On mental health and related issues
/I've been thinking about this for a long time - and by "a long time" I mean close to a decade. I always want to say something, but I'm never sure what to say, so I think some more.
I guess the easiest way to do anything is to be direct. I have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is an anxiety disorder. As often happens, the anxiety often calls its good friend depression, which is, you know, suboptimal. I won't go into the specifics of what happened or anything like that, except to say this. Shit happened when I was a kid. Nobody knew how to deal with it, so I bottled it for roughly 25 years. Part of the reason my anxiety was so bad for so long, is that I bottled shit and sat on it and didn't deal. I think that's why I want to say something. Sproglet Crafty was not prepared to deal with it, and I grew up in an environment where we Do Not Talk About Things! so, yeah. It's completely understandable, and now these are different times so there's less need to bottle shit up.
I got myself into therapy almost fifteen years ago. I've been open about the fact that therapy and antidepressants saved my life. I'm eternally grateful that I got lucky with the first therapist I called, and that the first antidepressant we tried worked well enough for me to stay with the therapy. There are a million other things I am grateful for, but I'm not writing a novel at the moment.
Anyway. I just wanted to say that if you're struggling, it's OK and you're not alone. I'll pop some links down into the end of this, in case someone stumbles across this and wants to click through. And to borrow Wil Wheaton's words - be kind to yourselves and each other, ok?
National Alliance on Mental Illness
Crisis Helpline - you can text this one, you don't have to talk-talk!
And if you like podcasts, The Hilarious World of Depression is one of my all time favorites.