It can feel impossible to face the challenges of daily life when all you feel is nothing, or too much at once to process. You may even be feeling these polarities at once, which can be intense and confusing, and can make you feel like you are going crazy at times. Numbness and sensory overload are fraternal twin acquaintances that contribute to these identical spectrums of pain and suffering.

The worse suicidal thoughts become over time, the worse we feel – and the harder it becomes to know what to do to stop it all. Things become scary. It’s easy to feel out of control, or like you are spiraling into an abyss at a speed you cannot easily regain control over.

Society still stigmatizes mental health to the point that it often remains uncomfortable to talk to your family and friends about your feelings and state of mind. Unfortunately, some people don’t know how to react, and the subject makes them feel uncomfortable. Most people don’t want to face their own mortality, or the concept of death; so they struggle with the idea of a loved one experiencing a close relationship with mortality.

When important concepts like suicide are stigmatized, tension and stress remain heightened, and relief is regularly delayed, or non-existent.

So, what are we to do when we feel consumed by suicidal ideation?

Finding Light in the Darkness

While it may seem impossible that we can retrace our steps and find a way out of the grips of darkness, it is not. It’s also not something that magically happens overnight, and there certainly isn’t a potion we can drink to make all of our pain and problems go away.

As a start, let’s try to consider the idea that we aren’t fond of the thoughts that are causing us so much pain. Those same thought patterns convince us that we cannot change, and that things will always be this way. But, they truly don’t have to be.

We don’t have to believe what those thoughts tell us. In essence, thoughts are things. We can learn to choose to replace/recycle/remodel the things we identify as root causes of thoughts that plague us. Suicidal ideation consumes your focus and energy, and can drain you of all hope, but hope can be restored over time with effective support and resources.

I would like to share with you, an idea that helped reshape my framework for living.

Your mindset yields your thoughts,
Your thoughts yield your beliefs,
Your beliefs yield your actions,
Your actions yield your habits,
Your habits yield your results.

This is not to say that you are the cause of your suicidal ideation.

In fact, there are unconscious processes that control our mental processes. Think of this concept as an iceberg: 90 percent of our decisions and actions occur unconsciously, and 10 percent, on a conscious level. That means that it’s possible for us to think we have more control than we often do over our thoughts and decisions, but they are actually being influenced by experiences, memories, and other various factors.

It may not feel possible to change or take control of your thoughts, but it is a habit that can be formed with time and support. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) can help change coping habits by reframing thought processes, and creating a more supportive mental foundation. This can truly bring welcome relief into your life, and hope of continuing to get better.

What if It Feels Impossible to Stop Feeling Suicidal?

Suicidal ideation unfortunately doesn’t come with a light switch that we can flip on or off, but it can be rewired little by little over time. It doesn’t matter how many weeks, months, or years it takes to feel better. How long it takes to find relief is no measure of your strength or abilities, and everyone heals differently.

Life can be sometimes pictured be like a game. We navigate the days using the tools given to us, and some levels may seem too difficult to move past. If we fail to ‘level-up’ at times, we still acquire insight and experience. Changing how we perceive and value those experiences, has the ability to change how we experience life.

Everyone is deserving of renewal of hope, and the support of others along the way. Talking may be one of the first or last things you feel like doing, but it is one of the first steps along the path to feeling better. Who you decide you talk to is completely up to you.

If you like the idea of talking in a safe space amongst internet strangers, SF is a community of empathetic individuals that share the experience of suicidal ideation. Life can feel a little easier when you are reminded that you aren’t alone, and you never are on this forum.

What are YOU doing TODAY to make Tomorrow Better?

If NOTHING, then do not be disappointed when tomorrow is not better…..

I put it on my signature line though not so much as a reminder to people I reply to – but mostly as a reminder to myself- my own mantra of sorts- about how to keep going when things get bad. It is misunderstood mostly because it is applied incorrectly. I get a lot of questions asking how it can be applied in their situation because there are not answers in their situation and things can’t change.  All it is really saying is that every day is a chance to make something better for tomorrow.

I do not believe things get better spontaneously in most instances. The longer we wait to start working on a problem the longer it typically takes to find a solution. Problems have a way of getting worse over time and inaction, not better. That said, most people take my question far too seriously and try to apply it to the big problems in life first. Wife left them – what can they do to make that not an issue for them? Failed out of the University and can’t find a job, already applied for 200 jobs, what can they do to get a paycheck next Friday? What can they do today that solves those issues tomorrow?

The brain has a way of spinning things into a dark place of “how can you do something today to make those issues better” and if I can’t or you can’t answer that, then maybe it is okay to give up because we can’t change it anyway so… It often boils down to looking for a reason to stop trying and spending so much effort, to get the okay to stop trying just because the effort of continuing is so much and we are just plain tired.

My Ideas About Life 

I emphasize “my” ideas because I can’t speak for everybody else and I can’t even be sure I am 100% right on everything I think. I just go with what has worked for me over the last few years.

Life is many things. There are the big things like work, family, relationships, health, financial situation etc. that effect everybody in some way or another. The commonality of all of them is they are big things and for the most part all include a great many things well beyond our personal control. We can’t control the economy, or the thoughts and actions of other people, and for the most part we are stuck with whatever health we are in as many of the big issues are the results of decisions made years before (or genetics) that we cannot change now.

This means in a couple sentences we have taken all the “big important” things in life off the table as out of our direct control because the most we can do is influence them- we cannot control the results. They have too many factors where we are at the mercy of fate/ other people/ luck/god- choose for yourself- but it is not all us, and not just our choices and decisions. Even the parts that are “us” often have components from the decisions of many years before that we can no longer change, so at this point in time with “What can we do today to make tomorrow better” it may be pretty hard to pick something that will have a direct and certain (much less immediate) effect.

I have a lot of health issues. I cannot cure them/fix them and they affect so many facets of life – virtually everything I do. I also have money issues like many people, real employment is not an option due to health, I lost a 6 figure income job due to physical health just as my kids were starting in university, I sometimes have family problems, basically no friends except a few online since I stopped working near 10 years ago, all I have is immediate family that even talk to me, chronic intense pain, and I could go on with the list. Many reading this have similar issues, and many more as well. This is the same list that had me searching for suicide methods 8 or 9 years ago when I found this site, and in all that time the big issues have not changed substantially. But things are much better now than they used to be, why?

People often try to compare their issues with somebody else’s, and both come away thinking something different about who is worse off. The reality is it doesn’t matter because we have to live our own lives, and the problems other people are dealing with do not make our lives better or worse. The problems other people have do not change our life. Just because they may have something “worse”, our life is not improved in any way, and we do not feel better because they have cancer and we do not. We also have to remember in the same way, the successes of other people do not make our lives worse.

Somebody else being happily married, having 2 luxury cars, a boat, and high paying job has no effect on our lives. The first place where many people make themselves miserable is while being very quick to agree that somebody else having bigger problems does nothing make their own problems better, they refuse to see that somebody else’s successes do not make their life worse. The only thing that can really affect our own life is the way we feel and react to our own life. 

What is your life really? Is it politics and the economy and the laws and regulations and statistics of wealth and ownership and debt and all the other things we see on the news? Or is our life what we do when we get up, what we do in the day, in the afternoon, in the evening, and at night? Is it what the average dinner out costs in a large metropolitan area or is it what we have to eat right now for breakfast? I believe our life is really far more about our satisfaction or contentment about ourselves in any given moment or period of time. If there are a lot of good moments throughout the day, it is overall a good day. If there are not a lot (or none) it is a bad day.

What I Have Learned About Depression

I can directly change the way I feel tomorrow morning when I walk into the kitchen to make coffee by doing the dishes and picking up tonight before I go to bed. If my kitchen is nice and clean and smells good, if I can start the coffee and hear the birds out my windows at the bird feeder then my life can be actually okay for that few minutes in the morning- peaceful and relaxing- better because I did the dishes and picked up last night, and fed the birds yesterday.

If when I get up I have to make room in the sink to try to wash out a cup for my coffee while the smell of half sour milk from around the drain is all I notice, then I have to fill the coffee pot with water before I can make coffee, and clear off a place on table before I can even set my coffee cup down my morning is many things- but it is not nice or relaxing. It becomes just another indicator of the worthlessness of my life.

Pretty specific example I know, because that is what depression and trying to learn to adjust was for me. I felt like there was no point in the little things because the big problems were always there, and there was nothing I could do about them. I did not bother shaving, getting dressed, or doing more than the most basic chores around the house- none of it mattered anyway. I was still sick, could not work, was losing so much financially after I got sick, etc. etc. Who has time to care about the little things when all these big real problems need fixing?

Then at some point I cleaned up the kitchen and got things sorted out because I had a health worker stopping by in the morning and I somehow managed to decide I still had some small pride and did not want them to think I was a slob on top of everything else. The next morning I got up and it was nice. The person called and cancelled appointment so never showed up, but the morning coffee was nice. For the first time in over a year there was an hour or two of day that was almost okay. I did not feel better health wise, and none of the financial issues or any problems were dealt with, but I found something I could improve and had done it. So I started trying to do that as often as I could.

I started looking for things I could do to make things a little easier or better. Where I stored my medications, moving bird feeders to where I could see them, just lots and lots of little things. There are so many big problems that I could not change, but by spending more effort on a lot of little things I started adding a few good hours to my day to help offset the many bad ones. As I had more good hours and things felt okay sometimes, then I also found I could do more real work towards the “big things.”

After a while I could concentrate enough to take an online class to learn about digital media and graphics and I got some small freelance jobs that make a little extra money helping out with the financial issues for example. It also gave me more things to do during the day so I was not just staring at walls with my thoughts spinning out of control.

“What we can do today to make tomorrow better” is not always going to be find a job, or even send out 10 job applications- though either one of those might be something. It is anything we can do that will make any moment of tomorrow just a tiny bit better than it was today. The very small little things work to make tomorrow better also. When it feels like virtually everything in our lives is worthless or a problem, there are a ton of things to fix. But after a year, 300 little things being made better all add up, and suddenly tomorrow is a LOT better. 

Life, happiness, peace, and contentment do not depend on just the big things that we don’t have, it is also being able to “smell the roses” and find pleasure and joy or relax in the moment. When all the little things get better or start getting better, then there is energy to really try on the big things. Depression can be so overwhelming that it makes success at the big things nearly impossible, but with the ability to enjoy some small things sometimes we can push back the depression, and make a meaningful effort on the big things again.

I know it all sounds like “just deal with it and be happy anyway.” A more colorful and sarcastic expression “when life gives you a shit sandwich are you supposed to be grateful you are not starving?” No, that is not what I am saying. It is more like I feel like having prime rib, but I am not going to decide to go hungry if all they have is roast chicken. I sincerely believe life is less about what you have and more about what you think about it and if you are able to resist reacting in a manner out of proportion to the issues.  

Forgone Conclusions and Self Fulfilling Prophesies

It is very easy to make small problems bigger and big problems insurmountable. People do it all the time, myself included. It comes from the natural aversion to things that are difficult and/or that may result in failure. By making problems bigger in our minds we give ourselves permission to simply not try at all or to avoid the risk of failing. If somebody has failed at a number of things then it is even more alluring to both avoid the effort of trying and avoid failing. The simple truth is it provides two positives in the short term for what is only a hoped for benefit in the long term. Given that seemingly logical equation, when we are suffering from depression it makes the choice seem obvious.

The reality is that while it saves some effort and the risk of failure, it also make success impossible. The answer to that in the depressed mind is even if it did work out then it would not last anyway. Then with the now insurmountable problems firmly established in our minds plus the “fact” that it will not stay good even if it did work, we are not going to work on big problems or issues but simply use them as excuses, and since we cannot fix the now big problems there is no point in doing the small things either as nothing will ever make life “good”. In deciding that we do in fact ensure that everything in our life is bad. It also makes us know on some level by not having tried that we have failed yet again, compounding the original fears.

There are in fact some situations that cannot be changed, or that are hopeless to continue to put effort into. If somebody has died they are gone, some medical or physical health situations are beyond hope, there are even some mental health issues that have no complete cure as of yet, and a break-up or divorce may well be final. We need to face the reality that all of these things, while having no full solution, are also relatively common place and do not prevent millions of other people from having a decent quality of life. It is a matter of not allowing our reaction to a situation or even combination of situations to dictate every aspect of our life.

There are always places where you can make life better. They do not have to be big things. Maybe the answers do not even exist to all the big things. But the hours in your day are filled with a lot of small things, and finding ways to make those small things meaningful gives life value. You cannot appreciate the smaller things if all the time all your focus is on the big problems or on the things you do not have. But there are ways to make the small things better which in turn makes the hours in the morning, during the day, and through your evenings better. When some things start to get better it becomes easier to either accept the things you cannot change, or to find energy and ability to change those that you can (even if they require a lot of effort).

If every day you put in the effort to make even one small thing better for the next day, then over time things do improve. When a year has passed and 350+ things in your life are better it is hard to feel like there is nothing good in your life. In fact, you start to feel like life may have problems, but it is worth it. Just by using today to make something better for tomorrow.

If you’d like to start doing something today, come join our community here.

College is a time of great change and stress. Many students figure out who they are with less influence from their parents. They meet people with viewpoints they’ve never considered. They have to balance schoolwork, their social lives, and their budget in ways that many of them never had to before. Their bodies and brains are also going through developmental and hormonal changes that make them likely to doubt themselves. It’s no wonder that college students report high levels of anxiety, depression, and stress. Below are several coping mechanisms and methods for college students to protect their mental health.

Outline the Changes You’re Experiencing

College comes with a lot of firsts. Some firsts you may be experiencing include:

• Living away from your parents
• Managing your complete budget
• Creating your own schedule
• Paying bills/rent/utilities

This is a lot of responsibility, and depending on your previous experience, you may not be prepared to address all these changes at once. It’s a good idea to sit down and list all the life changes you’re likely to experience, and create some first steps for addressing each one. This list will look different for everyone, and the changes that present challenges can be surprising. When I was in college in Portland, a lot of my fellow students were from Hawaii. Portland’s strong rain and lack of sun for the nine months of the school year had a substantial effect on the mental health of students used to being in the sun all the time. One of the Universities had a sunroom with special lights where students suffering from seasonal affective disorder could go to relax and get some much needed UV rays.

Make Self-Care Part of Your Routine

Stress has countless physical effects on your body. These can be aggravated if you don’t give your body the rest and nourishment you need. Here are some self-care actions you can take, ranging from addressing basic health needs to giving yourself the physical and mental space to replenish your energy.

• Monitor how much sleep your body needs to thrive, then strive to get that much sleep most nights of the week. For most college students, this will range from 7-9 hours.
• Hydrate! Drink your 8+ glasses of water each day. If you’re a coffee person, drinking a glass of water while your coffee is brewing is a great way to speed up the waking up process.
• Set aside wind-down time. Even if it’s just half an hour before bed, set aside time to just let your mind wander and unwind from the day.
• Avoid blue light from digital screens before bed. This light keeps your mind awake and prevents optimal sleep.
• Exercise regularly. Exercise gets your blood flowing to the brain and promotes clearer thinking. Even if you just take the stairs instead of the elevator or walk laps around campus, your body and mind will thank you.
• Take time each week for relaxation. This could mean taking a bath, coloring, reading, or doing pretty much anything that you enjoy and can relax while doing. Since students already spend so much time looking at screens, try to avoid using TV as a relaxing activity. Your body may be sedentary, but your mind gets stressed by all the stimulation TV provides.

College can be overwhelming, but by being aware and considerate of your body, you can protect your physical and mental health. If you ever start to feel overwhelmed by all the changes happening in your life, be sure to talk to someone. Your fellow students are experiencing the same thing, and your professors, university staff, and parents will likely understand your stress and help you build an action plan to combat it.

By Avery T. Phillips,  a freelance human being with too much to say. She loves nature and examining human interactions with the world. 

What Is The Purpose Of An Emotional Support Animal?

ESAs can be any domesticated animal that offers its handler comfort and relief from emotional pain. These animals, especially dogs, can assist with dealing with emotional disorders that include:

• Suicidal tendencies/thoughts
• Anxiety
• Mood disorders
• Phobias/fears
• PTSD
• Bipolar disorder
• Depression
• Panic attacks

Moreover, emotional support animals, whether a dog, cat or a hamster, are great for alleviating loneliness, which is especially beneficial for people whose brains work a little differently. A lone sole tends to over think, and becomes more aware of his miseries and problems. On the other hand, a person who has to run around a dog and follow a schedule will have less time for negative thoughts and therefore will be happier.

Loneliness is more serious than it seems. “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop”. People who are emotionally distressed and lonely will have more suicidal tendencies and poor mental health. These animals act as a constant companion for their owners/handlers and are a reminder that even if the world turned against them, they will always be there to goof around and be supportive. Emotional support animals are often used as a means of therapy for suicidal people as they give them a reason to stay behind and enjoy life.

When you no longer feel alone and are happier, you are at a higher chance of healing, whether from an injury or an illness. The great thing about these emotional support animals is they neither judge nor complain, a quality that is deficient in human beings. You can be your truest self around your pet and still be loved and accepted by them.

The purpose of an emotional support animal is to be an emotionally challenged person’s constant companion who loves him/her unconditionally and without any demands. Although they cannot respond, these animals, especially dogs and cats, detect pain and discomfort and try in their own special way to comfort their handler. This in turn relieves stress and the feeling of uselessness and improves overall health. Research suggests that emotional support animals help lower cholesterol and blood pressure levels and improve heart health.

Besides reducing boredom and anxiety, an emotional support animal can also help increase socialization. Dog walking and dog parks can be a great way to make new friends and broaden your social circles. Animals also are a great topic of conversation and can sprout long-lasting friendships and even relationships.

ESAs are widely used in pet therapy to improve the patient’s social, mental and emotional functioning with animal support. Besides, they are also used in schools and hospitals and after disasters in order to give consolation to the patients and the victims.

Who Qualifies for an Emotional Support Animal?

There are many different ways a person might be qualified to own an Emotional Support Animal and that  can receive an ESA letter for their usage. Here is just a few of the disorders that a person may be prescribed an ESA:

• Anxiety (both adult and children)
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Depression
• Social Phobia
•  Many other disorders as well- talk to a qualified professional to determine if a particular disorder would qualify

Getting a pet Certified as an Official Emotional Support Animal and having an official letter that verifies this special status will often allow individuals special consideration when it comes to housing or use of the support animal in public areas or places that would other wise not allow the keeping of a “pet”. The process of getting this letter is often times made easier by using private companies that understand the laws governing the use of ESA’s, and are able to process the applications very quickly, many times in as little as 72 hours.

Author Bio: Brad Smith is an avid animal lover and content enthusiast living in Philadelphia. He spends most of his time freelancing content writing and volunteering at his church.

Hello everybody! I have thought about what to write but I was actually a bit stumped! I was going to share something I had written in the grips of a nasty depression but I am just not brave enough to share it today. Instead, I thought I’d talk about the misconceptions surrounding mental illness.

As most people know, I am diagnosed with Bipolar Affective Disorder which I am fairly open and honest about, but I also have the addition of EUPD traits which I am not so honest about because of the stigma around it. I do not (yet) have a full blown diagnosis but I suspect it will come one day.

Despite finding the BP diagnosis less stigmatising there are also many misconceptions surrounding it. The most common misconception people have is that people who have it flit between feeling happy and sad. WRONG. Some people only suffer with mania, some people suffer with mania and depression and some suffer with hypomania and depression. Mania does not equal happiness. It is horrid. I suffer from a milder form of mania called hypomania. For me, this starts with me feeling very energetic to begin with and my ideas come thick and fast. At first it does feel good, especially if I have just flipped out of a horrid depression. Because of this, I tend to ignore this early warning sign because it feels good and normal. But the longer it goes on for, the worse the symptoms get. I then get racing thoughts which come thick and fast. The best way to describe it is having 300 radios turned on all at once on different channels. I start to obsess over peculiar things and I don’t sleep very much. I have sent many an embarassing email or text, started weird hobbies or think that I am the fountain of all knowledge about certain topics and like I should be educating the world. I can quite often have 2 hours sleep and then feel like I can take on the world. My speech becomes rapid and I often jumble my words up. Sleep deprivation often worsens mania. I have also spent all my money on stupid things, but thankfully I have never gotten myself into debt, which thousands of sufferers do. Because of the increase in energy combined with the racing thoughts, this is when it starts to turn nasty. I become agitated because I can’t keep up with myself or my thoughts. I can’t sit still and I find it hard to focus.

When it gets to this point it means my mood is on the turn and I am stuck in something called a “mixed episode”. This means I have both symptoms of mania and depression at the same time, which is hell on earth if you’ve ever experienced it. I get very agitated but with a lot of energy which when you mix that with a combination of suicidal ideation is a very toxic mix. I thankfully rarely suffer with psychosis during this state but I have done. I have heard voices that say very bad things, I have seen things I shouldn’t see and I become paranoid that I am being watched but the reasoning behind it can differ. But it is usually that someone is plotting against me. Thankfully, my hypomania and mixed episodes do not happen very often, but when they do, boy do I know about it!

Now depression, whether you have bipolar or or unipolar depression, on its own or comorbid with another mental health illnesses is also less than pleasant. It’s not just feeling a bit sad or a bit down. Unfortunately life sometimes happens and it is not always rosey, so to feel down in these situations is a fairly normal emotional response to an event. But when the sadness is persistant with constant low mood, tearfulness, morbid thoughts, lack of motivation, withdrawal etc. it may be early warning signs that you are becoming depressed. When I am not poorly I can look at myself and my life objectively. I am a fairly decent human being with a good job, good family, great friends, decent life etc. But when I am depressed, the inner bully comes out. Worthless, nothing, disgrace, useless, burden, better off dead are very frequent thoughts that I have even when I consider my depression fairly mild. These are fairly common day to day thoughts as my current baseline is mildly/moderately depressed but functioning. But there are days where I can just look at myself in the mirror and burst out into tears because I am ashamed of what I have become. I can lay awake all night, ruminating but not want to get out of bed because I can’t face the world. Sometimes I literally have to bully myself out of bed. Sometimes I can’t even do simple tasks. But I have a great poker face. Quite often, people don’t realise that I even have depression. I can paint on a smile and just get on with “normal” day to day activities. But sometimes, I am just screaming inside, fighting a battle against myself which drains all my energy and I burn out. I have been in that place where I have wished that I was not here. I know that place all too well as I have been there many times. I can’t always just “suck it up” or “pull myself together”.

Bipolar is also not just about switching between several emotions in a day. Bipolar episodes last weeks, not hours. You are not “feeling bipolar” today just because you feel a bit up and down. You are not “feeling depressed” because you feel a bit down in the dumps. Bipolar and depression are not feelings, they are illnesses. It is not “cool” or “trendy” to have it. It is hell. I have to take strong medication to control it. I have to see doctors and nurses regularly. I have to put in a lot of effort to self manage my condition. I have had to have years of therapy to learn how to handle my thoughts, emotions and behaviours. I used to have a really good memory up until my most recent acute episode. It is better than it was. I have trouble word finding at times and stutter at times because of the cognitive effects of the illness and medication. I have had uber shitty side effects from meds. From severe tremors, to anxiety, to agitation, to feeling sedated and putting on shit loads of weight because antipsychotics make you crave carbs and sugar 24/7 and slows down your metabolism. So yes, this is definitely not a “cool” illness to have (is any?)

Now, EUPD, which is the abbreviation for Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder. I hate the name of the diagnosis. It was formerly known as Borderline Personality Disorder which was not great, but did not include the word “unstable” in its name. “Unstable” make you automatically think “crazy”. This is one of the worst MH illnesses to be diagnosed with. As soon as you come across a doctor, nurse, healthcare professional and they see you have that diagnosis, you are automatically labelled as a trouble maker. It is a complex illness that is difficult to manage, mainly because of the fear of abandonment, impulsivity and black and white thinking. Many label people with EUPD/BPD as attention seekers. Maybe they are, mainly because they are desperate to be understood. It is normally because they do not know how to reach out for help so they can often do things like engage in risky behaviour, self harm or lash out because what they feel can be so intense. EUPD/BPD is often a result of childhood trauma or abuse, bad past experiences and sometimes the way that you have been brought up. It is often comorbid with other illnesses such as depression, PTSD and sunstance abuse.

So what does “crazy” look like? It doesn’t have a face. Anybody can be affected by mental illness at any time in their lives. From looking at me, many people would not guess that I have a chronic mental illness. I can look at others and not guess that they suffer too. It is an invisible illness that does not discriminate.

What can you do to help? Well, for me personally, fussing and treading on eggshells doesn’t help as it makes me feel paranoid. Asking me if I am “okay” frequently drives me insane. I don’t mind once or twice, but it makes me paranoid and gives me a complex. I prefer normality as much as possible It also helps to know that you are there. A hug, a smile, a simple text can be all I need to help me get through the day. I also don’t mind people asking me questions. I would much rather someone ask me a question about something they didn’t understand rather than ignorantly jumping to conclusions. Spread awareness. Spreading awareness combats stigma. Educating people about the signs, symptoms and effects of mental illness can help you spot them in yourself and others so you can reach out and get help. “Crazy” doesn’t have a face. It is nothing to be ashamed of.

Is seeking help scary? Many people are afraid to speak out because of the consequences; hospital and sectioning. Trust me when I say, it takes an awful lot to be hospitalised and sectioned. I started suffering from mental illness when I was just 13, and in that time I have been in very bad places and have done a number of stupid things but had never been hospitalised. It wasn’t until July last year after severe and dangerous suicidal ideation (ie. I had an imminent plan) where I ended up in hospital as a voluntary patient and then subsequently sectioned later on. It was scary, but it kept me safe and it got me stabilised and functioning again. Your first port of call would be the GP who can then refer you to psychiatry or may just want to monitor you in the community for a bit. I have had very varied experiences of the system but on a whole, if you get the right help, it can be life changing. It’s nothing to be scared or ashamed of. You will not be judged and hospital is the absolutely last option as crisis teams like to keep people in their own environment and routine as much as they can, and usually because there is a severe lack of beds.

Anyway, I have rambled on a bit too much. But if this post challenges people’s perceptions or helps just one person then that would make me happy. Don’t be afraid, stay strong and keep talking!

Being alone or feeling lonely all the time is a real drag. Yet 43% of adults report feeling lonely- almost half the people in the US said they feel lonely. While that is a staggering number (and a true black mark on what has happened to community and the sense of personal connections) it is also the potential bright spot for you if you are part of that huge number. Why? Because it means that there are a lot of people out there that feel the same way as you do and that want to meet people like you to spend time with and feel less alone. When you feel lonely it seems there is nobody else in the world. The truth is there are millions of other lonely people all waiting to be your friend. This article is going to offer some hints about socializing and making friends, and will be followed by other articles with specific ideas you can try to meet others and make the problem of loneliness into a problem of the past.

Friend Material

Whether at work or out and about in social situations, there are some keys to being accepted and to becoming “friend” material in the eyes of others.

• Smile, be positive. People want to do social things with fun or happy people. Nobody is going to say “let’s go out and talk about depressing things and try to feel worse about life when we are done talking than when we started.” Maybe you want to have a best friend to share your problems with but you will not get a best friend while having no friends, and if you are seen as always depressed and morose you will not find making new friends easy at all.
• If people ask you to do something say yes. Do not be over selective in what you are willing to do with others if your goal is to make friends. It hurts a person’s ego to ask somebody to do something and have them say no. People do not ask and risk rejection multiple times. If they ask and you say no because it is not the type of thing you do then do not be surprised if there is not an invite when they go do something you would like to do. Friendship is about being with the people – not just what you are doing. If it was only about what you are doing then you could go do things by yourself.
• Be polite and courteous to all– even the people that are not there. Do not get sucked into complaining about other people. Even if everybody is doing it, you as the newcomer will be remembered as the person that talks bad about others or one of the jealous busy bodies will feel the need to share whatever negative thing you said with the person it was said about, ignoring the fact all others said worse things.
• Have fun and make it clear you are enjoying yourself. If you look bored to death all the time, never laugh or smile, or seem to gravitate to negative discussions then you will be viewed negatively. Nobody thinks to themselves “let’s go out this weekend and complain about people and things” – people go out because they want to have fun and part of that is about being around positive and fun people.
• Listen more than you talk. Try to watch the dynamics of the group and figure out what topics are okay and which are not. Make add-on comments to the current conversation instead of trying to change the topic or dominate it. Most importantly, do not be that person that every time somebody says something or tells a story you have a better/bigger/worse example of the same thing that makes it look like you are constantly one upping people. “That’s nothing, one time I …” as a response to every topic is not a way to be liked. It does not impress people, all they hear is that they or their experiences are nothing.
• If you are thinking being positive and acting like this is strange or “this is nothing like me” and “I am not like that” then consider why you are reading this. Is it because you do not have many/any friends? It is for you to decide. Do you want to try to learn to be more positive or do you want to stay lonely and not have friends? To the next line “I want people that like me as I am”.  Most people that are lonely and negative do not like their lives and in fact do not like themselves. If you do not like your life or even like yourself, then why do you NOT want to change? It makes no sense to say “I don’t want to change” if you are not happy and don’t like yourself.

From Knowing the Basics to Making Friends

It may sound hard to do these things or to even imagine yourself in social situations. Social anxiety, shyness, introverted – these are real things that exist and just saying you want to make friends does not make any of these things disappear. All of these things may be reasons or even the cause of your situation, however they are not insurmountable obstacles. You may have to start in smaller group settings to be able to cope at all. You may have to “practice” the positive and polite responses with just a family member or during incidental contact at the checkout line or bank teller or a single coworker the next desk over. Practicing making friends online is also helpful. Start here at SF!

This is just an extra step in the process however, not an impossible task. You can even practice these things online. The end result is- if you are more positive and let people know you want to have friends and act friendly without making major social errors like gossiping, constant complaining, one-upping others, and these type of things you will see results in people being more open and friendly back to you and seeking you out to talk to and be with. This gives the confidence to progress to real life friends instead of online relationships and chance social encounters not capitalized on.

There will come a time when you are comfortable and well established in a group and will be able to talk about the bad things, to complain some, and those other things that are “no-no’s” when first meeting people. It is different to get accepted into a new set of friends than being around people that know you well and are used to you. That said, if you have noticed people pulling away after you have been friends for just a few weeks it might be worth reading through and seeing have you become too negative, do you talk about others and complain a lot, are you always one upping stories or always know more than others? It is possible you are just over sharing and making the person uncomfortable because they do not feel the same level of closeness to you. They may become that close friend some day to share all with no matter what, but you have to give that more time to develop.

I am not a Fake Person

This is not about pretending or being fake. It is just social etiquette and courtesy. It is polite to smile and be gracious and it is polite to listen to others. It is not polite to talk about other people (gossip) or to complain about everything around you. It is not polite to discuss problems and issues in larger group social situations because it is bound to make some people uncomfortable. You can be yourself and make friends so long as you are following basic common courtesies and etiquette. If you cannot follow those then ask yourself why would anybody want to be friends with somebody that is intentionally rude? That is what is happening if you know the courtesies and choose to ignore them. It is not “being yourself”, it is choosing rudeness over courtesy and ultimately loneliness over friendship.

Humans in general have two conflicting prevalent desires or attitudes. People are never satisfied- whatever level one achieves, they want more or better. This is not a flaw, it inspires progress, improvement, and the reaching of ever higher levels and capabilities. The other general attitudes is the dislike of change, the desire for things to remain constant and the same. This also is not a flaw despite being so contrary to the first as it inspires stability and considered thought as opposed to impulsive or impetuous decisions.

Taken together though, these two contrary desires often result in great dissatisfaction with life and the way people live. We want things to be different and better and for there to be progress, but many times our fear of change and longing for stability and comfort with the known prevents us from taking the often times obvious steps needed to result in a better situation and happiness.

While the ‘nothing ever changes until something changes’ truism applies equally to great geo-political issues and world policy issues such as climate change and world hunger, looking at it on the smaller more personal level of how we live day to day and the effect it has on our happiness and contentment in daily life will allow us to consider some new ideas that can have a near immediate effect on happiness and quality of life.

We are Creatures of Habit and Routine

People tend to be creatures of habit and routine. We do things over and over again day after day and develop the habits and routines that allow us to function in the fast paced world we now live in. If you were to list every single task done each day from get up brush teeth go work – all the tasks at work or school –  getting to wherever going – drive, turn left here , stop at sign- eat lunch etc. etc. you would have  a list of hundreds of tiny tasks you do each day. The only way to manage this many tasks is by force of habit or routine. The majority of them are done without conscious thought because they have become so routine. This is a necessary coping mechanism to deal with the complexity of modern living and lifestyles.

We tend to fear or at the least be uncomfortable with even minor changes to our routine because life experience tells us that changes to our routine cause difficulty and stress. It often boils down to the simple concept of fear of the unknown. We are not necessarily happy with the way something is going, but we know what the result will be. When we change things we have a hoped for result but also the possibility of failure or making things worse. If things are already hard, the risk of making things worse can cause a person to settle for bad result instead of even risk a worse.

The Downward Spiral to Depression

The smallest things can have the most dramatic results, particularly when dealing with depression. Depression often becomes a seemingly endless cycle. Getting out of bed or leaving the house may physically hurt when the depression gets bad enough. The needed routines to cope with the complex modern life style become too much. Everything just feels like too much.

Instead of following the established pattern and going to work or school, the choice is made to stay home, to stay in bed. Instead of getting dressed you might stay in pajamas, and since all the patterns changed, the shower, shaving, and whole range of other things stop to. Once the big routine breaks down, it is all gone and it becomes too hard to try to remember to do all the little things out of order so instead none are done.

After even just a few days of this, however, and that is the new routine. The aversion to change that routine starts. We do not want to shower or go out of the house, or do the chores because our new routine involves none of those things and even though life sucks, we are managing. We often say that is the way we “cope” with extreme depression. Except that is not coping with depression at all. That is allowing the depression to become the habit we live and pattern we live by.

We do not want to change it because even though it hurts and we say we cannot take the constant depression and pain anymore, we do not want to risk the possibility of more pain by going out of the house. We want to avoid the potential pain of going back to school or work.  While we are ready to die to end feeling so bad, we are not ready to take a shower and start changing the depression routine we have gone into.

Part of that routine often becomes the fixation on how feeling so awful, and the fixation with sadness and death and heartache. Listening to sad songs, searching for suicide methods online, looking through social media to prove our lives are worse than others. It all comes back to rationalizing and justifying how we feel, and therefore why we should not change. We tell anybody that will listen we will do anything to stop the pain all the while we do nothing but embrace it. We ask how to fix it and overlook the most simple.

We feel the sadness, isolation, and despair because that is how we felt when we stopped getting up, stopped socializing, stopped engaging with life. We are continuing on or increasingly doing all of those things (isolating, staying in bed or room, and avoiding normal hygiene) and yet say we are waiting for our mood to change, for the depression to lessen. We are listening to the sad music, focusing on the negative, searching out suicide methods type things more, so the depression deepens, not lessens. Nothing changes until something changes. The only way to make the cycle stop is to change something. Get out of bed and get dressed. Pick up the room. Turn off the sad music and put on something else. Resume the typical chores associated with normal living. Get out of the house and live even if you do not feel like doing it.

What Triggered the Depression?

The not wanting to do anything else is a function of both mood and habit/routine. It gets comfortable to isolate and changing is both hard and seems like it has risks. After all, it was “out there in the world” that this started, right? Not usually. If you actually look at it, “out there” started as a bad day or two or something bad happening. That made us upset or sad.  The sad and upset changed our good routines into the isolation, and the playing sad songs “to cope”. That isolation and intentional immersion into our own place then grew by itself, as a product of the repeated actions we took in reaction to something hard or sad. The depression was not triggered by the relative dying, or not getting the job, or boyfriend breaking up with us. The depression was actually triggered by our reaction to that event– the isolating and playing sad songs, and withdrawal from life that initiated the new routine as opposed to by the event itself.

Just like a change from the other routine may have gotten us here, a change from this current routine is needed to get you out of this dark place. Some call it “fake it til you make it”, but it is not about pretending to be happy and suddenly you will fool yourself into being happy. People are not that simplistic and dumb.

Changes to make Happiness at Least Possible

It is about putting yourself into situations and changing the way you are doing things so happiness is possible. It is damn hard to feel happy listening to sad music and watching sad shows on TV and reliving every sad or bad memory you have ever had hour after hour, day after day. None of those things are apt to make you suddenly start smiling and feeling good. If doing those things suddenly made you happy and feel good then you would have a serious mental issue.

The changing to a situation where happiness is at least possible must be a conscious and intentional process. It will not happen spontaneously in somebody deep into depression, yet that is what the person in depression feels like needs to happen. They want to feel different before doing different and that process is as simple as the “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” Yet that is what the typical depressed individual is doing. You have to change the action first to result in a change of mood second.

When somebody says you have to “snap out of it”, “just pull yourself together and put it behind you”, or other such maddening advice pause before jumping to anger. On first pass you may think “If I could do that then I would” and let it anger you and push you back further into the isolation believing they clearly do not understand. Try to hear it differently. They are not saying you can stop the depression on a whim. They are saying you must stop putting yourself in a place where it is impossible to feel anything else.

They see you not leaving your room and being sad for not friends and lonely, listening to sad music, watching heartbreaking shows on TV and can’t stop feeling sad. They see you looking through Facebook and talking about how great others are doing while you are stuck alone in your room not going to work and see the other issue you are missing. Nobody could feel happy in that situation, so snap out of it means to change something about that situation you are in so that happiness is at least possible.

Ready for a change? Click here to join us for a chat today.

Loneliness is excruciating. Agonizing. Tortuous.

It would have to be one of the leading stimulants of depression, anxiety and a great number of other mental health struggles.

What is it about loneliness that is so painful? Why is it so hard to live with? Why is the burden of emotional isolation so crushing? And why is it that the more ‘connected’ we become with ‘friends’ on social media – or even in real life at times – the more solitary we feel?

For so many people today, isolation is the new norm. Our reservoirs of trust in the goodness of humanity are at an all-time low… and we feel the need to push people away to protect ourselves. We have exposed ourselves emotionally so many times… and been hurt beyond what words can describe.

Loneliness is rampant. On every hand, individuals are struggling to come to terms with feeling ignored, unappreciated, overlooked, despised and forgotten about.

We crave connection… we yearn affection… and we long for a warm cuddle with someone special. We just want to hear someone say ‘I love you!’ with all the sincerity they can muster.

Maybe there are many people in your life you can point to with assurance and say ‘I know for sure that they appreciate me and love me’. Perhaps you have a loving family… beautiful friends… and a loyal partner?

And yet…

You are slowly dying of loneliness. Your heart is atrophying and wasting away. In spite of your assets, your accomplishments, your house, your connections or any other material possession great or small, you feel that your life is losing meaning. Your energy is ebbing away.

‘Is life worth living?’ you ask yourself.

‘How much longer can I endure this torment and unrest before it finally overwhelms me completely?’ you muse negatively.

‘If only there was medication I could take to cure my great loneliness’ you ponder desperately.

The hollow emptiness that prevails in your life drives you to distraction.

Wait, did someone say distraction?

Oh, yes… that’s right. In our efforts to mitigate and appease the pain of loneliness, our minds turn to distractions to run from the anguish, to numb the distressing pangs of misery, to muffle the dull heavy thudding of an empty heart and to assuage the distressing ache of unrequited love.

Distractions. What do they do for us? What do they look like in real life?

Trashy reality TV… and binging on tacky TV shows for hours on end. Incessantly checking alerts on your phone. Days of morbid inactivity spent gaming online. Compulsively ingesting alcohol and drugs to dull your sensibilities. Scouring dating websites in an effort to find the love of your life. Consuming a vitriolic and turgid torrent of porn. Chronic internet browsing and lazy YouTube surfing. Clicking an endless tide of links directing you to life changing articles on the ‘5 cool tricks to be a millionaire by 30’ and ‘3 easy strategies to guarantee success in your life’, or ‘Take this pill and lose 20 pounds in 20 days’ blah, blah, blah…

Meh.

So what is the solution? What is the alternative to turning to distractions? Are we doomed to live a life of desolate solitude?

No!

The greatest antidote to loneliness is love and everything that stems from love: affection, kindness, happiness, compassion, peace, joy and patience. Any and every positive emotion, feeling and experience ultimately comes from love.

Think of your heart like a sponge. It is the body’s natural organ for dispensing and absorbing love. It gives us the means to foster and maintain a healthy buffer of ardor and passion which helps to avert us from being overwhelmed with the negativity all around.

What happens to a wet sponge in the process of time? Moisture evaporates and it dries out. Thus it is with the heart. We cannot let our hearts and affections lie dormant and hope that they will remain infused and brimming with love and energy. We must keep them constantly exposed to the gushing brook of good deeds, to the healing balm of pure motives and to the gentle dew of kind thoughts.

Now imagine our heart ‘sponge’ is dry, and we turn to distractions to alleviate the loneliness. Before very long our hearts are palpitating with a thick gunge of negativity and lethargy and we feel even worse than before.

Or, instead of distractions, our mind ruminates furiously with musings of envy, bitterness, anxiety, animosity, prejudice, victimization and self-pity. These thoughts have the same toxic effect on our hearts and leave us feeling emotionally destitute.

So… love. How do we get more of it? How do we keep our heart pulsing with the purity of true love?

Well, ‘love’ is a noun. But, wait… isn’t ‘love’ also a verb?! Yes! A doing word, a word involving movement, activity and action!

Love in operation is the surest way to ensure that we can consistently enjoy its healing and comforting balm in our lives. Love in operation means that we do loving things for others and think loving thoughts about others and say loving things where appropriate.

This, by necessity, includes a healthy love for ourselves. Which parts of our unique individuality can we look at with fond appreciation and affection? If you can find nothing then develop something within yourself that you can truly fall in love with. Achieve something, abstain from something or take action to get out of your vicious tailspin of failure and procrastination. Just do something that you can be proud of!

Something truly magnificent to consider is that love is its own motive!

Love negates selfishness, it dispels fears and calms troubled minds, it brings peace to the soul and overlays the path of life with happiness and joy; it inscribes a silver lining around clouds of disappointment and defeat and fills the lonely heart with comfort and contentment; it brings perspective to shattered dreams, healing to broken hearts and wisdom to the one confronted with exhausting unanswered questions.

May you, my friend, find true love in your life… and find that there is enough love to fill your heart to overflowing. May you see that love can be found and enjoyed in a greater way than you ever thought possible. True love never fails.

About the author: Cody has studied psychology and self-help strategies for many years and is very passionate about helping others to fulfill their potential and live happier lives. 

Like so many other situations of people feeling suicidal, the feeling of “there is no hope and  nobody cares” is one thing, but the reality is quite different. In the case of abused children and teens in most countries around the world the reality is very different. While they have been abused and misled by terror and pain, as well as being conflicted by societal beliefs that “families should stick together” and that it is wrong to “say anything that could get a family member in trouble” the reality is society is well aware of the need to protect those that cannot protect themselves and set up many avenues of help.

The solution to getting out of an abusive environment is simply to not be silent. Not only do you need to tell somebody, but you need to tell somebody that can actually help. Another teen or child is unlikely able to help much at all. Telling an anonymous stranger on the internet in a chat group or forum will not solve the problem of abuse. Talking about it on social media will not make the problem go away.

If you have told a parent or other adult about someone abusing you and they do not immediately act then you cannot depend on them to ever act. It is not for them to “work out” or “try to talk to the person”. If they do anything but make clear you are safe by taking you to a safe place and involving the authorities then you have not told the right person. If they appear angry with you do not trust that they are going to help you and do not stay in a dangerous situation while they “try to figure it out”.

Who to Tell

In the US there are many people you can go to. The easiest are teachers, guidance counselors, and/or school principals where you likely can talk without worrying about the parent or family member over hearing since you are there daily. Do not let them brush it aside and tell the absolute truth. If you exaggerate in any way you run the risk of an investigation showing parts being a lie so then the assumption is all may be a lie.

Do not lie about it, and do not hide parts. You do not need to tell the precise details or relive the abuse in anyway with the school faculty, but you have to say physically abused with hands/ belt/ whatever actually happens, or sexually abused by touching or forcing sex/ sexual contact. Tell them what happened and that you want them to get you help and they will. Do not try to use innuendo or hints and expect them to guess. Like pulling off a band aid- just do it and get it said directly to make it easier. If any reason you feel like they are not getting you help or not believing, immediately ask to see the guidance counselor or principal- get another member of the staff involved and repeat what happens or has happened and that you want them to get you help.

In addition to teachers, school staff, you can go into any hospital or medical facility and tell the nurses or doctors there. Most often on a regular doctor visit they ask a question about do you feel safe in your home. If you do not say no and tell them why and that you want help. You can call 911 in the US and tell them and they will send help immediately and stay on the phone with you until help gets there. You can call 211 and get immediate help as well from social service agencies as well as police if needed. Since you are using a computer to read this you can go to www.211.org to get help. Be cautious with using your computer – if you need help then get help. Simply looking for help and not getting it while using a computer that could show you are looking for help could endanger you in a sexually or physically abusive situation. Actually get the help so that you do not risk the abuser seeing you are thinking about it but you have not yet got it.

There are also specific child help lines in US –

https://www.childhelp.org/hotline/     1-800-422-4453

Every state has its own helplines as well. Search for “Child helpline <state> “

Other countries al have their own mandated reporters to help, in most of Western Europe they are similar to the US ones, but dialing the emergency services number will work as will talking to the school and asking them to help you get help and contact the correct place to get safe.

UK – https://www.childline.org.uk/     Call 0800 1111

In other countries simply search for “child helpline (country)” to find the resources you use.

If you are a child and are being abused, you have the power to stop it. Simply tell the people that can help you and ask for that help.

Everything is energy. It is the basis of life and the basis of our health and our well being.

The thoughts we think are energy and are in a constant state of flow, flowing outwards to others and received by others without the need to even speak them.

Our First Language Is Energy

Have you ever spoken with someone and the words they said didn’t match what you were perceiving in them? That’s the energy you were connecting with and receiving which is more accurate than any words one could ever speak.

Have you ever walked into a room of people and known something had just occurred which created a lot of tension? Like you could cut the air with a knife? That is another example of how we perceive energy first and foremost and words are secondary.

Much of what we think and feel are what we are actually perceiving in the heads of others because we are all connected. Our thoughts are recycled energy and can drift in and out of our space easily or we can contract and resist them which enables them to stick. It’s a bit like putting a up a wall which has velcro on and whatever comes your way, sticks.

Looking at Facebook is a way we can readily enter the headspace of huge numbers of other people.  The people on our friends list and the kind of things they post can suggest a lot about what we are currently aligning with. Do you feel good reading other people’s posts? Or do you get worried, annoyed or frustrated?

In our fast paced world today we are literally bombarded with all kinds of energies that can affect us and our moods. It can scramble our energy field, overload us with thoughts, feelings and emotions and make us feel tired and depressed.

Your Body Has It’s Own Medicine Kit!

Bringing alignment to our energy systems such as our meridian pathways and chakras, can assist us in maintaining a stronger energetic field within and around us so that toxic energies have much less of an impact.

Acupuncture is an example of one form of energy medicine which activates the body’s own internal mechanisms to create balance in body, mind and spirit. Do you know that your body’s own natural opiates, known as endorphins, are 100 times more powerful than manufactured, synthetic morphine?

Endorphins are those feel-good chemicals which are released during  times such as; having sex, exercising, eating chocolate or your favourite food and when you are laughing.

Do you remember a time when you were in love? When you felt high, light and like nothing or no-one could ruin your day? All those emotions were simply chemicals in your body which were turned on! It was easy to be happy because your body was releasing happy hormones all the time. Your outlook on life shifts and then your point of attraction shifts too.

One of the reasons acupuncture works so well is that it can stimulate the release of endorphins as well as bring balance and detoxify your primary organs such as your liver, gall bladder, kidneys, lungs and heart. These organs are where we store old emotions, thoughts and feelings and over time they become congested.

When these meridian points are stimulated there is a relief from the release of these energies, sometimes an emotional catharsis occurs which when you allow it to be released, enables you to feel so much lighter and perceive so much more space in your body and being. The energetic walls around you soften and dissolve. You feel more of who you really are.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine this has been known for centuries. In the western world we are still playing catch up in many ways and the energetic mind-body connection has yet to be fully acknowledged in mainstream medicine. This is changing however, as more and more people are seeking alternative methods to find relief from pain and suffering.

How Can Remote Healing Work?

There is no separation between us, even science now knows and tells us that everything is energy vibrating at different frequencies, therefore everything and everyone are connected and any energetic interaction can be facilitated at a distance. There are many forms of healing, including acupuncture and processes to change beliefs systems, which do not require a person to be in the same room for it to work. Energy healing is not bound by space or time. This can be ideal for people who do not wish to leave the comfort of their own home or live too far from a practitioner.

You are not your thoughts and feelings. Within everyone, is a well of stillness and peace, a space of no thought or emotion, just pure presence of You, your infinite self.

Energetic healing is a way to access that.

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About the author: Lynsey Anne Beswick has worked in the field of the healing arts and consciousness for 11 years.