Mental Health is Everyone's Business

There are many things in life that I will never understand.

1  : How it's considered more "normal" to loathe yourself instead of to love yourself.

2 : Why we're compelled to make each others lives as difficult as possible to make ourselves feel better.
3 : Why Mental Health continues to be a taboo subject even in this day and age.

I sit here today a happy and eternally optimistic 26 year old.

I wasn't always this way though.

I, like pretty much every other person you'll ever meet, had quite a hard time in school.
 This resulted in me suffering from severe stress, panic attacks and non-existent self-esteem.

My problem was as a teenager I'd been told by my peers that I wasn't worth anything.
 For some insane reason after a while I started to believe it was true.

I believed what these trolls were telling me "I was" instead of having the strength to believe in myself regardless of what the world thought.


Over time, the teasing, the harsh remarks and the bullying tends to break you down until you feel that there's nothing left to break.
A pretty heavy burden for someone who has only been alive for a decade and a half.

When you've got no self-esteem, you attract a certain type of person.

The type of person who will prey on your insecurities and exploit them.
 At around the age of 16, I hit an all time low.
It was one I didn't think I'd bounce back from.
I'd never had the courage to ask for help or to talk to someone about what was going on.

When you keep this kind of thing to yourself, it only manifests and gets a million times worse.
You can ignore it for as long as possible but it will always be there, lurking in the back of your mind.

Back then my only way to vent how I was feeling was through the music I wrote.
 I'd pour my sadness into each and every song.

Even looking back through the lyrics 10 years on, it's hard to believe that I'm the same person who wrote those songs.

But then something totally crazy happened.  

 A very special person heard my music (through Myspace) and reached out to me.

He just appeared when I truly needed someone the most.
Someone that would have the patience to help build me back up and make me stronger then ever.

I can't quite describe how it happened and I'm still amazed to this day that it did.

Nine years on, we're stronger together than we've ever been.

Don't get me wrong, it took a long time to get over everything I was dealing with but I did it.

And you can too.

It's never too late to make a positive change in your life.

Nothing is ever too broken, past the point of repair or a "lost cause".
You may feel that way sometimes but it's not true.

Everything can be turned right around and if you're struggling, the strongest thing you can do is acknowledge that there's a problem.

After you do this, then you can start to get better.

Your mental health is such a key part to your life and to your future.

It can be more important than your physical health which is what we all forget.

We'd treat a broken leg in a heart-beat but a bad bout of depression would be left untreated and ignored.

Carrying around such stress, anxiety and depression is a huge burden that no-one should have to face alone.

Mental health is everyone's business and you should never feel ashamed talking about it.

The moment you do, you will start to feel a little better and then you're on the right path.
 http://www.mentalhealthireland.ie/

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Mental Health is Everyone's Business 2013-10-11T13:15:00-07:00 Rating: 4.5 Diposkan Oleh: Unknown