lovato is one of the most vocal mental health awareness advocates in the biz. The former Disney star, who has battled drug and alcohol addictions, bipolar disorder, self-harm and an eating disorder for years underwent rehab in 2010 and in 2013. Now, Lovato is much healthier and is committed to ending the stigma against mental illness. In 2015, she launched the Be Vocal campaign as a way to encourage individuals struggling with mental illness to talk about what they’re going through.

“I think the more people vocalize what they’re going through—their experience or just simply educating themselves so that they can learn more about what they’re talking about—that’s going to be the key to creating a conversation about mental illness and making it more understood,” she told HuffPost. “There’s a lack of compassion for people who have mental illnesses and there’s a lot of judgment. Once you make people realize that mental illness can happen to anybody—and it’s not anybody’s fault—then I think they’ll become more understanding of what mental illness really is.”

Jennifer Lawrence

Photography by Steve Granitz/WireImage

Jennifer Lawrence opened up about her struggle with anxiety in 2013, telling Madame Figaro that she began experiencing symptoms as a preteen. “When my mother told me about my childhood, she always told me that there was like a light in me, a spark that inspired me constantly,” Lawrence told the magazine. “When I started school, the light went out. It was never known what it was, a kind of social anxiety.”

She eventually went to seek help from a therapist and turned to acting as a form of self-therapy. She also revealed to the New York Times that she manages her anxiety with the use of prescription meds.

Emma Stone

Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage

Oscar winner Emma Stone told Rolling Stone in 2016 that she experienced bouts of anxiety and panic attacks as a child. “My anxiety was constant,” she said. “I would ask my mom a hundred times how the day was gonna lay out. What time was she gonna drop me off? Where was she gonna be? What would happen at lunch? Feeling nauseous. At a certain point, I couldn’t go to friends’ houses anymore–I could barely get out the door to school.”

She did reveal, however, that therapy and acting, specifically improv and sketch comedy, is what helped her work through it. “You have to be present in improv, and that’s the antithesis of anxiety,” she explained.

Chrissy Teigen

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My stoop buddy

A post shared by chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) on Apr 29, 2017 at 6:47pm PDT

Chrissy Teigen is never one to hold back, but she shocked fans when she penned an essay for Glamour in 2017 on her struggle with postpartum depression. “I couldn’t figure out why I was so unhappy. I blamed it on being tired and possibly growing out of the role: ‘Maybe I’m just not a goofy person anymore. Maybe I’m just supposed to be a mom,'” she wrote, later adding “postpartum does not discriminate.”

Months later, Teigen finally saw her family doctor, where she got her diagnosis. She began taking antidepressants. “I’m speaking up now because I want people to know it can happen to anybody and I don’t want people who have it to feel embarrassed or to feel alone. I also don’t want to pretend like I know everything about postpartum depression, because it can be different for everybody. But one thing I do know is that—for me—just merely being open about it helps.”

Troian Bellisario

In November 2016, Pretty Little Liars star Troian Bellisario revealed via a voting PSA that she struggled with an eating disorder when she was younger. She said it was early detection and mental healthcare that saved her. “If I had just been shunned to the side as not having ‘real problems’, I don’t know that I would be living today,” she explained. “I just want to make sure that everybody has the same opportunity for treatment that I have, and I think that we have to make sure that our government invests in those programs.”

Troian shared her story on her struggles with anorexia in her film Feed, which she wrote and directed. “It was not easy; it was like engaging with an addiction,” she told Interview magazine of revisiting her story, adding that working on the film was “like poking a sleeping dragon.” “One of the things I really wanted the film to explore was that once you have this relationship, once you have this mental illness or this disease, it never really goes away.”

And just like many others who suffer from mental illness, Bellisario said she feels like no one truly understands what she went through. “Still to this day, I couldn’t get anyone—even the people who loved me the most, even my boyfriend or my mother or my father—to understand what that experience was truly like for me,” she said. “It was about my eating disorder, and I found there were so many people who thought that it was about losing weight or being skinny, and I couldn��t quite get them to understand that it was about control on a very, very literal level.”

Gina Rodriguez

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One year after the devastation of Hurricane Maria, there is still work to be done. Thank you @ricky_martin for giving us all an opportunity to continue to contribute to the reconstruction of our beautiful island of Puerto Rico. #allin4pr #miislabonita ❤️🙌🏽 link in bio 🇵🇷🇵🇷🇵🇷

A post shared by Gina Rodriguez-LoCicero (@hereisgina) on Oct 26, 2018 at 4:12pm PDT

Jane the Virgin star Gina Rodriguez got candid about her struggle with anxiety in a moving Instagram post. “I suffer from anxiety,” she captioned the video, which sees her makeup-free in a New York Yankees cap. “And watching this clip I could see how anxious I was but I empathize with myself. I wanted to protect her and tell her it’s ok to be anxious, there is nothing different or strange about having anxiety and I will prevail.”

Shawn Mendes

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Je t’aime France ! 🇫🇷 x

A post shared by Shawn Mendes (@shawnmendes) on Nov 10, 2018 at 2:31pm PST

It may be hard to believe that Canada’s very own heartthrob has had his fair share of anxious episodes, but he has. In April 2018, the singer-songwriter told The Sun in an interview that he had seen a therapist a few times. “I found I was closing myself off from everybody, thinking that would help me battle [my anxiety], then realizing the only way I was going to battle it was completely opening up and letting people in,” Mendes said.

Said anxiety was chronicled in his single “In My Blood” (Lyrics: Help me, it’s like the walls are caving in, sometimes I feel like giving up, no medicine is strong enough, someone help me.)

“All pain is temporary, and the thing is with anxiety, and why it’s such a hard thing for people who don’t have it to understand, is that it is very random and it hits you at moments you don’t expect it. Sometimes it lasts two hours, sometimes it lasts a day and sometimes it lasts five minutes,” he said.

Sarah Hyland

Back in December 2018, Sarah Hyland opened up about experiencing suicidal thoughts after her body rejected a kidney donated by her dad. The Modern Family star, who has had a slew of health problems her whole life, appeared on Ellen in early January 2019 and spoke about her depression.

“After 26, 27 years of just always being sick and being in chronic pain every single day—and [you] don’t know when you’re going to have the next good day—it’s really, really hard…” she said.

“I would write letters in my head to loved ones of why I did it, and my reasoning behind it, and how it wasn’t anybody’s fault,” the 28-year-old revealed, adding that she was “very, very, very close,” to taking her own life.

When asked how she overcame her suicidal thoughts and depression, Hyland said that she confided in a close friend (“I finally said it out loud to someone… just saying it out loud helped immensely, because I kept it to myself for months and months at a time.”) who urged her to see a therapist.

The post These Celebs Are Destigmatizing Mental Illness appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

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Mental Illness in the Web Industry

The picture of the tortured artist has endured for centuries: creative geniuses who struggle with their metaphorical demons and don’t relate to life the same way as most people. Today, we know some of this can be attributed to mental illness: depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and many others. We have modern stories about this and plenty of anecdotal information that fuels the popular belief in a link between creativity and mental illness.

But science has also started asking questions about the link between mental illness and creativity. A recent study has suggested that creative professionals may be more genetically predisposed to mental illness. In the web industry, whether designer, dev, copywriter, or anything else, we’re often creative professionals. The numbers suggest that mental illness hits the web industry especially hard.

Our industry has made great strides in compassionate discussion of disability, with a focus on accessibility and events like Blue Beanie Day. But even though we’re having meaningful conversations and we’re seeing progress, issues related to diversity, inclusion, and sexual harassment are still a major problem for our industry. Understanding and acceptance of mental health issues is an area that needs growth and attention just like many others.

When it comes to mental health, we aren’t quite as understanding as we think we are. According to a study published by the Center of Disease Control, 57% of the general population believes that society at large is caring and sympathetic toward people with mental illness; but only 25% of people with mental health symptoms believed the same thing. Society is less understanding and sympathetic regarding mental illness than it thinks it is.

Where’s the disconnect?  What does it look like in our industry? It’s usually not negligence or ill will on anybody’s part. It has a lot more to do with people just not understanding the prevalence and reality of mental illness in the workplace. We need to begin discussing mental illness as we do any other personal challenge that people face.

This article is no substitute for a well-designed scientific study or a doctor’s advice, and it’s not trying to declare truths about mental illness in the industry. And it certainly does not intend to lump together or equalize any and all mental health issues, illnesses, or conditions. But it does suspect that plenty of people in the industry struggle with their mental health at some point or another, and we just don’t seem to talk about it. This doesn’t seem to make sense in light of the sense of community that web professionals have been proud of for decades.

We reached out to a few people in our industry who were willing to share their unique stories to bring light to what mental health looks like for them in the workplace. Whether you have your own struggles with mental health issues or just want to understand those who do, these stories are a great place to start the conversation.

Meet the contributors

Gerry: I’ve been designing websites since the late ‘90s, starting out in UI design, evolving into an IA, and now in a UX leadership role. Over my career, I’ve contributed to many high-profile projects, organized local UX events, and done so in spite of my personal roadblocks.

Brandon Gregory: I’ve been working in the web industry since 2006, first as a designer, then as a developer, then as a manager/technical leader. I’m also a staff member and regular contributor at A List Apart. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2002 and almost failed out of college because of it, although I now live a mostly normal life with a solid career and great family. I’ve been very open about my condition and have done some writing on it on Medium to help spread awareness and destigmatize mental illnesses.

Stephen Keable: I’ve been building and running websites since 1999, both professionally and for fun. Worked for newspapers, software companies, and design agencies, in both permanent and freelance roles, almost always creating front-end solutions, concentrating on a user-centered approach.

Bri Piccari: I’ve been messing around with the web since MySpace was a thing, figuring out how to customize themes and make random animations fall down from the top of my profile. Professionally, I’ve been in the field since 2010, freelancing while in college before transitioning to work at small agencies and in-house for a spell after graduation. I focus on creating solid digital experiences, employing my love for design with [a] knack for front-end development. Most recently, I started a small design studio, but decided to jump back into more steady contract and full-time work, after the stress of owning a small business took a toll on my mental health. It was a tough decision, but I had to do what was best for me. I also lead my local AIGA chapter and recently got my 200-hour-yoga-teacher certification.

X: I also started tinkering with the web on Myspace, and started working on websites to help pay my way through college. I just always assumed I would do something else to make a living. Then, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. My [original non-web] field was not a welcoming and supportive place for that, so I had to start over, in more ways than one. The web industry hadn’t gone anywhere, and it’s always been welcoming to people with random educational histories, so I felt good about being able to make a living and staying healthy here. But because of my experience when I first tried to be open about my illness, I now keep it a secret. I’m not ashamed of it; in fact, it’s made me live life more authentically. For example, in my heart, I knew I wanted to work on the web the entire time.

The struggle is real

Mental health issues are as numerous and unique as the people who struggle with them. We asked the contributors what their struggles look like, particularly at work in the web industry.

G: I have an interesting mix of ADD, dyslexia, and complex PTSD. As a result, I’m an incomplete person, in a perpetual state of self-doubt, toxic shame, and paralyzing anxiety. I’ve had a few episodes in my past where a requirement didn’t register or a criticism was taken the wrong way and I’ve acted less than appropriately (either through panic, avoidance, or anger). When things go wrong, I deal with emotional flashbacks for weeks.

Presenting or reading before an audience is a surreal experience as well. I go into a zone where I’m never sure if I’m speaking coherently or making any sense at all until I’ve spoken with friends in the audience afterward. This has had a negative effect on my career, making even the most simple tasks anxiety-driven.

BG: I actually manage to at least look like I have everything together, so most people don’t know I have bipolar until I tell them. On the inside, I struggle—a lot. There are bouts of depression where I’m exhausted all day and deal with physical pain, and bursts of mania where I take unnecessary risks and make inappropriate outbursts, and I can switch between these states with little or no notice. It’s a balancing act to be sure, and I work very hard to keep it together for the people in my life.

SK: After the sudden death of my mother, I started suffering from panic attacks. One of which came on about 30 mins after getting to work, I couldn’t deal with the attack at work, so suddenly went home without telling anyone. Only phoning my boss from a lay-by after I’d been in tears at the side of the road for a while. The attacks also triggered depression, which has made motivation when I’m working from home so hard that I actually want to spend more time at the office. Luckily my employer is very understanding and has been really flexible.

BP: Depending upon the time of year, I struggle greatly, with the worst making it nearly impossible to leave my apartment. As most folks often say, I’ve gotten rather good at appearing as though I’ve got my shit together—typically, most people I interact with have no idea what I’m going through unless I let them in. It wasn’t until recently that my mental health began to make a public appearance, as the stress of starting my own business and attempting to “have it all” made it tough to continue hiding it. There are definitely spans of time where depression severely affects my ability to create and interface with others, and “fake it till ya make it” doesn’t even cut it. I’m currently struggling with severe anxiety brought on by stress. Learning to manage that has been a process.

X: I have been fortunate to be a high-functioning bipolar person for about 5 years now, so there really isn’t a struggle you can really see. The struggle is the stress and anxiety of losing that stability, and especially of people finding out. I take medication, have a routine, a support system, and a self-care regimen that is the reason why I am stable, but if work starts [to] erode my work-life balance, I can’t protect that time and energy anymore. In the past, this has started to happen when I’ve been asked to routinely pull all-nighters, work over the weekend, travel often, or be surrounded by a partying and drinking culture at work. Many people burn out under those conditions, but for me, it could be dangerous and send me into a manic episode, or even [make me] feel suicidal. I struggle with not knowing how far I can grow in my career, because a lot of the things you do to prove yourself and to demonstrate that you’re ready for more responsibility involves putting more on your plate. What’s the point of going after a big role if it’ll mean that I won’t be able to take care of myself? The FOMO [(fear of missing out)] gets bad.

Making it work

There are different ways that people can choose to—or choose not to—address the mental problems they struggle with. We’re ultimately responsible for making our own mental health decisions, and they are different for everyone. In the meantime, the rent has to get paid. Here’s how our contributors cope with their situations at work to make it happen.

G: I started seeing a therapist, which has been an amazing help. I’ve also worked to change my attitude about criticism—I ask more clarifying questions, looking to define the problem, rather than get mad, defensive, or sarcastic. I’ve learned to be more honest with my very close coworkers, making them aware of my irrational shortcomings and asking for help. Also, because I’ve experienced trauma in personal and professional life, I’m hypersensitive to the emotions of others. Just being around a heated argument or otherwise heightened situation could put my body into a panic. I have to take extra special care in managing personalities, making sure everyone in a particular situation feels confident that they’re set up for success.

BG: Medicine has worked very well for me, and I’m very lucky in that regard. That keeps most of my symptoms at a manageable level. Keeping my regular schedule and maintaining some degree of normalcy is a huge factor in remaining stable. Going to work, sleeping when I should, and keeping some social appointments, while not always easy, keep me from slipping too far in either direction. Also, writing has been a huge outlet for me and has helped others to better understand my condition as well. Finding some way to express what you’re going through is huge.

SK: I had several sessions of bereavement counseling to help with the grief. I also made efforts to try and be more physically active each day, even if just going for a short walk on my lunch break. Working had become a way of escaping everything else that was going on at the time. Before the depression I used to work from home two days a week, however found these days very hard being on my own. So I started working from the office every weekday. Thankfully, through all of this, my employer was incredibly supportive and simply told me to do what I need to do. And it’s made me want to stay where I work more than before, as I realize how lucky I am to have their support.

BP: Last winter I enrolled in a leadership/yoga teacher training [program] with a goal of cultivating a personal practice to better manage my depression and anxiety. Making the jump to be in an uncomfortable situation and learn the value of mindfulness has made a huge difference in my ability to cope with stress. Self-care is really big for me, and being aware of when I need to take a break. I’ve heard it called high-functioning depression and anxiety. I often take on too much and learning to say no has been huge. Therapy and a daily routine have been incredibly beneficial as well.

X: The biggest one is medicine, it’s something I will take for the rest of my life and it’s worth it to me. I did a form of therapy called Dialectical Behavioral Therapy for a couple of years. The rest is a consistent regimen of self-care, but there are a couple of things that are big for work. Not working nights or weekends, keeping it pretty 9–5. Walking to and from the office or riding my bike. I started a yoga practice immediately after getting diagnosed, and the mental discipline it’s given me dampens the intensity of how I react to stressful situations at work. This isn’t to say that I will refuse to work unless it’s easy. Essentially, if something catches on fire, these coping strategies help me keep my shit together for long enough to get out.

Spreading awareness

There are a lot of misconceptions about mental illness, in the web industry as much as anywhere else. Some are benign but annoying; others are pretty harmful. Here are some of the things we wish others knew about us and our struggles.

G: Nothing about my struggle is rational. It seems as if my body is wired to screw everything up and wallow in the shame of it. I have to keep moving, working against myself to get projects as close to perfect as possible. However, I am wired to really care about people, and that is probably why I’ve been successful in UX.

BG: Just because I look strong doesn’t mean I don’t need support. Just because I have problems doesn’t mean I need you to solve them. Sometimes, just checking in or being there is the best thing for me. I don’t want to be thought of as broken or fragile (although I admit, sometimes I am). I am more than my disorder, but I can’t completely ignore it either.

Also, there are still a lot of stigmas surrounding mental illness, to the point that I didn’t feel safe admitting to my disorder to a boss at a previous job. Mental illnesses are medical conditions that are often classified as legitimate disabilities, but employees may not be safe admitting that they have one—that’s the reality we live with.

SK: For others who are going through grief-related depression, I would say that talking about it with friends, family, and even strangers helps you process it a lot. And the old cliché that time is a healer really is true. Also, for any employers, be supportive [of those] with mental health conditions—as supportive as you would [be of those] with physical health situations. They will pay you back.

BP: I am a chronically ambitious human. Oftentimes, this comes from a place of working and doing versus dealing with what is bothering or plaguing me at the time. Much of my community involvement came from a place of needing a productive outlet. Fortunately or unfortunately, I have accomplished a lot through that—however, there are times where I simply need a break. I’m learning to absorb and understand that, as well as become OK with it.

X: I wish people knew how much it bothers me to hear the word bipolar being used as an adjective to casually describe things and people. It’s not given as a compliment, and it makes it less likely that I will ever disclose my illness publicly. I also wish people knew how many times I’ve come close to just being open about it, but held back because of the other major diversity and inclusion issues in the tech industry. Women have to deal with being called moody and erratic. People stereotype the ethnic group I belong to as being fiery and ill-tempered. Why would I give people another way to discriminate against me?

http://ift.tt/2DpFJ2G

[joannlyfgnch]

Mental Illness in the Web Industry

The picture of the tortured artist has endured for centuries: creative geniuses who struggle with their metaphorical demons and don’t relate to life the same way as most people. Today, we know some of this can be attributed to mental illness: depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and many others. We have modern stories about this and plenty of anecdotal information that fuels the popular belief in a link between creativity and mental illness.

But science has also started asking questions about the link between mental illness and creativity. A recent study has suggested that creative professionals may be more genetically predisposed to mental illness. In the web industry, whether designer, dev, copywriter, or anything else, we’re often creative professionals. The numbers suggest that mental illness hits the web industry especially hard.

Our industry has made great strides in compassionate discussion of disability, with a focus on accessibility and events like Blue Beanie Day. But even though we’re having meaningful conversations and we’re seeing progress, issues related to diversity, inclusion, and sexual harassment are still a major problem for our industry. Understanding and acceptance of mental health issues is an area that needs growth and attention just like many others.

When it comes to mental health, we aren’t quite as understanding as we think we are. According to a study published by the Center of Disease Control, 57% of the general population believes that society at large is caring and sympathetic toward people with mental illness; but only 25% of people with mental health symptoms believed the same thing. Society is less understanding and sympathetic regarding mental illness than it thinks it is.

Where’s the disconnect?  What does it look like in our industry? It’s usually not negligence or ill will on anybody’s part. It has a lot more to do with people just not understanding the prevalence and reality of mental illness in the workplace. We need to begin discussing mental illness as we do any other personal challenge that people face.

This article is no substitute for a well-designed scientific study or a doctor’s advice, and it’s not trying to declare truths about mental illness in the industry. And it certainly does not intend to lump together or equalize any and all mental health issues, illnesses, or conditions. But it does suspect that plenty of people in the industry struggle with their mental health at some point or another, and we just don’t seem to talk about it. This doesn’t seem to make sense in light of the sense of community that web professionals have been proud of for decades.

We reached out to a few people in our industry who were willing to share their unique stories to bring light to what mental health looks like for them in the workplace. Whether you have your own struggles with mental health issues or just want to understand those who do, these stories are a great place to start the conversation.

Meet the contributors

Gerry: I’ve been designing websites since the late ‘90s, starting out in UI design, evolving into an IA, and now in a UX leadership role. Over my career, I’ve contributed to many high-profile projects, organized local UX events, and done so in spite of my personal roadblocks.

Brandon Gregory: I’ve been working in the web industry since 2006, first as a designer, then as a developer, then as a manager/technical leader. I’m also a staff member and regular contributor at A List Apart. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2002 and almost failed out of college because of it, although I now live a mostly normal life with a solid career and great family. I’ve been very open about my condition and have done some writing on it on Medium to help spread awareness and destigmatize mental illnesses.

Stephen Keable: I’ve been building and running websites since 1999, both professionally and for fun. Worked for newspapers, software companies, and design agencies, in both permanent and freelance roles, almost always creating front-end solutions, concentrating on a user-centered approach.

Bri Piccari: I’ve been messing around with the web since MySpace was a thing, figuring out how to customize themes and make random animations fall down from the top of my profile. Professionally, I’ve been in the field since 2010, freelancing while in college before transitioning to work at small agencies and in-house for a spell after graduation. I focus on creating solid digital experiences, employing my love for design with [a] knack for front-end development. Most recently, I started a small design studio, but decided to jump back into more steady contract and full-time work, after the stress of owning a small business took a toll on my mental health. It was a tough decision, but I had to do what was best for me. I also lead my local AIGA chapter and recently got my 200-hour-yoga-teacher certification.

X: I also started tinkering with the web on Myspace, and started working on websites to help pay my way through college. I just always assumed I would do something else to make a living. Then, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. My [original non-web] field was not a welcoming and supportive place for that, so I had to start over, in more ways than one. The web industry hadn’t gone anywhere, and it’s always been welcoming to people with random educational histories, so I felt good about being able to make a living and staying healthy here. But because of my experience when I first tried to be open about my illness, I now keep it a secret. I’m not ashamed of it; in fact, it’s made me live life more authentically. For example, in my heart, I knew I wanted to work on the web the entire time.

The struggle is real

Mental health issues are as numerous and unique as the people who struggle with them. We asked the contributors what their struggles look like, particularly at work in the web industry.

G: I have an interesting mix of ADD, dyslexia, and complex PTSD. As a result, I’m an incomplete person, in a perpetual state of self-doubt, toxic shame, and paralyzing anxiety. I’ve had a few episodes in my past where a requirement didn’t register or a criticism was taken the wrong way and I’ve acted less than appropriately (either through panic, avoidance, or anger). When things go wrong, I deal with emotional flashbacks for weeks.

Presenting or reading before an audience is a surreal experience as well. I go into a zone where I’m never sure if I’m speaking coherently or making any sense at all until I’ve spoken with friends in the audience afterward. This has had a negative effect on my career, making even the most simple tasks anxiety-driven.

BG: I actually manage to at least look like I have everything together, so most people don’t know I have bipolar until I tell them. On the inside, I struggle—a lot. There are bouts of depression where I’m exhausted all day and deal with physical pain, and bursts of mania where I take unnecessary risks and make inappropriate outbursts, and I can switch between these states with little or no notice. It’s a balancing act to be sure, and I work very hard to keep it together for the people in my life.

SK: After the sudden death of my mother, I started suffering from panic attacks. One of which came on about 30 mins after getting to work, I couldn’t deal with the attack at work, so suddenly went home without telling anyone. Only phoning my boss from a lay-by after I’d been in tears at the side of the road for a while. The attacks also triggered depression, which has made motivation when I’m working from home so hard that I actually want to spend more time at the office. Luckily my employer is very understanding and has been really flexible.

BP: Depending upon the time of year, I struggle greatly, with the worst making it nearly impossible to leave my apartment. As most folks often say, I’ve gotten rather good at appearing as though I’ve got my shit together—typically, most people I interact with have no idea what I’m going through unless I let them in. It wasn’t until recently that my mental health began to make a public appearance, as the stress of starting my own business and attempting to “have it all” made it tough to continue hiding it. There are definitely spans of time where depression severely affects my ability to create and interface with others, and “fake it till ya make it” doesn’t even cut it. I’m currently struggling with severe anxiety brought on by stress. Learning to manage that has been a process.

X: I have been fortunate to be a high-functioning bipolar person for about 5 years now, so there really isn’t a struggle you can really see. The struggle is the stress and anxiety of losing that stability, and especially of people finding out. I take medication, have a routine, a support system, and a self-care regimen that is the reason why I am stable, but if work starts [to] erode my work-life balance, I can’t protect that time and energy anymore. In the past, this has started to happen when I’ve been asked to routinely pull all-nighters, work over the weekend, travel often, or be surrounded by a partying and drinking culture at work. Many people burn out under those conditions, but for me, it could be dangerous and send me into a manic episode, or even [make me] feel suicidal. I struggle with not knowing how far I can grow in my career, because a lot of the things you do to prove yourself and to demonstrate that you’re ready for more responsibility involves putting more on your plate. What’s the point of going after a big role if it’ll mean that I won’t be able to take care of myself? The FOMO [(fear of missing out)] gets bad.

Making it work

There are different ways that people can choose to—or choose not to—address the mental problems they struggle with. We’re ultimately responsible for making our own mental health decisions, and they are different for everyone. In the meantime, the rent has to get paid. Here’s how our contributors cope with their situations at work to make it happen.

G: I started seeing a therapist, which has been an amazing help. I’ve also worked to change my attitude about criticism—I ask more clarifying questions, looking to define the problem, rather than get mad, defensive, or sarcastic. I’ve learned to be more honest with my very close coworkers, making them aware of my irrational shortcomings and asking for help. Also, because I’ve experienced trauma in personal and professional life, I’m hypersensitive to the emotions of others. Just being around a heated argument or otherwise heightened situation could put my body into a panic. I have to take extra special care in managing personalities, making sure everyone in a particular situation feels confident that they’re set up for success.

BG: Medicine has worked very well for me, and I’m very lucky in that regard. That keeps most of my symptoms at a manageable level. Keeping my regular schedule and maintaining some degree of normalcy is a huge factor in remaining stable. Going to work, sleeping when I should, and keeping some social appointments, while not always easy, keep me from slipping too far in either direction. Also, writing has been a huge outlet for me and has helped others to better understand my condition as well. Finding some way to express what you’re going through is huge.

SK: I had several sessions of bereavement counseling to help with the grief. I also made efforts to try and be more physically active each day, even if just going for a short walk on my lunch break. Working had become a way of escaping everything else that was going on at the time. Before the depression I used to work from home two days a week, however found these days very hard being on my own. So I started working from the office every weekday. Thankfully, through all of this, my employer was incredibly supportive and simply told me to do what I need to do. And it’s made me want to stay where I work more than before, as I realize how lucky I am to have their support.

BP: Last winter I enrolled in a leadership/yoga teacher training [program] with a goal of cultivating a personal practice to better manage my depression and anxiety. Making the jump to be in an uncomfortable situation and learn the value of mindfulness has made a huge difference in my ability to cope with stress. Self-care is really big for me, and being aware of when I need to take a break. I’ve heard it called high-functioning depression and anxiety. I often take on too much and learning to say no has been huge. Therapy and a daily routine have been incredibly beneficial as well.

X: The biggest one is medicine, it’s something I will take for the rest of my life and it’s worth it to me. I did a form of therapy called Dialectical Behavioral Therapy for a couple of years. The rest is a consistent regimen of self-care, but there are a couple of things that are big for work. Not working nights or weekends, keeping it pretty 9–5. Walking to and from the office or riding my bike. I started a yoga practice immediately after getting diagnosed, and the mental discipline it’s given me dampens the intensity of how I react to stressful situations at work. This isn’t to say that I will refuse to work unless it’s easy. Essentially, if something catches on fire, these coping strategies help me keep my shit together for long enough to get out.

Spreading awareness

There are a lot of misconceptions about mental illness, in the web industry as much as anywhere else. Some are benign but annoying; others are pretty harmful. Here are some of the things we wish others knew about us and our struggles.

G: Nothing about my struggle is rational. It seems as if my body is wired to screw everything up and wallow in the shame of it. I have to keep moving, working against myself to get projects as close to perfect as possible. However, I am wired to really care about people, and that is probably why I’ve been successful in UX.

BG: Just because I look strong doesn’t mean I don’t need support. Just because I have problems doesn’t mean I need you to solve them. Sometimes, just checking in or being there is the best thing for me. I don’t want to be thought of as broken or fragile (although I admit, sometimes I am). I am more than my disorder, but I can’t completely ignore it either.

Also, there are still a lot of stigmas surrounding mental illness, to the point that I didn’t feel safe admitting to my disorder to a boss at a previous job. Mental illnesses are medical conditions that are often classified as legitimate disabilities, but employees may not be safe admitting that they have one—that’s the reality we live with.

SK: For others who are going through grief-related depression, I would say that talking about it with friends, family, and even strangers helps you process it a lot. And the old cliché that time is a healer really is true. Also, for any employers, be supportive [of those] with mental health conditions—as supportive as you would [be of those] with physical health situations. They will pay you back.

BP: I am a chronically ambitious human. Oftentimes, this comes from a place of working and doing versus dealing with what is bothering or plaguing me at the time. Much of my community involvement came from a place of needing a productive outlet. Fortunately or unfortunately, I have accomplished a lot through that—however, there are times where I simply need a break. I’m learning to absorb and understand that, as well as become OK with it.

X: I wish people knew how much it bothers me to hear the word bipolar being used as an adjective to casually describe things and people. It’s not given as a compliment, and it makes it less likely that I will ever disclose my illness publicly. I also wish people knew how many times I’ve come close to just being open about it, but held back because of the other major diversity and inclusion issues in the tech industry. Women have to deal with being called moody and erratic. People stereotype the ethnic group I belong to as being fiery and ill-tempered. Why would I give people another way to discriminate against me?

http://ift.tt/2DpFJ2G

[pattersondonaldblk5]

Mental Illness in the Web Industry

The picture of the tortured artist has endured for centuries: creative geniuses who struggle with their metaphorical demons and don’t relate to life the same way as most people. Today, we know some of this can be attributed to mental illness: depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and many others. We have modern stories about this and plenty of anecdotal information that fuels the popular belief in a link between creativity and mental illness.

But science has also started asking questions about the link between mental illness and creativity. A recent study has suggested that creative professionals may be more genetically predisposed to mental illness. In the web industry, whether designer, dev, copywriter, or anything else, we’re often creative professionals. The numbers suggest that mental illness hits the web industry especially hard.

Our industry has made great strides in compassionate discussion of disability, with a focus on accessibility and events like Blue Beanie Day. But even though we’re having meaningful conversations and we’re seeing progress, issues related to diversity, inclusion, and sexual harassment are still a major problem for our industry. Understanding and acceptance of mental health issues is an area that needs growth and attention just like many others.

When it comes to mental health, we aren’t quite as understanding as we think we are. According to a study published by the Center of Disease Control, 57% of the general population believes that society at large is caring and sympathetic toward people with mental illness; but only 25% of people with mental health symptoms believed the same thing. Society is less understanding and sympathetic regarding mental illness than it thinks it is.

Where’s the disconnect?  What does it look like in our industry? It’s usually not negligence or ill will on anybody’s part. It has a lot more to do with people just not understanding the prevalence and reality of mental illness in the workplace. We need to begin discussing mental illness as we do any other personal challenge that people face.

This article is no substitute for a well-designed scientific study or a doctor’s advice, and it’s not trying to declare truths about mental illness in the industry. And it certainly does not intend to lump together or equalize any and all mental health issues, illnesses, or conditions. But it does suspect that plenty of people in the industry struggle with their mental health at some point or another, and we just don’t seem to talk about it. This doesn’t seem to make sense in light of the sense of community that web professionals have been proud of for decades.

We reached out to a few people in our industry who were willing to share their unique stories to bring light to what mental health looks like for them in the workplace. Whether you have your own struggles with mental health issues or just want to understand those who do, these stories are a great place to start the conversation.

Meet the contributors

Gerry: I’ve been designing websites since the late ‘90s, starting out in UI design, evolving into an IA, and now in a UX leadership role. Over my career, I’ve contributed to many high-profile projects, organized local UX events, and done so in spite of my personal roadblocks.

Brandon Gregory: I’ve been working in the web industry since 2006, first as a designer, then as a developer, then as a manager/technical leader. I’m also a staff member and regular contributor at A List Apart. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2002 and almost failed out of college because of it, although I now live a mostly normal life with a solid career and great family. I’ve been very open about my condition and have done some writing on it on Medium to help spread awareness and destigmatize mental illnesses.

Stephen Keable: I’ve been building and running websites since 1999, both professionally and for fun. Worked for newspapers, software companies, and design agencies, in both permanent and freelance roles, almost always creating front-end solutions, concentrating on a user-centered approach.

Bri Piccari: I’ve been messing around with the web since MySpace was a thing, figuring out how to customize themes and make random animations fall down from the top of my profile. Professionally, I’ve been in the field since 2010, freelancing while in college before transitioning to work at small agencies and in-house for a spell after graduation. I focus on creating solid digital experiences, employing my love for design with [a] knack for front-end development. Most recently, I started a small design studio, but decided to jump back into more steady contract and full-time work, after the stress of owning a small business took a toll on my mental health. It was a tough decision, but I had to do what was best for me. I also lead my local AIGA chapter and recently got my 200-hour-yoga-teacher certification.

X: I also started tinkering with the web on Myspace, and started working on websites to help pay my way through college. I just always assumed I would do something else to make a living. Then, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. My [original non-web] field was not a welcoming and supportive place for that, so I had to start over, in more ways than one. The web industry hadn’t gone anywhere, and it’s always been welcoming to people with random educational histories, so I felt good about being able to make a living and staying healthy here. But because of my experience when I first tried to be open about my illness, I now keep it a secret. I’m not ashamed of it; in fact, it’s made me live life more authentically. For example, in my heart, I knew I wanted to work on the web the entire time.

The struggle is real

Mental health issues are as numerous and unique as the people who struggle with them. We asked the contributors what their struggles look like, particularly at work in the web industry.

G: I have an interesting mix of ADD, dyslexia, and complex PTSD. As a result, I’m an incomplete person, in a perpetual state of self-doubt, toxic shame, and paralyzing anxiety. I’ve had a few episodes in my past where a requirement didn’t register or a criticism was taken the wrong way and I’ve acted less than appropriately (either through panic, avoidance, or anger). When things go wrong, I deal with emotional flashbacks for weeks.

Presenting or reading before an audience is a surreal experience as well. I go into a zone where I’m never sure if I’m speaking coherently or making any sense at all until I’ve spoken with friends in the audience afterward. This has had a negative effect on my career, making even the most simple tasks anxiety-driven.

BG: I actually manage to at least look like I have everything together, so most people don’t know I have bipolar until I tell them. On the inside, I struggle—a lot. There are bouts of depression where I’m exhausted all day and deal with physical pain, and bursts of mania where I take unnecessary risks and make inappropriate outbursts, and I can switch between these states with little or no notice. It’s a balancing act to be sure, and I work very hard to keep it together for the people in my life.

SK: After the sudden death of my mother, I started suffering from panic attacks. One of which came on about 30 mins after getting to work, I couldn’t deal with the attack at work, so suddenly went home without telling anyone. Only phoning my boss from a lay-by after I’d been in tears at the side of the road for a while. The attacks also triggered depression, which has made motivation when I’m working from home so hard that I actually want to spend more time at the office. Luckily my employer is very understanding and has been really flexible.

BP: Depending upon the time of year, I struggle greatly, with the worst making it nearly impossible to leave my apartment. As most folks often say, I’ve gotten rather good at appearing as though I’ve got my shit together—typically, most people I interact with have no idea what I’m going through unless I let them in. It wasn’t until recently that my mental health began to make a public appearance, as the stress of starting my own business and attempting to “have it all” made it tough to continue hiding it. There are definitely spans of time where depression severely affects my ability to create and interface with others, and “fake it till ya make it” doesn’t even cut it. I’m currently struggling with severe anxiety brought on by stress. Learning to manage that has been a process.

X: I have been fortunate to be a high-functioning bipolar person for about 5 years now, so there really isn’t a struggle you can really see. The struggle is the stress and anxiety of losing that stability, and especially of people finding out. I take medication, have a routine, a support system, and a self-care regimen that is the reason why I am stable, but if work starts [to] erode my work-life balance, I can’t protect that time and energy anymore. In the past, this has started to happen when I’ve been asked to routinely pull all-nighters, work over the weekend, travel often, or be surrounded by a partying and drinking culture at work. Many people burn out under those conditions, but for me, it could be dangerous and send me into a manic episode, or even [make me] feel suicidal. I struggle with not knowing how far I can grow in my career, because a lot of the things you do to prove yourself and to demonstrate that you’re ready for more responsibility involves putting more on your plate. What’s the point of going after a big role if it’ll mean that I won’t be able to take care of myself? The FOMO [(fear of missing out)] gets bad.

Making it work

There are different ways that people can choose to—or choose not to—address the mental problems they struggle with. We’re ultimately responsible for making our own mental health decisions, and they are different for everyone. In the meantime, the rent has to get paid. Here’s how our contributors cope with their situations at work to make it happen.

G: I started seeing a therapist, which has been an amazing help. I’ve also worked to change my attitude about criticism—I ask more clarifying questions, looking to define the problem, rather than get mad, defensive, or sarcastic. I’ve learned to be more honest with my very close coworkers, making them aware of my irrational shortcomings and asking for help. Also, because I’ve experienced trauma in personal and professional life, I’m hypersensitive to the emotions of others. Just being around a heated argument or otherwise heightened situation could put my body into a panic. I have to take extra special care in managing personalities, making sure everyone in a particular situation feels confident that they’re set up for success.

BG: Medicine has worked very well for me, and I’m very lucky in that regard. That keeps most of my symptoms at a manageable level. Keeping my regular schedule and maintaining some degree of normalcy is a huge factor in remaining stable. Going to work, sleeping when I should, and keeping some social appointments, while not always easy, keep me from slipping too far in either direction. Also, writing has been a huge outlet for me and has helped others to better understand my condition as well. Finding some way to express what you’re going through is huge.

SK: I had several sessions of bereavement counseling to help with the grief. I also made efforts to try and be more physically active each day, even if just going for a short walk on my lunch break. Working had become a way of escaping everything else that was going on at the time. Before the depression I used to work from home two days a week, however found these days very hard being on my own. So I started working from the office every weekday. Thankfully, through all of this, my employer was incredibly supportive and simply told me to do what I need to do. And it’s made me want to stay where I work more than before, as I realize how lucky I am to have their support.

BP: Last winter I enrolled in a leadership/yoga teacher training [program] with a goal of cultivating a personal practice to better manage my depression and anxiety. Making the jump to be in an uncomfortable situation and learn the value of mindfulness has made a huge difference in my ability to cope with stress. Self-care is really big for me, and being aware of when I need to take a break. I’ve heard it called high-functioning depression and anxiety. I often take on too much and learning to say no has been huge. Therapy and a daily routine have been incredibly beneficial as well.

X: The biggest one is medicine, it’s something I will take for the rest of my life and it’s worth it to me. I did a form of therapy called Dialectical Behavioral Therapy for a couple of years. The rest is a consistent regimen of self-care, but there are a couple of things that are big for work. Not working nights or weekends, keeping it pretty 9–5. Walking to and from the office or riding my bike. I started a yoga practice immediately after getting diagnosed, and the mental discipline it’s given me dampens the intensity of how I react to stressful situations at work. This isn’t to say that I will refuse to work unless it’s easy. Essentially, if something catches on fire, these coping strategies help me keep my shit together for long enough to get out.

Spreading awareness

There are a lot of misconceptions about mental illness, in the web industry as much as anywhere else. Some are benign but annoying; others are pretty harmful. Here are some of the things we wish others knew about us and our struggles.

G: Nothing about my struggle is rational. It seems as if my body is wired to screw everything up and wallow in the shame of it. I have to keep moving, working against myself to get projects as close to perfect as possible. However, I am wired to really care about people, and that is probably why I’ve been successful in UX.

BG: Just because I look strong doesn’t mean I don’t need support. Just because I have problems doesn’t mean I need you to solve them. Sometimes, just checking in or being there is the best thing for me. I don’t want to be thought of as broken or fragile (although I admit, sometimes I am). I am more than my disorder, but I can’t completely ignore it either.

Also, there are still a lot of stigmas surrounding mental illness, to the point that I didn’t feel safe admitting to my disorder to a boss at a previous job. Mental illnesses are medical conditions that are often classified as legitimate disabilities, but employees may not be safe admitting that they have one—that’s the reality we live with.

SK: For others who are going through grief-related depression, I would say that talking about it with friends, family, and even strangers helps you process it a lot. And the old cliché that time is a healer really is true. Also, for any employers, be supportive [of those] with mental health conditions—as supportive as you would [be of those] with physical health situations. They will pay you back.

BP: I am a chronically ambitious human. Oftentimes, this comes from a place of working and doing versus dealing with what is bothering or plaguing me at the time. Much of my community involvement came from a place of needing a productive outlet. Fortunately or unfortunately, I have accomplished a lot through that—however, there are times where I simply need a break. I’m learning to absorb and understand that, as well as become OK with it.

X: I wish people knew how much it bothers me to hear the word bipolar being used as an adjective to casually describe things and people. It’s not given as a compliment, and it makes it less likely that I will ever disclose my illness publicly. I also wish people knew how many times I’ve come close to just being open about it, but held back because of the other major diversity and inclusion issues in the tech industry. Women have to deal with being called moody and erratic. People stereotype the ethnic group I belong to as being fiery and ill-tempered. Why would I give people another way to discriminate against me?

http://ift.tt/2DpFJ2G

[mariaaklnthony]

Mental Illness in the Web Industry

The picture of the tortured artist has endured for centuries: creative geniuses who struggle with their metaphorical demons and don’t relate to life the same way as most people. Today, we know some of this can be attributed to mental illness: depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and many others. We have modern stories about this and plenty of anecdotal information that fuels the popular belief in a link between creativity and mental illness.

But science has also started asking questions about the link between mental illness and creativity. A recent study has suggested that creative professionals may be more genetically predisposed to mental illness. In the web industry, whether designer, dev, copywriter, or anything else, we’re often creative professionals. The numbers suggest that mental illness hits the web industry especially hard.

Our industry has made great strides in compassionate discussion of disability, with a focus on accessibility and events like Blue Beanie Day. But even though we’re having meaningful conversations and we’re seeing progress, issues related to diversity, inclusion, and sexual harassment are still a major problem for our industry. Understanding and acceptance of mental health issues is an area that needs growth and attention just like many others.

When it comes to mental health, we aren’t quite as understanding as we think we are. According to a study published by the Center of Disease Control, 57% of the general population believes that society at large is caring and sympathetic toward people with mental illness; but only 25% of people with mental health symptoms believed the same thing. Society is less understanding and sympathetic regarding mental illness than it thinks it is.

Where’s the disconnect?  What does it look like in our industry? It’s usually not negligence or ill will on anybody’s part. It has a lot more to do with people just not understanding the prevalence and reality of mental illness in the workplace. We need to begin discussing mental illness as we do any other personal challenge that people face.

This article is no substitute for a well-designed scientific study or a doctor’s advice, and it’s not trying to declare truths about mental illness in the industry. And it certainly does not intend to lump together or equalize any and all mental health issues, illnesses, or conditions. But it does suspect that plenty of people in the industry struggle with their mental health at some point or another, and we just don’t seem to talk about it. This doesn’t seem to make sense in light of the sense of community that web professionals have been proud of for decades.

We reached out to a few people in our industry who were willing to share their unique stories to bring light to what mental health looks like for them in the workplace. Whether you have your own struggles with mental health issues or just want to understand those who do, these stories are a great place to start the conversation.

Meet the contributors

Gerry: I’ve been designing websites since the late ‘90s, starting out in UI design, evolving into an IA, and now in a UX leadership role. Over my career, I’ve contributed to many high-profile projects, organized local UX events, and done so in spite of my personal roadblocks.

Brandon Gregory: I’ve been working in the web industry since 2006, first as a designer, then as a developer, then as a manager/technical leader. I’m also a staff member and regular contributor at A List Apart. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2002 and almost failed out of college because of it, although I now live a mostly normal life with a solid career and great family. I’ve been very open about my condition and have done some writing on it on Medium to help spread awareness and destigmatize mental illnesses.

Stephen Keable: I’ve been building and running websites since 1999, both professionally and for fun. Worked for newspapers, software companies, and design agencies, in both permanent and freelance roles, almost always creating front-end solutions, concentrating on a user-centered approach.

Bri Piccari: I’ve been messing around with the web since MySpace was a thing, figuring out how to customize themes and make random animations fall down from the top of my profile. Professionally, I’ve been in the field since 2010, freelancing while in college before transitioning to work at small agencies and in-house for a spell after graduation. I focus on creating solid digital experiences, employing my love for design with [a] knack for front-end development. Most recently, I started a small design studio, but decided to jump back into more steady contract and full-time work, after the stress of owning a small business took a toll on my mental health. It was a tough decision, but I had to do what was best for me. I also lead my local AIGA chapter and recently got my 200-hour-yoga-teacher certification.

X: I also started tinkering with the web on Myspace, and started working on websites to help pay my way through college. I just always assumed I would do something else to make a living. Then, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. My [original non-web] field was not a welcoming and supportive place for that, so I had to start over, in more ways than one. The web industry hadn’t gone anywhere, and it’s always been welcoming to people with random educational histories, so I felt good about being able to make a living and staying healthy here. But because of my experience when I first tried to be open about my illness, I now keep it a secret. I’m not ashamed of it; in fact, it’s made me live life more authentically. For example, in my heart, I knew I wanted to work on the web the entire time.

The struggle is real

Mental health issues are as numerous and unique as the people who struggle with them. We asked the contributors what their struggles look like, particularly at work in the web industry.

G: I have an interesting mix of ADD, dyslexia, and complex PTSD. As a result, I’m an incomplete person, in a perpetual state of self-doubt, toxic shame, and paralyzing anxiety. I’ve had a few episodes in my past where a requirement didn’t register or a criticism was taken the wrong way and I’ve acted less than appropriately (either through panic, avoidance, or anger). When things go wrong, I deal with emotional flashbacks for weeks.

Presenting or reading before an audience is a surreal experience as well. I go into a zone where I’m never sure if I’m speaking coherently or making any sense at all until I’ve spoken with friends in the audience afterward. This has had a negative effect on my career, making even the most simple tasks anxiety-driven.

BG: I actually manage to at least look like I have everything together, so most people don’t know I have bipolar until I tell them. On the inside, I struggle—a lot. There are bouts of depression where I’m exhausted all day and deal with physical pain, and bursts of mania where I take unnecessary risks and make inappropriate outbursts, and I can switch between these states with little or no notice. It’s a balancing act to be sure, and I work very hard to keep it together for the people in my life.

SK: After the sudden death of my mother, I started suffering from panic attacks. One of which came on about 30 mins after getting to work, I couldn’t deal with the attack at work, so suddenly went home without telling anyone. Only phoning my boss from a lay-by after I’d been in tears at the side of the road for a while. The attacks also triggered depression, which has made motivation when I’m working from home so hard that I actually want to spend more time at the office. Luckily my employer is very understanding and has been really flexible.

BP: Depending upon the time of year, I struggle greatly, with the worst making it nearly impossible to leave my apartment. As most folks often say, I’ve gotten rather good at appearing as though I’ve got my shit together—typically, most people I interact with have no idea what I’m going through unless I let them in. It wasn’t until recently that my mental health began to make a public appearance, as the stress of starting my own business and attempting to “have it all” made it tough to continue hiding it. There are definitely spans of time where depression severely affects my ability to create and interface with others, and “fake it till ya make it” doesn’t even cut it. I’m currently struggling with severe anxiety brought on by stress. Learning to manage that has been a process.

X: I have been fortunate to be a high-functioning bipolar person for about 5 years now, so there really isn’t a struggle you can really see. The struggle is the stress and anxiety of losing that stability, and especially of people finding out. I take medication, have a routine, a support system, and a self-care regimen that is the reason why I am stable, but if work starts [to] erode my work-life balance, I can’t protect that time and energy anymore. In the past, this has started to happen when I’ve been asked to routinely pull all-nighters, work over the weekend, travel often, or be surrounded by a partying and drinking culture at work. Many people burn out under those conditions, but for me, it could be dangerous and send me into a manic episode, or even [make me] feel suicidal. I struggle with not knowing how far I can grow in my career, because a lot of the things you do to prove yourself and to demonstrate that you’re ready for more responsibility involves putting more on your plate. What’s the point of going after a big role if it’ll mean that I won’t be able to take care of myself? The FOMO [(fear of missing out)] gets bad.

Making it work

There are different ways that people can choose to—or choose not to—address the mental problems they struggle with. We’re ultimately responsible for making our own mental health decisions, and they are different for everyone. In the meantime, the rent has to get paid. Here’s how our contributors cope with their situations at work to make it happen.

G: I started seeing a therapist, which has been an amazing help. I’ve also worked to change my attitude about criticism—I ask more clarifying questions, looking to define the problem, rather than get mad, defensive, or sarcastic. I’ve learned to be more honest with my very close coworkers, making them aware of my irrational shortcomings and asking for help. Also, because I’ve experienced trauma in personal and professional life, I’m hypersensitive to the emotions of others. Just being around a heated argument or otherwise heightened situation could put my body into a panic. I have to take extra special care in managing personalities, making sure everyone in a particular situation feels confident that they’re set up for success.

BG: Medicine has worked very well for me, and I’m very lucky in that regard. That keeps most of my symptoms at a manageable level. Keeping my regular schedule and maintaining some degree of normalcy is a huge factor in remaining stable. Going to work, sleeping when I should, and keeping some social appointments, while not always easy, keep me from slipping too far in either direction. Also, writing has been a huge outlet for me and has helped others to better understand my condition as well. Finding some way to express what you’re going through is huge.

SK: I had several sessions of bereavement counseling to help with the grief. I also made efforts to try and be more physically active each day, even if just going for a short walk on my lunch break. Working had become a way of escaping everything else that was going on at the time. Before the depression I used to work from home two days a week, however found these days very hard being on my own. So I started working from the office every weekday. Thankfully, through all of this, my employer was incredibly supportive and simply told me to do what I need to do. And it’s made me want to stay where I work more than before, as I realize how lucky I am to have their support.

BP: Last winter I enrolled in a leadership/yoga teacher training [program] with a goal of cultivating a personal practice to better manage my depression and anxiety. Making the jump to be in an uncomfortable situation and learn the value of mindfulness has made a huge difference in my ability to cope with stress. Self-care is really big for me, and being aware of when I need to take a break. I’ve heard it called high-functioning depression and anxiety. I often take on too much and learning to say no has been huge. Therapy and a daily routine have been incredibly beneficial as well.

X: The biggest one is medicine, it’s something I will take for the rest of my life and it’s worth it to me. I did a form of therapy called Dialectical Behavioral Therapy for a couple of years. The rest is a consistent regimen of self-care, but there are a couple of things that are big for work. Not working nights or weekends, keeping it pretty 9–5. Walking to and from the office or riding my bike. I started a yoga practice immediately after getting diagnosed, and the mental discipline it’s given me dampens the intensity of how I react to stressful situations at work. This isn’t to say that I will refuse to work unless it’s easy. Essentially, if something catches on fire, these coping strategies help me keep my shit together for long enough to get out.

Spreading awareness

There are a lot of misconceptions about mental illness, in the web industry as much as anywhere else. Some are benign but annoying; others are pretty harmful. Here are some of the things we wish others knew about us and our struggles.

G: Nothing about my struggle is rational. It seems as if my body is wired to screw everything up and wallow in the shame of it. I have to keep moving, working against myself to get projects as close to perfect as possible. However, I am wired to really care about people, and that is probably why I’ve been successful in UX.

BG: Just because I look strong doesn’t mean I don’t need support. Just because I have problems doesn’t mean I need you to solve them. Sometimes, just checking in or being there is the best thing for me. I don’t want to be thought of as broken or fragile (although I admit, sometimes I am). I am more than my disorder, but I can’t completely ignore it either.

Also, there are still a lot of stigmas surrounding mental illness, to the point that I didn’t feel safe admitting to my disorder to a boss at a previous job. Mental illnesses are medical conditions that are often classified as legitimate disabilities, but employees may not be safe admitting that they have one—that’s the reality we live with.

SK: For others who are going through grief-related depression, I would say that talking about it with friends, family, and even strangers helps you process it a lot. And the old cliché that time is a healer really is true. Also, for any employers, be supportive [of those] with mental health conditions—as supportive as you would [be of those] with physical health situations. They will pay you back.

BP: I am a chronically ambitious human. Oftentimes, this comes from a place of working and doing versus dealing with what is bothering or plaguing me at the time. Much of my community involvement came from a place of needing a productive outlet. Fortunately or unfortunately, I have accomplished a lot through that—however, there are times where I simply need a break. I’m learning to absorb and understand that, as well as become OK with it.

X: I wish people knew how much it bothers me to hear the word bipolar being used as an adjective to casually describe things and people. It’s not given as a compliment, and it makes it less likely that I will ever disclose my illness publicly. I also wish people knew how many times I’ve come close to just being open about it, but held back because of the other major diversity and inclusion issues in the tech industry. Women have to deal with being called moody and erratic. People stereotype the ethnic group I belong to as being fiery and ill-tempered. Why would I give people another way to discriminate against me?

http://ift.tt/2DpFJ2G

[survivorsolomonislands]

Episode 4 “We Dancin“ - Mitchell

Zakriah seemed convinced Aromal would flip to Linus since they're both from Wikia... where I played and I had no idea Linus won there???? Wtf!! But whatevs. Anyways, it looked like he did, and both Monty and Linus are safe with Lily going home. Even if I don't fully trust Monty/Karen/Lexi, I do know that I know Monty more than I know Lily, so inherently I trust him more and hopefully we just keep on ousting rookies until then. 

MEANWHILE they just had tribal but my ass is like ! it's a new round !! And I got a clue last time gabbin about some toxins. And I don't know where I'm gonna find dangerous toxins, in the volcano or the lagoon?? Well let's find OUT

Well fuck, that was a mess. I had been unsure about my spot before this tribal and now I know I'm at the bottom, maybe I should have let it go to rocks but I would have been so bitter if I went home. But, at least my debate about working with Linus is officially over because its very clear I can't trust him, I mean I'll work with him because I don't have much of a choice but he's definitely someone I want gone now. I respect his moves and shit and I'd do the same in his position but its VERY obvious he's dangerous. I MISS JACOB. Gotta be a try hard now and do my best to make sure we don't go to tribal again cause I'll probably be next.

So I go searching for the Idol and you know what? When they say someone's looking for an Idol, I'm gonna own up to it. Let's destigmatize Idol searching. If we make it casual and normative, we're creating a more open and honest tribal environment - even though I didn't find the Idol, I found something better, which was a more united tribe. The less paranoid we are about things like Idols the more time we can spend getting to know each other; if we're taking the game casually, it's going to be better for our mindsets moving forward. Familiarity is good for us to have in this game, and if we're familiar with each other, when there's another inevitable swap or merge, you're gonna stick with who you feel familiar with. Open trusting tribe = open trusting alliance, to some degree.

And ANYWAYS I just found ANOTHER clue to the Hidden Immunity Idol. This one basically says that it's in the plane wreckage... but in our cute vets Idol searching doc, someone marked off that the Idol wasn't there. Sneaky sneaky! I don't know, these two clues seem to conflict with each other, but it's definitely disconcerting to have a clue that basically says it's somewhere where we've already searched and nobody's stepped up to it. I mean, if I'd found it, I wouldn't tell everyone about it, but... I didn't find it. Someone else might've. That changes a lot - it's better to be on the outside looking at the person who might've found the Idol than on the inside not knowing that everyone else knows.

The game continues to move. All I can do is to continue to develop bonds with these people and trust that, in three or so days, I'll get some confirmation when I go and search that plane wreck myself. This is quite bonkers.

In this other game I'm in with Aromal we just blindsided this guy together and then that guy deactivated but Aro thought he blocked him and he goes "whew I wasn't tryna get blocked by TWO people i blindsided in one night" so S H O O K LILY FUCKING BLOCKED HIM lily is whitney duncan and aromal is cochran confirmed rkoghkwdjfklf hold me back I'm wylin

These challenges keep getting harder and harder what the heck. Like I'm trying but I'm just not fast enough, and right now we're in the lead, but we really need to keep this up so that I'm not voted out.

What was this tribe doin in this challenge before me?? bupkiss!! their asses were GRASSES!! and then i STARTED gettin into this challenge and you know where we at now???? a 22-point first place to a 16-point second and a 12-point 3rd with 2 and a half hours left to go. i rest my CASE.

my first ever tumblrvivor individual immunity was a speedtyping challenge after jimmy went home, so i really felt like i NEEDED it and i fucking - oops now it's 22-17-12... the last time this happened i SCORED mid-confessional FUCC - DOMINATED IT!!! and it's not as dominant this time, but i'm still leading my tribe to victory here, especially when ur considerin that two tribes are winnin and not just one. we'd have to lose the next 17 consecutive points without gaining a single one to lose and I just don't see that happening.

we dancin, and the longer we continue to dance, the less time i've got to worry and the more time i've got to build bonds with people. they're gonna see my value to this tribe and, the next few days, i'm gonna get the chance to sink my personal value to them individually even further. i'm COCKY and with SOME RIGHT to be and we gon DANCE all night LONG

Y'know, when I said I would be a try hard during this challenge, I didn't think would be on my own for 80% of it. So glad everyone but Aro could help out during the last two hours. Now, I have to see if I can get them to flip on Aro or vote out Daisy rather than me. 

Mitchell did so good in that last immunity challenge like he's the reason we won omg. Also Mitchell is such a cool person like he'd be one of the vets that I would want to work with but I don't wanna tell him that bc he seems to be in the majority with the other vets idk.

It's been a while since I did one of these and so much stuff has happened!

For starters, I'm really happy with my spot in Temoana. We've won the last two immunity challenges, everybody's active and trying, and I'm in a solid and most likely loyal three-person alliance with Johnny and Jacob. Ryan/Matt are really cool and I could see the five of us working together at merge. Six if Lexi decides to stop being inactive.

But I wonder just how long we can keep this immunity streak going. If Lexi shows back up, it's gonna be a 3-3 at the first tribal we go to. That never bodes well and honestly, either one of us 3 could get votes. I'm completely unsure what to think here.

Another day safe in the game, another day closer to the end!

So we lost that last immunity. Again. Which is great, because I have barely any idea where I stand with anyone. After Aro flipping on us, everything is a little sketchy. He said it was because Lily kept throwing out his name as a decoy without telling him, which seems like a shit reason to flip. I mean, if it happened a bunch of times, sure. But it only happened once, which kind of shows how paranoid he is and how easily he'll give up his alliances. I really wanted the newbies to come out on top, but that doesn't seem like an option anymore. I'm pretty sure he's aligned with Linus. I don't think he is, or at least not as strongly, with Monty. I talked with Monty a bit and it kind of seems like right now everyone feels a little bit on their own and confused with their standing. Even Aro said he still wants newbies out on top, and we should go for a vet, but I don't trust him. L.A. and I want him gone ASAP. He's just not trustworthy, plus he barely helped in the last challenge without even giving an explanation. I know I was barely there, but I explained before that I had to go to seder which is something I really can't get out of. Plus, I did the most work in the last challenge. Monty and I agreed we want to work together, and he thinks Aro is a good decision too. I think Linus is on that page too and L.A. definitely is. I'm being a bit wary because anyone could be lying to me, but I really hope this goes as planned, and that I'm not blindsided. I really do want to work with Monty, I think we could go far together but he might not trust me after voting for him last tribal. So we'll see what happens.

Well, after heading into the immunity challenge, seeing Lily gone, and KNOWING that she had the idol is really making me worried. I wouldn't be too surprised if Daisy ended up going home next, because I'm sure Daisy was one of the three votes to keep Lily, and I know that Daisy isn't the BEST when it comes to talking game with people, and having game awareness, so that's also really not working in her favor.

As for the immunity challenge itself, DAMN that was tough. I didn't want to seem like a try hard to the other tribe, but I honestly think I got about half of our points, I didn't really go back to check after the challenge was over, but I wasn't there the whole challenge, which hopefully made people not notice me too much, but I am thrilled we won immunity. I need our tribe to not go to tribal for just a little bit longer so I have time to prepare.

As for the Temoana tribe? I've still got Luca, Jacob and I as a tight three, and I don't see us breaking up, especially considering the fall of the rookies happening on the other tribes. Lex has been pretty fucking quiet, even though I continue to try to talk to her. She participated in yesterday's immunity challenge, but I don't think that she got one point for our team. Didn't she win a main already? What's up with this girl?

I've just made a tight New Jersey and Ginger connection with Ryan, but not only that.. I really like the guy. I think he's cool, and the fact that he really hasn't done well in games lets me think that he's going to do a lot of things to make sure it isn't the same this time as it was last time.

Matt has been pretty quiet, and at this point, I've just been doing mini prayers that we get to merge with at least five rookies still in the game. I'd love for those to be Luca, Jacob, Willow and myself, maybe with a splash of Daisy, but I don't see many high hopes for her going later in the game.

My game plan going forward? Get to another swap and make more solid connections with more vets. I think the merge is going to be crazy, and I really need to begin to start working my social relationships, while fading into the background, and I honestly think I can do it, on top of my killer personality, and trying to not be super intense when it comes to comps, hopefully I won't be seen as a threat for awhile, and my social connections can keep me going for a long long time in this game. I'm in it for the long haul, and I'm not going to go down without a fight, if that's what it comes down to...

Hi! So my plan is to still stick with Monty and Linus. Me and Linus are pretty sure either Daisy or LA has an idol, so the plan is to dupe them into thinking we're voting Daisy and then actually vote out LA. Hopefully everything works out ^_^

Well, wow, last round freaking worked  and Lily was maaaad which was pretty funny. Im worried this time around, L.A and Daisy know they are at the bottom, but like,  they aren't as nervous as they should be. The main reason for this confessional is so L.A can read it after the game though. I play this game aggressively, and it was a very hard choice for me to vote how I am. I think in the short time we spent on a tribe you have become one of my favourite people I've ever played with, however every single ounce of logic tells me that I have to vote you this round. I hope you end up reading this after the game so you know that I genuinely am sorry for this, and I hope we can stay friends down the line no matter what happens. You did amazing for your first org, and this was almost completely out of your hands, so I hope you play again in the future because I know you will completely crush it. You don't deserve this vote at all, but it's the only thing that makes sense for my game since I can't betray my alliance, and they aren't willing to vote Daisy out of risk of an idol. :( 

Im getting weird, very quiet vibes :/ . I don't like it one bit.

[jessicakehoe]

These Celebs Are Destigmatizing Mental Illness

Many campaigns have worked to normalize the discussion around mental health (Bell Let’s Talk and CAMH’s One Brave Night among them). But one thing that really reaches the masses is when a celebrity speaks out about his or her struggle to spread the message that it’s okay to have a mental illness; it doesn’t make you weak.

Anyone who has ever suffered from depression or anxiety—whether temporary or chronic—knows the feeling of wanting to crawl into bed and stay there until things seem okay again. And somehow when these celebrities who seem to have it all come out and say that they actually don’t have their shit together, it is encouraging to us. By focusing on their health, it normalizes the conversation and gives us the courage to take care of ourselves (and be vocal about it).

Below, see the celebrities who are helping to fight the stigma against mental health by being open about their own struggles. Want to learn more about mental illness? Here are 5 myths about anxiety and depression, and information about different types of treatment.

Ariana Grande

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A post shared by Ariana Grande (@arianagrande) on Mar 30, 2019 at 9:57am PDT

In British Vogue’s July 2018 issue, Ariana Grande opened up on her experience with PTSD after the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing. “It’s hard to talk about because so many people have suffered such severe tremendous loss. But, yeah, it’s a real thing,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll ever know how to talk about it and not cry.”

In November 2018, the singer/songwriter dropped a single titled “thank u, next,” dedicated to all of her exes, including the late-Mac Miller (who died this past September of a drug overdose) and ex-fiancé Pete Davidson, which resulted in fans wondering who her therapist is. “Therapy has saved my life so many times,” Grande tweeted in response. “If you’re afraid to ask for help, don’t be.”

photography via instagram/@arianagrande

In an Instagram story posted on April 11, Grande shared a side-by-side image of a healthy brain and a brain affected by PTSD. She also included an image of what is allegedly her brain, which appears to show incredibly high levels of PTSD. “Not a joke,” she captioned the story. In a follow-up story, Grande posted a selfie containing the captions “life is wild,” “she’s trying her muthafukin best,” and “my brain is tired.”

Prince Harry

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Day two of #SussexRoyalTour is underway, and The Duke and Duchess have joined young South Africans and @WavesForChange to focus on mental health and take part in ‘surf therapy’. • Hundreds of young people from Cape Town’s townships meet every week at Monwabisi beach to surf, but also share stories with mentors and talk through the daily challenges they face. Their Royal Highnesses were able to hear how the sessions are building trust, confidence, and belonging, and they also got to join in as children took part in ‘power hand’, which teaches them how to keep calm down reflect on strengths. While on the beach The Duke and Duchess met @TheLunchBoxFund – which was one of the charities they nominated to benefit from donations following the birth of their son, Archie. Almost 30,000 meals are provided by the charity every day across South Africa, including for three @WavesForChange projects. And before they left The Duke and Duchess joined the Commonwealth Litter Programme (CLiP) – which was teaching the surfers about the impact of plastic waste on the ocean. #RoyalVisitSouthAfrica • Photo ©️ photos EMPICS / PA images / SussexRoyal

A post shared by The Duke and Duchess of Sussex (@sussexroyal) on Sep 24, 2019 at 5:00am PDT

The Duke of Sussex has spoken out extensively about his own mental health journey, and the trauma he suffered as a result of losing his mother, Princess Diana, at a young age. In an interview with Bryony Gordon for her podcast about mental health, Mad World, the royal said, “I can safely say that losing my mum at the age of 12, and therefore shutting down all of my emotions for the last 20 years, has had a quite serious effect on not only my personal life but my work as well.”

“I have probably been very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions when all sorts of grief and sort of lies and misconceptions and everything are coming to you from every angle,” he added.

After seeking out counselling and learning to open up about his struggles with friends and family, the royal co-founded Heads Together, a mental health awareness campaign, with Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2016. While on a recent trip to South Africa with Meghan Markle, the royal couple met with Waves For Change, an organization promoting mental wellbeing through surf therapy, and spoke out about the need to counter the stigma against mental illness in our society.

“I think most of the stigma is around mental illness [and] we need to separate the two… mental health, which is every single one of us, and mental illness, which could be every single one of us,” he said. “I think they need to be separated; the mental health element touches on so much of what we’re exposed to, these experiences that these kids and every single one of us have been through. Everyone has experienced trauma or likely to experience trauma at some point during their lives. We need to try, not [to] eradicate it, but to learn from previous generations so there’s not a perpetual cycle.”

Selena Gomez

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I have a lot to be thankful for this year.. My year has been the hardest yet most rewarding one yet. I've finally fought the fight of not 'being enough'. I have only wanted to reflect the love you guys have given me for years and show how important it is to take care of YOU. By grace through faith. Kindness always wins. I love you guys. God bless

A post shared by Selena Gomez (@selenagomez) on Nov 24, 2016 at 6:21pm PST

In August 2016, Selena Gomez announced that she would be taking a break from her career to deal with anxiety, depression and panic attacks associated with lupus (an autoimmune condition from which she suffers). She made a return to the spotlight in November that year at the American Music Awards, where she delivered an emotional, heartfelt speech, briefly touching on her battle with mental health issues.

“I had to stop because I had everything and I was absolutely broken inside. I kept it all together enough to where I would never let you down but I kept it too much together to where I let myself down,” she said. “If you are broken, you do not have to stay broken.”

The songstress also opened up about her issues with mental health in the April 2017 issue of Vogue (which she covered). “Tours are a really lonely place for me,” she told the magazine. “My self-esteem was shot. I was depressed, anxious. I started to have panic attacks right before getting onstage, or right after leaving the stage. Basically I felt I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t capable. I felt I wasn’t giving my fans anything, and they could see it—which, I think, was a complete distortion.”

She revealed she spent 90 days in a mental health facility in Tennessee, surrendering her cell phone and taking part in various forms of therapy. And while Gomez is the second most-followed person on Instagram, she told Vogue she no longer had it on her phone, and an assistant had her password.

“It felt like I was seeing things I didn’t want to see, like it was putting things in my head that I didn’t want to care about,” she said. “I always end up feeling like shit when I look at Instagram. Which is why I’m kind of under the radar, ghosting it a bit.”

Camila Cabello

Former Fifth Harmony member Camila Cabello made headlines in September 2016 after she left the stage early during a performance under the guise of a wardrobe malfunction. She later revealed, on Snapchat, that the cause was excessive anxiety, even tweeting, “just wanna sleep for 3 days.”

Cabello had already been open about her struggles with anxiety prior to the incident, however, telling Billboard that 2015 was a “low” for her, personally.

“I was having terrible anxiety, nonstop. My heart would beat really fast the whole day. Two hours after I woke up, I’d need a nap because my body was so hyperactive,” she recalled. “I was scared of what would happen to me, of the things my brain might tell me. I realized the stuff I thought was important isn’t worth my health. Now I write in a diary every day, work out and meditate.”

In March 2017, the Cuban-born star revealed to Latina magazine that she also deals with obsessive compulsive disorder. “It was just totally out of control,” Cabello told the magazine of her OCD. “I would wake up with a super-accelerated heartbeat and really negative, intrusive, compulsive thoughts. I was so inside my head, and I didn’t know what was happening.”

She continued, “I totally understand now, being in it, why there shouldn’t be such a stigma on mental illness, because it’s a pretty common thing for people. But you can get help. If you’re dedicated to making it better, you can—because I’m in a much better place now. I started reading books about it and it really helped a lot when I understood [the illness], and that [the thoughts I was having] weren’t real. Sometimes you have to remind yourself to slow down and take care of yourself.”

Zayn Malik

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A post shared by Zayn Malik (@zayn) on Aug 14, 2018 at 10:01pm PDT

In June 2016, former One Direction member Zayn Malik cancelled a U.K. concert due to anxiety. He made the announcement on Instagram, writing, “Unfortunately, my anxiety that has haunted me throughout the last few months has gotten the better of me. With the magnitude of the live event, I have suffered the worst anxiety of my career.”

Later that year, Malik revealed in his memoir, Pillow Talk, that panic attacks have stopped him from performing on more than one occasion. “I just couldn’t go through with it,” he wrote. “Mentally, the anxiety had won. Physically, I knew I couldn’t function. I would have to pull out.”

And while a member of his team offered to say he was sick, Malik insisted on being open about his struggle. “I was done with putting out statements that masked what was really going on. I wanted to tell the truth. Anxiety is nothing to be ashamed of; it affects millions of people every day,” he explained. “I don’t want to say I’m sick. I want to tell people what’s going on, and I’m not gonna be ashamed of what’s happening.”

Cara Delevingne

In 2016, Cara Delevingne took to Twitter to reveal she took a break from modelling due to depression. “I suffer from depression and was a model during a particularly rough patch of self hatred,” she explained. Later that year, she told Esquire she had been struggling with mental illness since she was a teen, more specifically, after she discovered her mother’s drug addiction.

“I was suicidal. I couldn’t deal with it anymore. I realized how lucky and privileged I was, but all I wanted to do was die,” she told the magazine, adding a six-month break from school and medication might have helped save her life at 16.

However, Cara stopped the meds at age 18, saying “I get depressed still but I would rather learn to figure it out myself rather then be dependant on meds, ever.”

Adele

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Auckland / Mt Smart Stadium / Mar 25

A post shared by Adele (@adele) on Mar 25, 2017 at 9:41pm PDT

Despite being a 15-time Grammy winner, Adele still experiences stage fright. In March 2017, she admitted to her New Zealand concertgoers that she may never tour again, due to the ongoing issue. “Touring isn’t something I’m good at–applause makes me feel a bit vulnerable. I don’t know if I will ever tour again,” she told the audience. “I get so nervous with live performances that I’m too frightened to try anything new. It’s actually getting worse. Or it’s just not getting better, so I feel like it’s getting worse, because it should’ve gotten better by now.”

Lady Gaga

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I felt like a princess in custom @tiffanyandco made just for me for the #GoldenGlobes 🤗 The Aurora necklace was named after the Aurora Borealis as an homage to #AStarIsBorn 🌟 #TiffanyAndCo

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In 2016, Lady Gaga revealed she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after she was raped at age 19. “I suffer from PTSD, I’ve never told anyone that before,” she said on the Today show in December 2016. “But the kindness that’s been shown to me, by doctors as well as family and friends, has really saved my life.”

More recently, Gaga opened up about her mental health struggles in a conversation with Prince William, as part of the royal’s Heads Together #oktosay series, which aims to end the stigma with the help of celebrities.

“For me, waking up every day and feeling sad and going on stage is something that is very hard to describe. There’s a lot of shame attached to mental illness. You feel like something’s wrong with you,” she told the Duke of Cambridge via FaceTime. “In my life, I go, ‘Oh my goodness, look at all these beautiful, wonderful things that I have. I should be so happy,’ but you can’t help it if, in the morning when you wake up, you are so tired, you are so sad, you are so full of anxiety and the shakes that you can barely think.”

But despite her hardships, the A Star is Born actress told William “the best thing that could come out of my mental illness was to share it with other people.”

“I feel like we are not hiding anymore, we’re starting to talk, and that’s what we need to do really,” she said.

Demi Lovato

Demi Lovato is one of the most vocal mental health awareness advocates in the biz. The former Disney star, who has battled drug and alcohol addictions, bipolar disorder, self-harm and an eating disorder for years underwent rehab in 2010 and in 2013. Now, Lovato is much healthier and is committed to ending the stigma against mental illness. In 2015, she launched the Be Vocal campaign as a way to encourage individuals struggling with mental illness to talk about what they’re going through.

“I think the more people vocalize what they’re going through—their experience or just simply educating themselves so that they can learn more about what they’re talking about—that’s going to be the key to creating a conversation about mental illness and making it more understood,” she told HuffPost. “There’s a lack of compassion for people who have mental illnesses and there’s a lot of judgment. Once you make people realize that mental illness can happen to anybody—and it’s not anybody’s fault—then I think they’ll become more understanding of what mental illness really is.”

Jennifer Lawrence

Photography by Steve Granitz/WireImage

Jennifer Lawrence opened up about her struggle with anxiety in 2013, telling Madame Figaro that she began experiencing symptoms as a preteen. “When my mother told me about my childhood, she always told me that there was like a light in me, a spark that inspired me constantly,” Lawrence told the magazine. “When I started school, the light went out. It was never known what it was, a kind of social anxiety.”

She eventually went to seek help from a therapist and turned to acting as a form of self-therapy. She also revealed to the New York Times that she manages her anxiety with the use of prescription meds.

Emma Stone

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Oscar winner Emma Stone told Rolling Stone in 2016 that she experienced bouts of anxiety and panic attacks as a child. “My anxiety was constant,” she said. “I would ask my mom a hundred times how the day was gonna lay out. What time was she gonna drop me off? Where was she gonna be? What would happen at lunch? Feeling nauseous. At a certain point, I couldn’t go to friends’ houses anymore–I could barely get out the door to school.”

She did reveal, however, that therapy and acting, specifically improv and sketch comedy, is what helped her work through it. “You have to be present in improv, and that’s the antithesis of anxiety,” she explained.

Chrissy Teigen

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My stoop buddy

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Chrissy Teigen is never one to hold back, but she shocked fans when she penned an essay for Glamour in 2017 on her struggle with postpartum depression. “I couldn’t figure out why I was so unhappy. I blamed it on being tired and possibly growing out of the role: ‘Maybe I’m just not a goofy person anymore. Maybe I’m just supposed to be a mom,'” she wrote, later adding “postpartum does not discriminate.”

Months later, Teigen finally saw her family doctor, where she got her diagnosis. She began taking antidepressants. “I’m speaking up now because I want people to know it can happen to anybody and I don’t want people who have it to feel embarrassed or to feel alone. I also don’t want to pretend like I know everything about postpartum depression, because it can be different for everybody. But one thing I do know is that—for me—just merely being open about it helps.”

Troian Bellisario

In November 2016, Pretty Little Liars star Troian Bellisario revealed via a voting PSA that she struggled with an eating disorder when she was younger. She said it was early detection and mental healthcare that saved her. “If I had just been shunned to the side as not having ‘real problems’, I don’t know that I would be living today,” she explained. “I just want to make sure that everybody has the same opportunity for treatment that I have, and I think that we have to make sure that our government invests in those programs.”

Troian shared her story on her struggles with anorexia in her film Feed, which she wrote and directed. “It was not easy; it was like engaging with an addiction,” she told Interview magazine of revisiting her story, adding that working on the film was “like poking a sleeping dragon.” “One of the things I really wanted the film to explore was that once you have this relationship, once you have this mental illness or this disease, it never really goes away.”

And just like many others who suffer from mental illness, Bellisario said she feels like no one truly understands what she went through. “Still to this day, I couldn’t get anyone—even the people who loved me the most, even my boyfriend or my mother or my father—to understand what that experience was truly like for me,” she said. “It was about my eating disorder, and I found there were so many people who thought that it was about losing weight or being skinny, and I couldn’t quite get them to understand that it was about control on a very, very literal level.”

Gina Rodriguez

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One year after the devastation of Hurricane Maria, there is still work to be done. Thank you @ricky_martin for giving us all an opportunity to continue to contribute to the reconstruction of our beautiful island of Puerto Rico. #allin4pr #miislabonita ❤️🙌🏽 link in bio 🇵🇷🇵🇷🇵🇷

A post shared by Gina Rodriguez-LoCicero (@hereisgina) on Oct 26, 2018 at 4:12pm PDT

Jane the Virgin star Gina Rodriguez got candid about her struggle with anxiety in a moving Instagram post. “I suffer from anxiety,” she captioned the video, which sees her makeup-free in a New York Yankees cap. “And watching this clip I could see how anxious I was but I empathize with myself. I wanted to protect her and tell her it’s ok to be anxious, there is nothing different or strange about having anxiety and I will prevail.”

Shawn Mendes

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Je t’aime France ! 🇫🇷 x

A post shared by Shawn Mendes (@shawnmendes) on Nov 10, 2018 at 2:31pm PST

It may be hard to believe that Canada’s very own heartthrob has had his fair share of anxious episodes, but he has. In April 2018, the singer-songwriter told The Sun in an interview that he had seen a therapist a few times. “I found I was closing myself off from everybody, thinking that would help me battle [my anxiety], then realizing the only way I was going to battle it was completely opening up and letting people in,” Mendes said.

Said anxiety was chronicled in his single “In My Blood” (Lyrics: Help me, it’s like the walls are caving in, sometimes I feel like giving up, no medicine is strong enough, someone help me.)

“All pain is temporary, and the thing is with anxiety, and why it’s such a hard thing for people who don’t have it to understand, is that it is very random and it hits you at moments you don’t expect it. Sometimes it lasts two hours, sometimes it lasts a day and sometimes it lasts five minutes,” he said.

Sarah Hyland

Back in December 2018, Sarah Hyland opened up about experiencing suicidal thoughts after her body rejected a kidney donated by her dad. The Modern Family star, who has had a slew of health problems her whole life, appeared on Ellen in early January 2019 and spoke about her depression.

“After 26, 27 years of just always being sick and being in chronic pain every single day—and [you] don’t know when you’re going to have the next good day—it’s really, really hard…” she said.

“I would write letters in my head to loved ones of why I did it, and my reasoning behind it, and how it wasn’t anybody’s fault,” the 28-year-old revealed, adding that she was “very, very, very close,” to taking her own life.

When asked how she overcame her suicidal thoughts and depression, Hyland said that she confided in a close friend (“I finally said it out loud to someone… just saying it out loud helped immensely, because I kept it to myself for months and months at a time.”) who urged her to see a therapist.

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