Anxiety Part 7: Mission to Moscow

Part 7 of the mental health series - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

In November of last year, I signed up for a half marathon.

It was kind of on a whim.

For a long time, I'd done next to no physical activity in a day. I'm a pastor, and most of my week is spent either writing sermons, or writing emails, or in meetings, or visiting with people in their homes or in the hospital. All of these activities involve sitting. Then I'd get home in the evening, sit down to eat dinner, and finish out the day by watching TV on the couch.

I was sitting down. All day, every day.

I wanted to stop being such a lazy piece of garbage.

I used to run in high school, but more or less stopped running after that (with the occasional 1-2 month effort to get myself exercising again...those always failed as well).
High school ended 16 years ago.
I stopped running roughly half my life ago.

I decided one night that I wanted to start running again. However, I know myself, and I know that I'm not too terribly self-motivated. So in a spur-of-the-moment decision, I signed up for a half marathon.
It cost fifty bucks.
And I wrote about it on social media, so that all of my friends would know, and I'd have some public shame if I didn't go through with it.
Paying money and the possibility of shame are good motivators for me.

Months went by, February came, and I ran the race. I didn't really want to stop running, though, because I was healthier and feeling better about myself. So I signed up for another race.

And then another.

Physical health wasn't the primary reason that I kept running, though. There was a much bigger reason.

I noticed that on days when I ran, my mental health would be better, and on days when I didn't run, I was in a much worse head space.

I normally run on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. I noticed that whenever I'd skip a day, that day and the days following would be terrible.

For example, if I ever skip running on Tuesday, I tend to have a panic attack on Tuesday night or Wednesday. I'll also feel incredibly low and depressed until Thursday, when I run again. I don't know exactly why this is, but it's been proven true repeatedly.

I'm no expert, but I'd imagine that different amounts of exercise are probably good for different people. However, I personally find that without around 4 good runs per week, my mental health becomes much, much worse.

Exercise has been shown to improve mental health in people, so it makes sense that I'd have worse days when I don't run.

I started running because I wanted to stop being lazy, but that's not why I kept doing it. I kept running because it was making me feel better. It was helping me cope with other things in my life. It was allowing me space from other, more difficult, parts of my life four days a week.

So I keep doing it.

I don't always love it. In fact, just the thought of going on a six mile run bums me out most of the time. But it's helping me, so I keep doing it.

If you're someone who suffers from mental health problems, I'd encourage some sort of exercise. I don't know all of the science to back up this recommendation. I just know that it's helped me.

I don't have many tips for how to get going (the first month is by far the worst). But here's some things that have helped me:

• Sign up for an event. Specifically, if you're wanting to start running, sign up for a race. There's nothing like dropping 50-60 bucks to get you moving. You're never going to get the money back, so you dang well better have a shirt and medal to show for it.
• Start putting your running clothes on immediately when you think about it. I read an article a couple of years ago, and I can no longer find it (if any readers find it, send it to me and I'll link it here). The article said that whenever we are deciding whether or not to do something, we have a 20 second window of time to get started. If we begin the activity within that 20 seconds, we'll almost certainly do it. If we don't get started within the 20 seconds, we won't. So if you're sitting on the couch, wondering whether or not to go running, stand up immediately. Start putting on socks. Make sure you get started within the 20 seconds, or you're not going to do it.
• Finishing is the point. This one's really just for me. A friend recently saw my time from a race and said to me "I thought you'd be faster. You used to run cross country in high school." Personally, I don't run competitively. For me, finishing is the point. Getting to the end is the goal. I don't worry too much about time. There are going to be days I run faster, and days I run slower, and those things aren't what's important. The important thing is doing it. Finishing is the point.
• Run in a loop. When I run around the park close to my house, I'm constantly thinking about the fact that I can quit and go home at anytime. When I run to the corner of Portsmouth and Willamette, I'm 3 miles from my house. I either have to circle back or con someone into driving me home. When you run in a large loop, you have to keep going.
• I like to listen to podcasts when I run. Most people seem to have a playlist of workout music that they listen to when they exercise, and that's great (pro-tip: if you do have one of these playlists, Disconnected by Face to Face. You're welcome). For me, though, music just reminds me how long I've been running. If I listen to 30 songs, it feels longer than when I listen to 2 podcasts. I'd rather listen to 2 things than 30 things. Also, podcasts let me zone out and think about something completely unrelated to my actual life for an hour. I listen to podcasts that make me laugh and have nothing to do with my normal life. Better than podcasts, though...
• Run with friends. If you can find someone who will run with you, it's so much better. Most of the time I don't have anyone to run with, because most people seem to work out in the morning, and I run in the afternoon/evening. But when I do have the chance to run with friends, the time goes by much faster, and I don't get nearly as tired. It's easier when all of us are suffering together.

So that's it. Running has helped my mental health greatly. Other than therapy, it's been by far the most helpful practice for me.

I'm fighting my anxiety and depression with endorphins.

Side note: This whole "name your numbered blog posts after the same numbered movie in a series" idea was not a smart one. Very few movie series run past 2 or 3 sequels. I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel here, and I still have six more posts to go...

Anxiety Part 6: Fallout

Part 6 of the mental health series - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

A short follow up to last week's question: How do you "love your neighbor as yourself" if you don't really love yourself?

First, it is absolutely possible to love other people when you don't love yourself.*** 
Nobody feels great about themselves every single day. We all have bad days. But on those bad days, we can still show love to someone else, even though we may not feel good about the person we are. Everybody has bad days where they still want to help and show love to other people.

However, we generally don't have a lot of love to pour into others if we constantly and consistently feel down on ourselves.

I do a lot of self-care practices, meditation, etc., to try and make sure that I'm emotionally filled before I try to show love to other people.
However, lately my therapist and spiritual director have both been encouraging me to do something else. They are pushing me to focus more on the positive things that happen in my life and the positive interactions that I have with people, and to focus less on my negative thoughts and interactions.
This is unnatural for me.
I don't like to hide from my problems and troubles. "Focusing on the positive" feels to me like ignoring reality. 
It feels like pretending.
I don't like to shy away from the unhappy or terrible or painful parts of life. Those parts of life are real.
I don't like to pretend.

But I've been told to do so. Evidently, trying to focus more on the positive things in your life than the negative is not pretending. Rather, it can be beneficial for your mental health.
It can be a way to love yourself, so that you're emotionally available to show love to other people.

So I'm working on it.
I'm still kind of skeptical.
At the very least, though, it can't hurt to focus on the positive things in my life.

Right?

***One small bit of language in the video. If you don't want to hear it, you can mute at 1:51. Or just don't watch it at all. Whatever. You do you.

Anxiety Part 5: Dead Men Tell No Tales

This is part 5 of the mental health series. Click for part 1, 2, 3, 4.

How do you "love your neighbor as yourself" if you don't love yourself?

A scribe approaches Jesus and asks which commandment is most important. Jesus answers, "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Churchgoers have heard this passage approximately 4,205,607 times in their lifetime. Many churches (including mine) use these commandments as the basis for their mission statement. For example:
"Loving God, Loving People, Meeting Needs"
"Love God, Love People, Nothing Else Matters"
"Love God, Love People, Serve Joyfully"
The common (and correct) interpretation of these commandments is that we should love and follow God with our whole lives, and to love those around us--friends, enemies, everyone.

However, recently I've heard a couple of people discuss the command to "love your neighbor as yourself," and mention that in order to love your neighbor as yourself, you need to love yourself.
But what if you dislike almost everything about yourself? Wouldn't that mean that thinking of your neighbor in the same way means disliking your neighbor?

Over the past year or two, I've noticed that more and more often I hate things about myself. Things I've said, things I've done, things about my personality, etc.
I wake up between 2 and 3 AM almost every morning and remain awake for a couple of hours. It's super annoying. During that time I obsess over things I've said and done that I regret. I think about things I've said recently, things I said when I was five, and everywhere in between.
I've tried a bunch of ways to distract myself when I awaken and have these thoughts: moving to a different room, reading, watching crummy tv until I can't possibly stay awake any longer, journaling...and for the most part these things don't work. I continue to fixate on things I hate about myself.

As I said, though, this has only been going on for a couple of years. In general, throughout my life I've felt pretty good about myself. Sure, like everyone, I often compare myself unfavorably with others, but I also realize that I have a lot of gifts and a lot to offer the world.

But lately, any rumination on something I've said or done leads me down a mental path that ends with me feeling completely and utterly worthless. Whenever I think about something dumb that I've done, I almost immediately despise everything else about myself.

It makes no sense.

Objectively I know that there's a lot to like about me. When my therapist has me do one of those "talk about everything great about yourself" practices, I have a lot to say. I know I have value, I know I have a lot of gifts. Yet my mind keeps these thoughts of worthlessness at the forefront. It does not make a bit of sense.

The other thing (and this is the weirdest part of all of this), the thoughts that cause me to hate myself are often incredibly stupid. Really, they are.
I co-host a podcast, and recently I was trying to say something on the podcast and flubbed a line. It wasn't bad. Honestly, I listened back, and it's hardly even noticeable. It's not even like I said something offensive--I just tried to close off the podcast a certain way, but didn't say the words in the order that I planned. It was fine, and most likely nobody noticed. This shouldn't have upset me.
Also, it's an incredibly laid-back show, and we flub lines all the time. That's actually part of the appeal of the show.
However, this single flub has gone through my head about four thousand times over the past few weeks. And every single time I think about it, I start to feel completely and utterly worthless.
Every time I think about this flub, I almost immediately begin thinking that every single choice and thought and decision that I've ever made has been terrible, and that I have no value at all as a person.

All because I flubbed a line.

Seriously.

Which again has me thinking: if the second most important command in the bible is to "love your neighbor as yourself, how do I do that when I repeatedly and consistently find myself feeling worthless and without value?

And how does a person who has spent his life following a God loves all of his children and sees value and worth in them find himself despising everything about himself on a pretty consistent basis?

If my mental health problems cause me to hate myself--a person created, valued, and loved by God--does that mean I don't trust that I'm the person that God made me to be?
Does this aspect of my mental illness mean that I have a weak faith?
And why do I no longer see the person that I know myself to be, and the person that God sees in me: a person with many gifts, many good qualities, value, and worth, when I previously saw great value in myself?

I've walked with a bunch of people of faith over the years who struggle with mental illness. Many of them seemed to constantly feel like failures, and never appeared to be able to see the person that God sees in them. I'd always remind them of their worth and their value, but every time we'd meet, they would be in the exact same state of mind--hating themselves and feeling like failures. Sometimes I'd think, "Why do they not see the wonderful person that they are?"

There's this situation that a lot of Christians with mental illnesses deal with: other well-meaning Christians will tell them that if they "just had more faith," God would make them better.
Looking back, I feel like that's what I used to do with these folks. I'd tell them to "see what God sees in you," but I'd internally criticize them when they didn't.

But I get it now. Objectively, I can see all of my great qualities, but most of the time I'm blinded by the things I dislike about myself.
And it's only recently that this started.
Trying to remember the beloved, valued person that God sees in me sometimes helps, but only for a short while.

So how do I live as a follower of God? If I have this much trouble loving myself, am I really able to love my neighbor?

I'm going to try to unpack these ideas a little more over the next couple of weeks.

Anxiety and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

This is part 4 in the mental health series: Click for part 1, 2, 3

Therapy is great, but it's weird at first.

No, "weird" is the wrong word.

It's strange and uncomfortable and bizarre and upsetting and painful and the exact opposite of everything that we learn in life.

As we grow up, we learn that some people are unsafe. Some people are not trustworthy. Many of us have friends that we will entrust with our deepest, darkest secrets. There are other people who we wouldn't trust with anything, ever.

We learn these lessons when we trust someone with a piece of our lives, and that person betrays our trust. When that happens, not only is a friendship ruined, but we are less likely to open up in future friendships.

By the time we reach adulthood, many of us have a hard time opening up to anyone at all.

This is why therapy is so strange. You meet a person for the first time, shake their hand, step into their office, and then are expected to open yourself up entirely. Sure, it's not forced out of you, but when they ask, "So, what's going on?," you can't just say, "Oh, nothing much," because the therapist knows that that's a lie. You wouldn't have sought out therapy if there was 'nothing much' going on.

Life teaches us to remain closed off to others until we've spent at least a few months as friends. "Don't tell intimate details about yourself to others, because they may tell other people, or may use that information against you."

When I sat down in my therapist's office for the first time, I didn't really know what to do. I'd spent decades learning to avoid telling strangers too much about myself. Now this lady sitting across from me was expecting me to do exactly that.

Here's the thing: I knew it was safe in the room. I knew my therapist was safe. I knew that she would keep my confidence. I knew that she could and would try to help me improve. Still, it felt wrong. I'd lost so much trust in strangers over the years that it took every ounce of energy to begin unloading my problems onto this person.

It gets easier. I wish there was a better way to say it, but there's really not. You have to go through the weirdness for a while. I did, at least. My first few sessions were so uncomfortable, because I'd spent years putting up walls and barriers around certain parts of my life and my thought processes. But the more sessions that went by, the easier it was to share pieces of me that I don't talk about with many other people.

So it was strange at first, and then it became easier.

And then it got waaaaaaaayyyyyy more difficult.

We started probing into some things that I wasn't prepared to address/deal with/work on. Things I didn't even realize were a part of my life.

It's been healing, but healing often hurts first.

This tweet sums it up pretty well.

Anxiety Part 3: The Return of the King

Part 1
Part 2

Let's talk panic attacks.

This should be fun.

This might be TMI, but I had a panic attack in the shower recently.
It was a Tuesday morning. I woke up and jumped in the shower. About two minutes in, the panic washed over me like the streams of water on my face. I fell on the floor of the shower and began the normal ritual of painfully gripping my face and my hair, and feeling myself hyperventilating and my heart racing. After about three minutes of this hell, I regained control. I laid on the floor of the tub and stared at the scratches on my legs from digging my fingernails as hard as I could into them. I tried to get rid of the kink in my neck from when I pulled my hair as hard as I could to the right.

I laid there and thought about all that I had to do that day.

My Tuesday routine is as follows:
1. Arrive at work/prayer
2. Prep staff meeting
3. Lead staff meeting
4. Work on sermon
5. Meet with our lead elder
6. Do more work on the sermon (so that by Wednesday I know generally where the message is going, and can spend Wednesday doing a lot of visiting/pastoral care)
7. Run 6 miles
8. Dinner/time with family

Tuesday is a busy day. Yet here I am, staring at the scratches on my legs and trying to work the kink out of my neck, and I start thinking, "How can I possibly make it through today? How do I lead a staff meeting? How can I possibly write something to help guide other people in their spiritual lives? I can't even make it through my morning shower without falling apart."

That's the thing about panic attacks.  They make you feel worthless, and ruin the rest of your day.

Until this past year, I had never had a panic attack. I hadn't known of anyone personally who had panic attacks (I've since found out that many of my friends have regular panic attacks; they just don't like to talk about them. I totally get that). I had previously used the term "panic attack" to refer to times when I felt 'panicky,' but I didn't actually know what a real, honest-to-God panic attack felt like.

And then, about a month into my time in therapy, I had one. It woke me up, my heart raced, I was sweating constantly, and I couldn't do anything but dig my fingers into the bed. After what seemed like an eternity, it stopped. For the rest of the week, I was sort-of afraid to go to bed at night, thinking that it might happen again.
I asked my therapist about it the following week. I was predominantly concerned with the question, "Why now?" Did I only have a panic attack now that I was getting help? Did I subconsciously want to suffer more, now that I was in therapy? Had I heard "You have anxiety," and then my brain subconsciously gave myself all of the symptoms of anxiety? (I realize how ridiculous these questions sound now, but at the time I couldn't stop fixating on them).
My therapist said that panic attacks are perfectly normal for people with anxiety, and that sometimes they happen more often when people are in therapy.

Great.

I've had quite a few more since then. The thing that's so painful about panic attacks (okay, everything about them is painful), is that I can't predict when I'll have one. They seem to occur most often when I'm having a few days of extreme stress. However, sometimes I'll have them in the middle of a fantastic day. I've had them while playing with my kids. This morning I had one while in a board game store (aka my favorite place in the world). I feel like if I could simply figure out what triggers a panic attack, I could stop them entirely. But they so often come out of nowhere.

Someone I follow on Twitter recently said that he had a panic attack out of the blue for the first time in fifteen years. He said that there's nothing like a panic attack to remind him of his weakness.

This year I've repeatedly returned to the verse from 2 Corinthians, when God says to Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." If that's true (and I really hope it is), then out weaknesses are not the end of the story, because God's power shines in our weakness.

Which is awesome.

Still, the weakness sucks.

I just spoke to someone who said that she used to have panic attacks while driving her car. I can't even imagine...

There's not really a happy ending to this post. Panic attacks are terrible.
If you have them regularly, you have my sympathy.

Anxiety Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

Part 1 here

So, therapy.
Hoo boy, we have a lot to talk about here...

I've been in therapy for about six months.  I'm going to talk about it occasionally on this blog. There's a lot to talk about, and a lot that I've learned about myself and about therapy itself. That said, I'm obviously not going to write about everything that I'm working through. I haven't had enough time and reflection to work through everything. However, I'm going to try to be as open and honest as I can.

Today I'm just going to focus on one particular topic, which is: Why did it take so long for me to get into therapy?

I've helped quite a few people get into therapy over the years. I've recommended therapists, I've collected phone numbers for people, and I've generally championed therapy during conversations, sermons, etc. I've never considered it weakness when people seek therapy, and have never judged those who are in therapy. Quite the opposite, actually. I've admired the strength of those who want to heal, want to better learn themselves, or simply need support to make it through a difficult moment in their lives.

Therapy is good. I've long thought so.

Why, then, did it take so long for me to say out loud, "I think I need therapy?" If I'm supportive of the practice, and if I'm consistently trying to move people in the direction of therapy, why was I so resistant?

I think there were a few reasons...

1. I had a hard time admitting to myself that I needed therapy. Before I started therapy, there were noticeable signs that something abnormal was going on in my life. I would have repeated physical shutdowns, I never was able to sleep through the night, and I would start hyperventilating seemingly out of nowhere. These were all physical symptoms, however, and they all seemed like symptoms that could be overcome by willpower. It was about a year before I could admit to myself that these problems were beyond my capabilities.

2. I wanted medication, not therapy. My best guess was that I had depression, and I wanted to take care of it. However, I didn't want to shake up my life or my work schedule in any way, and I didn't want to make the time commitment for therapy. I figured if I could get a nice bottle of antidepressants (Is bottle the right word? What are those orange cylinders with the white cap called?), I could keep my schedule exactly as it was while also taking care of my symptoms.
Yep. Self-medication for an illness that I thought I probably had. That was my plan.
Good choices, David.
Thankfully, I did my research, and it turns out that you can't purchase antidepressants over the counter.

3. There's no other way to say it than this: it's embarrassing to tell other people, even family members (especially family members?), about mental health problems. It was for me. I assumed that nobody would understand. Honestly, how do you explain mental health problems to people?
"I hyperventilate a lot, and it comes on out of the blue."
"Have you tried breathing into a bag?"
"No...I....never mind."
That's how I assumed every conversation would go (and basically how a few actually did go). It's weird and strange and odd and bizarre to talk about mental health problems. Physical things are much easier.
"I have a bone sticking out of my leg, and it's bleeding everywhere."
"Why yes, you do. Let's get you to the hospital. Please don't bleed on the rug."
I didn't know how to talk about my own need for help with my mental health, so for a long time, I just...didn't.

4. It's expensive. This was less of a reason for avoiding therapy, and more of an excuse. I knew it might be difficult to pay for, but I also knew that we could make it work.

I had quite a few reasons for avoiding therapy. Maybe you do too. If you've been thinking about therapy, I'm here to say that it's great, it's wonderful, and it's helping me greatly. Absolutely get into therapy if you're thinking about it. I know it's easier said than done, but if you're on the fence about it, seriously, look into it.

In the coming weeks, I'll actually talk about therapy itself. It's going to be fun, mostly because therapy as a practice is kind of odd.
"Hi, complete stranger that I've never met. Let me sit down and tell you about the deepest, darkest parts of my life that I've never told anyone else and planned to take with me to my grave."
Good times.


If you have topics you'd like me to discuss in the coming weeks related to mental health, faith, or anything related, leave me a comment or shoot me an email at davidandrewlibby@gmail.com
I'm not a mental health expert or anything, but I've had some experiences and made some observations.

Anxiety Part 1: The Phantom Menace

Let's talk anxiety.

I'm a pastor, and I suffer from anxiety. Before this year, I never would have called it by that name. I never would have said that I had a mental illness.

In my mind, other people had mental illnesses. I did not have a mental illness. I may have low self-esteem, or difficulty with high amounts of stress, or problems with general overthinking and extreme worry at times and in certain situations, but I don't have a mental illness.

Except I do.

Two years ago, I started having physical and mental shutdowns, usually after I had a difficult conversation with a friend (I wrote about this more here). It affected my work, my home life, and my friendships. After all, it's hard to be an available pastor, a good husband/dad, or a devoted friend, when you often have mental and physical shutdowns that can last over an hour. It's hard to function as a dad when you have a panic attack while playing hide and seek with your kids. It's hard to help people with their struggles when you're simply trying to keep your head above water, day after day.

I started going to therapy, and my therapist explained anxiety to me. She helped me understand how normal all of my body's responses were, despite how abnormal they felt. As I continued therapy and worked through some of my mental health issues, I also started talking and writing about it. I didn't feel like I had a lot to say; after all, I'm in no way a mental health professional. I didn't really have an agenda when I started sharing these things, either. I wasn't trying to start a conversation about mental health or anything. I just decided one day that I wanted to share this part of my life with people.

What surprised me after I started opening up about my anxiety was the response I received from other pastors. A number of people reached out to me and told me about their own mental health problems, and said that they don't know how to talk with anybody else about them.
One pastor said that if a pastor talks about his or her own mental illness, it can be career suicide. To that person (and anyone else who feels that way) I would say: if your church doesn't want you because of your mental illness, that's probably not a church for you.
Honestly, a church that doesn't want you because of your mental illness doesn't seem like much of a church to me.
Rant over.

All of these responses got me thinking that maybe if I talk more about my own mental illness, other people may feel less stigma about their mental health problems.

So that's what I'm going to do. I think I'll do about 13 of these-probably one per week (I say "probably" because I'm not the most consistent blogger...I'll do my best).

To start this series off, I'll give a couple of false thoughts that I often have about my own anxiety, and then mention a couple of ways in which the church can do better at helping those who have mental health problems.

First: False ideas I have about my own anxiety:

1. I just need to be stronger. Tough it out. Power through. This is all in my head. I'm just being weak, and can overpower this.

It's not that simple. I've never been able to overcome my anxiety on my own. In order to overpower my mental illness, I have to fight my brain. But the thing I use to fight my brain is my brain. I have to fight my mind with my mind. The mind, the brain, is the problem itself, so it's impossible to fight it.
Do you see the difficulty?
In my first therapy session, my therapist pointed out that powering forward only gets me stuck more. Catastrophic thinking usually leads to more catastrophic thinking. That's where meditation practices and such can help divert my mind and attention away from the destructive, catastrophic cycle in which I so often find myself.

2. I'm weak. I'm not normal.

In one sense, sure, this is a weakness, just like a broken leg is a weakness. But it is not at all abnormal. Mental illness is actually incredibly common. However, there is such a stigma around mental illness that it makes people who suffer feel like they're alone, or abnormal. I actually haven't been able to call my anxiety a mental illness until this week, because admitting that I suffer from a mental illness made me feel like a mess and a failure.


Finally, how can the church do better at helping those with mental illness?

1. If you suffer from mental illness, be honest about it. The stigma around mental health will always remain in society and in the church until those of us who suffer become comfortable speaking freely about our own experiences.

2. Be present. Often in the church, folks will see each other once a week. We'll ask those who we know are having a rough time, "Are you feeling better?" Any care and concern that people show one another is a good thing, but what the church really needs is those who will listen to and support those who suffer from mental illness-more than just on Sunday mornings.
We need people who we know won't pull away from us or abandon us because the things we're going through seem awkward or weird or different or uncomfortable. Personally, I constantly feel like my mental health problems are abnormal and uncomfortable and wrong.
It's difficult to talk about our own mental health if we fear rejection or abandonment from others. We can only experience true Christian community when we know we won't be rejected.

That's it for this week. Again, I'm not a mental health professional. All I have are my experiences, and the hope that maybe by talking about them, it will free some of you to talk about your own.

Is there anything related to mental health y'all want me to talk about? Leave a comment or shoot me an email and let me know.