7 Things I Learned from Blogging About My Mental Health
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
Wow, y’all. It’s really here — the three year anniversary of Your Friend Jane, which is absolutely insane. I mean, three years? That’s like having a three-year-old child. A living, breathing toddler with thoughts, needs and wants, and loads of temper tantrums.
Weird.
It’s funny to think what started as a mere hobby of ✌️ Sad Girl Jane ✌️ publishing her #depressed thoughts on the internet — as young people tend to do — has transformed into a fully-fledged passion project. It feels like just yesterday I was Googling “free blog,” publishing my first blog post and not really knowing what this would turn into.
Fast forward to today, and Your Friend Jane still stands! Have I taken four-month hiatuses here and there? Uh-huh. Have I (sometimes) had seconds thoughts about sharing my #depressed feelings online for everyone and their mother to see? Ooooh yeah.
However, blogging really has been an unexpected passion that’s changed my life for the better, and it’s through these three years that I’ve learned a lot about myself and the people around me.
So…what have I learned through blogging?
Deadlines Aren’t That Important
Okay, okay. As a journalism student, deadlines definitely are important. If I miss a deadline, I get fired.
But you know that imaginary date you set in your head? The one that’s like “I need to be married, successful, etc. by ~this~ date or else I am a sham of a human being”? That’s the deadline I’m talking about here. Screw that deadline.
Being in the age of Instagram, it is very easy to compare yourself to others — not just appearance wise, but also “stage of life” wise.
It’s like you’re casually scrolling through your feed with a tub of cookie butter ice cream from Trader Joe’s (literally the best ice cream ever), and then wham! You see that a person you graduated high school with just got engaged or is traveling the world, and suddenly you’re like “Shit, I am a failure. I am sooo far behind. These people are just doing life so much better than I am.”
♡ Yay for minimizing the progress you’ve made by comparing your life to everyone else’s and feeling like shit. ♡
In terms of Your Friend Jane, I tend to do this when I see other bloggers around my age with a far larger audience and suddenly feel like a big ‘ole pile of crap.
However, what I’m learning is everyone’s lives are different, and there’s no “one size fits all” standard for when you do things. If I’m not a full-time blogger by the time I’m 25, that’s okay! If you’re not married by the time you’re 35, that’s okay! “Success” doesn’t have an expiration date, and in fact, “success” doesn’t mean doing things by a certain age at all.
Success is just doing what makes you feel fulfilled and doing it at the pace you want!
Take Care of Yourself First
Last spring into early summer of 2019, ya girl was not doing too hot for a while. As a result, I felt unmotivated to do anything — let alone write for Your Friend Jane — which led to me not writing for a solid three months.
Because of this, I felt guilty af for not keeping up with Your Friend Jane, especially during Mental Health Month in May, where I should’ve been ✨ thriving ✨, posting like a mad woman and literally oozing with mental health vibes. I thought, “How dare I call myself a mental health advocate when I don’t post during Mental Health Month?!”
Looking back now, it’s kind of ironic that I felt guilty for not updating Your Friend Jane — a mental health platform — even though taking that mini hiatus was definitely better for my mental health.
But one thing I am still learning is to take care of myself first before meeting every little expectation I have in my life. Does it suck when I miss a deadline for Your Friend Jane? Yes, yes it does. Does it matter in the long run? Nah.
What does matter, however, is taking care of my body and mind, which does mean taking a break from Your Friend Jane here and there.
This kind of logic is beneficial for anything you do. I mean, yeah, it sucks “disappointing” people or not feeling mentally/physically able to do something you care about. But taking care of your mental health is a priority that cannot be shoved aside like an old shoe. Your well being is the priority here.
Keep Moving Forward, Even When It’s Sh*t
When I first started Your Friend Jane back in ‘ole 2016, I’m not going to sugarcoat this — it was crap. Complete and utter crap. And a lot of the time, I would write full-length posts but refuse to publish them because they were garbage.
Instead of throwing in the towel and calling it quits, I continued to write every day, even if it meant not publishing a post most of the time. Why? Because I loved — and still love — to write, and the only way to get better was to push through that “Everything I write is shit” period and practice my lil’ heart out.
That’s the key to going after your dreams, people!
When you start doing anything — writing a book, working a new job, being an independent adult — you’re going to suck. Unless you’re a child prodigy, there’s really no way to skip that “God, this is literal trash” phase of things.
But you need this shit period to work on your weaknesses and strengths, learn more about yourself and see real improvement. If you give up before you start to get really good, then you’ll never be able to see how skilled you can really be.
Start Your Dreams Today
We all have dreams we want to accomplish before we kick the bucket. It could be landing that dream job, getting married or dropping out of college and sailing to a distant island with a boatload of puppies.
But we wait. We wait for the planets to align and the heavens to break through, because we don’t ~feel~ ready, and once we know we’re ready, then we’ll do the thing we’ve dreamed of for ages.
Well, I’m here to tell you to start that dream today! (Unless your dream is to get married or have kids (pleeease wait until you’re ready for that)).
In 2016, Your Friend Jane didn’t look like much. The platform I used then was sketchy af, my first few posts were like word vomit and I didn’t really know what the f I was doing. Did I feel ready to start a blog? Hell to the no. Did I do it anyway because YOLO? Hell to the yes.
That’s the thing about starting your dreams or doing that thing that scares you a little bit. There will never be that “aha!” moment where you feel entirely ready, and the longer you wait, the less time you have to enjoy living your dream.
Fast forward to today, and I have a smidge of a platform to share what’s bouncing around in my head. If I didn’t start three years ago, then I would’ve never guessed what Your Friend Jane could be today. The possibilities are endless, fam.
Do What You Love
It’s no secret that I love mental health like it’s my literal child. It’s a passion I advertise quite frequently, because I love it so damn much, and I want to do whatever I can to make people feel less alone in this big ‘ole world.
However, there have been a few minor instances where people have seemed less than thrilled about this passion — I’ve been told “You shouldn’t say you write about mental health because people will think there’s something wrong with you,” “That’s a depressing topic to write about,” and “You should write about your favorite nail polishes or something like that.”
And I get what they’re saying for the most part (that first comment pissed me the f off lol).
But writing for Your Friend Jane and mental health is really what I love to do, and I really can’t imagine myself doing anything else. Seriously. If I had followed other people’s advice to become an engineer or write about something less “depressing” like nail polish, then I wouldn’t be getting the same fulfillment I get from writing.
What this blog has taught me to is be proud of what you love, even if other people think it’s lame, stupid or even depressing. If it makes you happy (and doesn’t cause harm to others), then screw the rest. Life’s too short to listen to the h8rs and doubters, and to not being doing what you love or at least enjoy. That’s why you gotta go out there and do what you love, fam.
Talking About Your Emotions Gets Easier the More You Do It
Oh boy. This lesson is a biggie.
For 19 years, I really only ever shared my ✨ feelings ✨ with two of my friends — one of which was my dog. As an introvert, I found comfort in listening rather than speaking, and as a person who’s quiet at first, it would take a bit of time for me to open up and show my ~true~ colors (I’m like an onion — I have layers).
Although I still identify as a quiet introvert today, writing about mental health for the past few years has made talking about it so much easier. Now, I’m not afraid to say I’ve struggled with mental disorders in the past, continue to struggle here and there, and see a therapist.
Do I still get anxiety when opening up? Of course. I don’t think that’ll ever fully go away.
But writing about mental health 24/7 — whether it’s for Your Friend Jane, school or my personal use — has normalized the conversation in my own head and has therefore made speaking about it normal. The more I write out what I’m feeling, the more practice I get for when I feel comfortable enough to verbalize it. I guess, in a way, writing it out is like creating a script of what I can say to people.
What I’ve also found is that writing and talking about my own mental health journey encourages others to open up about what’s going on in their lives, which leads me to my final lesson:
Everyone’s Story Matters
When people learn what Your Friend Jane is about — me rambling about mental health and life’s endless pool of struggles — they sometimes say this: “I wish I could make an impact like that. I just feel like I don’t have anything to say.”
To this I say: Bull. Shit. You do have something to say, and you can make an impact.
When I started Your Friend Jane back in 2016, I really didn’t think what I had to say mattered much, because I felt like what I was going through wasn’t “enough” or “valid.” I thought people be like, “Why is this girl out here ‘complaining’ when there’s literally nothing wrong in her life?” Like how dare I talk about loneliness when I had a loving family, a boyfriend at the time and friends who were just at school, not gone forever?
But as time went on and I continued to write about my life, people — some of whom I’d never spoken to — began to reach out saying how much they related to what I was writing about and how it was nice to know that they weren’t alone.
To be honest, I was #shook by the response. I didn’t think me saying, “lol yeah, I am sad,” would bring such comfort to people and therefore comfort to myself, because I, too, realized I wasn’t alone in this big ‘ole world.
This is why your story matters.
When everyone shares their story, we create a culture in which being open is the norm and we share that ideal that no one is really alone. I mean, that’s what we’re all really looking for, right? To feel less alone in this world? To be understood?
That’s why everyone’s story matters. Literally everyone. Sure, we all live life differently and have different experiences — but we each have universal wisdom to share with each other, and that wisdom starts when we’re honest with each other. You don’t have to stand on your soap box to influence the lives around you. If all you do is make one person feel better, then you’re making an impact.
And there you have it. Everything I’ve learned from blogging for three years.
Before I sign off, I just want to share this — thank you. Really. Although this platform is v small, it is a platform that I am tremendously grateful to have and a platform that wouldn’t exist without you lovely people. All I want in this world — all I’ve ever wanted — is to spread kindness, understanding and love (God, that sounds corny af (but it’s so true)), and you guys are making that dream come true every time you read these ramblings.
Cheers to another three years and beyond, fam.
Your friend,
Jane