A (not so) Little Introduction

Hi guys! Thank you so much for taking time our of your day to read! I just wanted to give a (not so) little introduction to the blog, “Mental.” and tell you guys a little about myself and what I hope to achieve with this blog!

The topic of mental health is very close to my heart. Ever since I was 13 or 14 years-old I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression. Of course, at the time I had no idea that was what I was actually experiencing. I was acting out, drinking, smoking, trying to get boys’ attention, etc. I’d do Anything to not feel the way I was feeling. When I started driving, I began skipping school because of the anxiety that came with it. When I look back at my time in high school, I can’t even remember one week straight where I didn’t feel that stomach dropping feeling of doom. Sometimes I would think, “how or why did I end up like this?” I felt hopeless, lost, confused and worst of all, no self-love. It was ugly, it was dark, and I’m definitely skimming over all the super deep stuff (I may go into detail in a separate post one day.) Thankfully, my parents began to recognize that I was struggling and sent me to a therapist. Let me tell you… THERAPY SAVED MY LIFE. It’s funny because I remember being so embarrassed to be in high school and having to check out for so many “doctor appointments” to go see my therapist weekly. Some how I made it out of the darkness and began to see a future for myself. I decided I wanted to help people like me cope and get through their darkness too. When I say this, I’m not saying I’m always and completely cured from my anxiety and depression. It is definitely a struggle some days for me to even get out of bed or to go to the “fun” party and socialize. I struggle with depression relapse which is basically a reoccurrence of depression, however, going to therapy has helped me gain the coping skills I need in order to not spiral down into a full depressive episode.

I’m telling you all this because it is so important to talk about your mental health. I hope by coming forward about my struggles that you, too, will want to seek help or even just talk to someone about what you’re going through. I am not a licensed professional (yet), but I am always here if anyone has questions or wants any advice that I can give through my own personal experience with anxiety and depression.

I am creating “Mental.” as a creative and safe space for people to learn and talk about all thing’s mental health. With this, I hope to achieve not only spreading the word about mental health, but to also spark a conversation about mental health struggles. Sometimes talking about mental health and our struggles is well, blah… so my goal is to talk about it in a fun (as fun as it could possibly be) and fresh way. I will be posting all about my coping skills along with tips and tricks from licensed professionals, some favorite tools of mine that help me, and contemporary topics and issues in the mental health world.

Thank you all so much for the read and don’t forget to subscribe if you’d like to get instant notifications when I post! You can also follow my Instagram account and like the Mental.blog Facebook page!!

Xo,

Anna Katherine