Smoke Sesh - I think I’m depressed

Episode Date: May 19, 2022

Happy mental health awareness month, I think I’ve hit a slight hole. We talk everything mental health from Hannahs own personal journey, how she’s doing now, how she has grown, how to become your own best friend and how to build trust with yourself, getting help and taking that first step, anxiety and journaling, as well as some depression tips and tricks. I hope you’re all staying healthy, never be afraid to ask for help, and I’ll see you all on Tuesday! If you have any questions please submit them to @ hannahmarlene and I’ll be back next week. MUAH!

Listen, everybody needs a fairy godmother, you know, just somebody to look out for them. Some people call me their fairy smoke mother, others their internet big sister, but you can call me Hannah, the host of Smoke Sash, so come hang out, let's light up and talk everything there is to life. The good, the bad, the ugly, the embarrassing, I've got a story for it all. Good morning everybody, how are we all doing? I'm doing you know what I'll be honest with you I think I'm depressed and I can't lie to you but that's okay today we're going to cover a lot of topics that are dealing with mental health

anxiety depression everything under the sun that includes it so if that is a you know triggering topic to you I would like to do a PSA um I don't really have a whole update on my life that I usually do in the beginning I have mainly been taking the past two days since Tuesday's podcast quite honestly just to cry a lot a lot of crying um I feel like I go through spells of heavy heavy heavy emotions and spells of very light easy emotions um and that's just I mean the name of the game with depression um and I would love to talk about my experience with it and growing and learning and changing with it here with you guys so if anybody else is feeling the way I am I just know you're not alone and let's dive in I know I've already done

a episode on this it's called um everything mental health I think it was like one of the first four podcasts where I just talked about the timeline of my mental health um being institutionalized um and how I've gotten to where I am now because I think people look at me and they see me as a pretty positive person um very engaging very um creative very much so like inspiring uplifting all the goods but what you don't see and also what I don't post on social media but I guess you know I should be I should be more open to it I there should be no shame in it is I've spent the last two days in bed, and when I'm not in bed, the bare minimum that I could really do was lay down still, but maybe outside this time, and that is the growth that has

happened since, I mean, I was 16. When I was 16 and I went into these spells, even 15, 14, and I went into these spells of depression, I had no coping mechanisms. I had no understanding of what depression was, what anxiety was, what a mood disorder was, even a personality disorder at that, I just thought I was insane, point blank, I thought I was fucking crazy, because as we all know, I feel like the generations above us, when it comes to mental health, it's something that they don't talk about, it's shameful, if you have something that's, you know, impacting your mental health, that's something that you need to fix on the low, away from many everybody else because you're just going to bring everybody else around you down

and so in turn you know I was never taught these things about mental health I was never told hey you know depression runs in the family hey anxiety runs in the family um here are things to look out for I didn't know any of that was a possibility until you know I was in like what was it I was in health class my health teacher saved my life she's a real one um but I was in health class and she brought up depression and she specifically brought up depression in a sense that was very realistic to what she had experienced and she was being open and honest with the class about you know what she had been through how common it was and before that I had only heard of depression as like severe insane cases that were at such a

far distance from me that I never knew it was possible for me to have and so after that class I specifically remember going up to her and like losing it like bawling I had been putting up with these feelings and these thoughts and ideas for years now um I mean I have been depressed ever since I've been born I think it's been something I've constantly dealt with since I was a young child. I also think anxiety is something I've dealt with since I was young. But I didn't know it was a possibility for me to even have these things until she brought it up in a sense that, you know, connected it at a base level to someone that was, you know, I could relate to, that I could see myself in. And so when I brought these issues up to her, she very quickly knew I needed

help. And she very quickly knew that if I did not get help, I don't know if I would be on this planet anymore and so she was great for um opening herself up vulnerable vulnerably in that way showing me that it's possible to yes have these things but still live and survive and do good you know do better and I think that's been a huge driving factor in the work that I've been putting in and the things that I've been doing um I mean my whole journey has been very complicated but after I came out of inpatient care I really really wanted to help the people around me I wanted to you know reach out to the people around me show them that they're show them that they're not alone um and so I joined this like teen suicide prevention group that my mom had um known about

through the school district um it was put on by a family group of the family who had lost their son to suicide and so they were basing all their work off of him and helping him but every single time I went to these meetings I felt like it was a show I felt like it was a performance I was the only one there in these groups who had actually dealt with anything the only other girl there who had anything to speak on was a pageant girly who had only had experience in the realm of mental health by making rounds throughout inpatient centers and speaking to people at inpatient centers and doing charity work most like um they wanted to make a movie they wanted to make youtube videos but all of it was in the idea of them wanting recognition they wanted to make a name

for themselves not actually helping and that caused me a lot of frustration and it kind of set me back on my path not of my journey with mental health but of my journey of wanting to help people and so I think when I started doing TikToks and talking openly and honestly about you know bettering yourself and going through hard things and you know trying to push through and persevere and being able to touch people in this way that was the first time that I felt like I had had success in doing so had success in actually reaching people and helping people in that way helping like people who were very much so like my younger self and so once I hit that and once I recognize that I have not stopped I have not it has been a constant it has been something I'm

consistently and constantly working on I want to reach as many people as I can and let them know that hey they're not alone and I get it you do feel fucking crazy at some points and it does get really hard but if I can get through it somebody who was so set on killing themselves for five plus years I'm still here I'm still powering through then you can too you absolutely can because I thought I had no hope I thought there was no hope for me I thought there was no place in the world for me I felt lost I felt confused I felt like nobody was on my team but there are people on your team and I'm one of them and I'm here for you um the best bet for me when I was in that very very low place and it is a very hard decision you have to make um but you know my

parents were scared for me my therapist who I had met with once was very scared for me and quickly I was I mean within five hours of meeting with that therapist I was placed in an inpatient center was the best experience I ever had no but it quickly made me realize that I did in fact want to get better um and I did in fact need to be there um I couldn't be trusted on my own I had already been doing self-harm behaviors um I had already attempted I just simply couldn't be on my own so yes it's a very hard decision to make it's not a fun decision but if you are in that place and you feel like you simply can't trust yourself for your brain it is the best decision to keep you safe and to also learn what the basics are to kind of help uplift yourself

i didn't know what coping skills were until i went to that rehabilitation center i didn't know what coping skills were or like therapy was or medication until I went to that center um and I'm very thankful that they did teach me those things was it in the best possible way ever no but I also understand that they were there to you know watch over me make sure that I was being safe it was very like like they were very careful with us because they knew how at risk we were and I lost a lot of freedoms but it was something that i didn't need to go into um and i've got a few dms from you guys of being like i listened to that episode and it was really hard for me but um you know i did get the help i needed after that and hearing that you went through something similar

to me was you know very beneficial and it helped me make those decisions as well and so it's like yeah these are things that i'm sure my friends and family are like why are you sharing with the world why are you getting on here and speaking about these things but it's like i know how lost and confused and tired and exhausted i was and i just needed one person to sympathize with me and no one could until that one person came it got to a point where i was literally attempting because no one could sympathize with me until finally somebody did so if i can be that person for you thank god I would like to reach as many people as I can in that way um but it's been a very long process it really has and the thing about depression is it is lifelong and they don't

really emphasize that enough in treatment I don't think therapists really talk about that enough um depression is lifelong it's not something that you just go to therapy and cure and then you're good okay it's a it's something that you're going to be dealing with for the rest of your life but it does get easier as time goes on um it's like getting to know a new person you know at first there might be a little language barrier there might be um different ideals it might be a little hard to communicate but you slowly get to know them you slowly get to understand them their tics how they operate and soon you kind of have like a symbiotic nature and I don't think any therapist would agree with me saying that you should have a symbiotic nature with your depression

but me personally somebody who goes through every single day of their life I think that's kind of the best way to go about it um depression is a part of me so is my anxiety so is my mood disorder and it is something that I'm going to deal with for the rest of my life and it's much easier to deal with if you understand it like that than if you're like oh well I did all this work and I'm supposed to be cured but why do I feel this way why am I falling back into pits why am I still feeling bad because then you start being hard on yourself then you start thinking you know you might be crazy and then you start thinking oh well what was all this work for no that's not the way to go about it depression comes in waves and when i was younger when i had

no control over it nor any idea of what it was i would go in waves of months so it would be like years of just like full depression or like six months or three months and then my highs would be either minutes, days, or sometimes a week when I was having a good week, you know. My lows were very long and my highs were very short. Highs being, you know, stable moods, being able to control myself in a healthy manner, being able to feel good about myself in a healthy manner and my lows being you know your general depression um as I've gotten older I think it's flipped it absolutely has flipped um my lows are minutes days sometimes weeks and my highs are months to years which is incredible and which is insane considering I have only been doing work for

what so I started I was put an inpatient at like 14 and now I'm about to turn 23 it's been a lot of work that I've put into it but these years have flown by and I'm very impressed with how far I've come but also I don't ever look at me having those lows as a form of me having a setback as me you know taking steps back the same way that I'm like you know with mercury or retrograde with the chaos you have to go with the flow, you have to accept it, you have to understand those feelings in order to also move on. I think depression is the same way. Yes, you are going to fall back into the lows. No, it doesn't mean that all the work you've done was for nothing. No, it doesn't mean that you're horrible and awful and you're broken because you're still going to keep having

these lows it means that it's just gonna come and go and you have to understand that in order to work through it and move through those spells of depression so I had to ask myself the really hard question last night of you know am I depressed because I get in these moods where I'm like I don't want to work I don't want to talk to people I just want to lay in bed and dissociate and not think quite honestly um in whatever form that i can possibly do so um when i was younger i think it came out in more chaosy behaviors i was more reckless um with myself my body and like substances now i think my depression is you know more of a not healthy but healthier than fucking the craziness i'd put myself through of just like molly and partying over and over and over um

I now just like find myself attached to my bed, unable to do those very easy things such as brushing your teeth or doing your bangs or cleaning up your room. And I think it's now that I'm able to identify my depression and how it forms, I really have to be the tough and honest personal with myself as well to point it out or else it will continue um I do have to you know have that aha okay let's recognize this behavior and sit with it and understand it and feel it fully in order to move on or else I'm gonna get stuck because I do get stuck sometimes and that's when those lows turn into those months and those years because that low is so comforting it is it is great to lay in bed all day and to dissociate it's incredible I don't have to think about

anything it's a comforting feeling because it's something I'm so used to um it is like a default mode that is negative yes but it feels really good I don't know why I don't have any explanation for it other than maybe it's just something I felt for a long time something that I believe I deserve so I sit with it and I believe that I need to sit with it but in reality sometimes you have to be that harsh parent to yourself and I have to be like Hannah what the fuck are we doing like what are we doing you've worked really hard you know you can get out of this you need to if you just identify you know in enact those coping skills that you've worked so hard to identify as well um and taking it one step at a time it's like a caregiver to yourself with mental health there is

no caregiver you know with like when you're bed bound at home with other illnesses i feel like you know a nurse comes by once a day to make sure you're getting fed you're getting fluids to help you walk around with depression you don't get that because no offense people don't give a shit so you have to give a shit you have to give a shit about yourself enough to be like okay if the one thing i can do today is simply get out of bed and brush my teeth then i'm going to get out of bed and brush my teeth and that's my one goal and if that's your goal for the day that's incredible but set one healthy goal for the day to achieve so then you feel like you're back on track to you know working yourself back up

I find that when I'm in my depressive episodes I can't do anything and I have the mindset that I can't do anything and I get stuck in that mindset so actually enacting these behaviors even if they are very small i understand like mentally sane people are probably going to be like bitch you can't even fucking brush your teeth but it's like you have no idea the shit i've been through like you have no idea how hard it gets when your brain is just constantly fighting you on things but when you do enact those behaviors and you do take that you know first step forward to kind of climb out and better yourself when you do end up back in bed and on the fucking floor and beating yourself up mentally the same thoughts don't stick like they used to

because in the back of my head I'm like okay but I'm thinking all these things and how impossible they are to do but I still completed this one thing so in turn they don't have any validity you know and so I start enacting more and then more and then more and then usually I'm back on track with where I was but it is a process and it does take time and I have to allow myself to have that time and to go through those motions and to offer myself that space and that peace that I really do need also something that doesn't help is trying to identify where it came from or where it's coming from um when I was younger people really really tried to make me identify you know why are you feeling this way like why now and even as my like even in my own head

I really tried to like okay well you know it's coming from somewhere like it has to be stemming from something in my life it has to be coming from something like what bothered me what am I not doing like where is it coming from I thought if I had an answer then you know I'd be able to solve it easier but the hard truth with depression and as somebody who has depression lifelong it is a mental illness it doesn't come from anywhere it doesn't there's no answer there's no reason it's just simply something that happens and so endlessly searching for a answer is never helpful and never beneficial other than sitting with myself and understanding that yeah this is just something that I have and you know trying to search for an answer or reason is going to make

me more frustrated because there is none and I need to understand that you know this is just something that I have to work through and that I'm going to continuously have to work through and that is the peace of mind that I'm going to have to um deal with and accept in order to move on but I feel really grateful for my younger self as I'm sitting here I know she went through a lot and it was really hard and she did have to make a lot of very hard decisions for herself in order to you know get better do better um like I remember walking into the what would be the mental hospital and I was there for a good seven days um I think that's the usual the usual um stay but I remember walking in there and you know they do the usual like let's check you over um make sure your scars

aren't like breaking bleeding you don't need stitches um they take your shoelaces they take belts you can't really bring anything in other than clothing because they were like people sneak shit in and like deodorant they sneak shit in and everything they cut out the wire of my bra like they take every precaution I lost all you know things that were necessary but you know also necessary for my safety um did the usual thing i think when i got there they were also doing group therapy so they threw me right into group therapy um and then i went to my room because it was nighttime and they were taking me to my room to show me my roommate and i remember walking in there and i walked in and they were like yeah if she gets a if she does get aggressive you need

to let us know and i was like okay and as soon as i walked in this girl looked at me she goes i'm gonna kill you and i was like okay i'm not that mentally ill am i in the right place um am i am i in the right area and i probably was but like mental health shows up in many many many different forms at that time i was like i am i'm not that mentally ill like i sure i want to kill myself but i'm not i'm not attempting murder on anyone other but me other than me um and she got sent to a long-term care facility my goal as soon as i got there though as soon as i saw the turnaround of people going to long-term care facilities was i need to get better i i gotta all right hannah let's you know tie up our um metaphysical shoelaces because i don't actually

have shoelaces and let's get to work here because I can't stay in the hospital super long I knew it was like I didn't like losing my rights I didn't like losing my items that I needed I was like drawing art and I drew a skull or something and they were like yeah you can't draw that and I was like what the fuck like I have no rights here and I think when I was younger I really really really despised the hospital simply because i didn't have a lot of choice in it um i was sent there i would have to say i more so talked my way into it um but you know older me sitting here is like i don't think i would be here alive if i didn't get sent to that hospital if i didn't go there and then realize that you know this shit takes work it does it takes a little bit of work um

it takes a little bit of time and energy that you have to put into yourself in order to get better because at the time I didn't want to put in the work I didn't have the energy like I said I could barely brush my teeth barely get out of bed barely shower it's like why would I want to put any work into my mental health and then I realized that is the most important work that I'm ever going to do I don't care about schoolwork. I don't care about career work. I don't care about anything else. The most important work you are going to do is repairing the relationship and the understanding that you have with yourself. because it gets complicated it really does but for a while I was my like I hated myself more than I hated anything else and of course that was at my lowest point but I really really really had to work on repairing the relationship and the understanding that I had with myself

i had to work on um learning how to trust myself learning how to sit with myself sit with discomfort sit with happiness even um learning how to you know find those coping mechanisms and find healthy coping mechanisms um because i feel like i had a lot of very very unhealthy coping mechanisms learn how to communicate with myself it is a whole relationship that you have to just like rebuild and re-understand and I think the rest of my life is going to be me just learning how to be with myself and learning how to understand myself and I used to think that was so complicated and so much work and why the fuck me but now I feel really blessed to have the understanding and the relationship that I do have with myself because I have a lot of trust for myself and I

have a lot of love for myself and I have a lot of like high high beliefs for myself that I don't think anybody else has for me um like I used to like completely hate on myself and that's the easiest way to revert to it's the easiest way to treat yourself it's very easy to be mean to yourself but the hard part is being kind to yourself and so I kind of fell into people are like toxic positivity that's toxic positivity but like when you are at a point where you only feel hatred towards yourself yes you're gonna have to redevelop that mindset and yes it's probably gonna come across as toxic positivity but in reality I have to be so outlandishly good to myself because I have been so outlandishly bad to myself that I have to just like rewire my brain

like the other day at work my co-worker was like Hannah I'm not gonna lie like like most of the time you show up as a 10 um like sometimes it's a nine and a half but most like every time you show up to work it's a 10 and I was like no every single time I show up to work it's an 11 and sometimes I show up to work and it's a 10 and they were like oh my god I love you I love that mindset like yes you should have that self-worth for your set yourself but it's like those thoughts those feelings were things that constantly were flowing through my head and I just had to completely redirect my thought process in the most absurd ways if I ever felt down on myself it would be like I would just have to uplift myself in the most like craziest ways

the most outlandish ways simply because I had to offset all the negativity that I was pushing onto myself and it's really hard it's really hard to redirect your thought process journaling has really helped I know I talk about journaling a lot and I know a lot of you guys are like Hannah we get it we've heard this before journaling is annoying but as somebody who has a really hard time navigating the thoughts in their head because there are so many of them and they are so constant and like I said I also have an anxiety disorder so a lot of the thoughts in my head are not based in reality and they are based in well my fucking head and my anxiety living in there journaling and sitting down and working with yourself every single day to work

through those thoughts work through those anxieties has been the number one way for me to rebuild that relationship with myself at first I was journaling and I didn't even realize it I was just so overwhelmed with thought that I would just fall into my notes app and I would just purge all of my thoughts and my anxieties into my notes app close it and just pass out because I was so tired And then I realized, okay, this is a healthy behavior. How do we extend it? How do we keep this going? And then I bought myself a journal and I bought cute little pens and stickers. And now, you know, the work that I'm putting into myself is fun. And I really, really have rebuilt that trust and that relationship within myself through this and through just sitting with myself and hearing myself and understanding myself, something that no one has really ever taken the time to do with me, except for like therapists. but I mean I'm paying them um but it really really helped me rebuild that trust within myself when I realized that okay you know like sometimes it's just like

sometimes you just have to try even if you if you don't succeed it's just trying is already a very brave thing to do so don't be afraid to be proud of yourself for trying um and so I was proud of myself you know I started becoming more happier with who I was I started getting excited over little things like okay I just cleaned my room of the depression floor that I had I did that no one told me to do that no one was nagging me to do that I got up and did that and by being quite honestly the only person to sit with me and to really take the time to understand me and to really take the time to believe in me that has 100% brought so much trust back into myself and really helped me rebuild my relationship and I think I mean like

I said I will continue learning about myself building that relationship for the rest of my life that's a beautiful thing about living is we have endless opportunities to grow and change for the years that we have on this planet you're not stuck with where you are you're not stuck with who you are but if you do put in the time and energy you will see real results you will um and as I'm sitting here in what we would call a depression spell I still feel 10 times better than I would have at 15 and I still feel content and proud of myself in knowing that you know like this is hard I'm in a hard spot but that doesn't mean I'm not going to get out of it that doesn't mean I'm not going to work through it that doesn't mean I'm not going to persevere through this

because I trust myself and I trust who I am and I trust that together we are going to work through it and it's been a long journey but I think that has been the biggest part in my healing process is simply learning how to trust myself because I really really did not trust myself for a long time I didn't trust my thoughts I didn't trust my actions I didn't trust my gut I didn't trust my beliefs in myself I didn't and in turn I didn't trust anybody else around me and it caused a lot of anxiety so I think that's like if you could have steps I feel like that is step number one but also it's a step that i'm constantly doing and will be forever doing through doing this it's also made it easier to understand other people's actions and behaviors and really take the time to

set boundaries and set necessary boundaries because i've already done them with myself it's easier to do in turn with another person and to not settle for shitty people and shitty behavior and to not let other people take advantage of me and to not let other people speak ill on me and to not let all those horrible awful things that really add up in the real world with relationships with other people if I'm not going to allow myself to beat the shit out of me mentally why would I ever allow somebody else to do that and so that's been also kind of beautiful because I also didn't trust my relationship with other people for a long time simply because I had no trust in myself I had no trust in my thoughts um and that's been something that I've more so

enacted within the past few years I've been very proud to do so um it's been really really hard it is hard every single time I do it but like sitting here and looking back it I'm very I'm so proud with how far I've come because I never ever would have thought I could quite honestly live past 18. I didn't think I had a future past 18. I didn't think I would go to college. I didn't think I would graduate. I didn't think I would have my own apartment. I didn't think I would have my own things. I didn't think I would be doing this kind of work to reach out and help other people but I am and I'm doing more and more each day which is kind of fucking heartbreaking and like wonderful to think about like me starting to cry um it's just been like

a dream it really has because I did not I have never visioned a life past 18 for the longest time and I'm gonna turn 23 in like two weeks which is like shocking and really mind-blowing to think about but I did all of that work I did it all I put in the effort no one else believed in me no one else could see me living to this point no one else pushed me I mean other than my parents but they pushed me into like like uh in like to get institutionalized it was only at the point where they were like very very afraid I have done the rest of the work I have done the emotional labor I have been the one to believe in myself and I've gotten so incredibly far like so much further than I ever could have believed or imagined simply because I stood

next to myself and I held my own hand and I said you know what if I'm gonna do it at least I'm not alone because I do have myself oh my god I used to sit in my depression and in my anxiety and in my worry because it was easy and it felt good and overthinking and thinking about those things constantly and let them eating you up it does feel good it's the easy way out but believing in yourself and seeing yourself do the true work and the true growth feels 10 times better so if you are in a point where you were like in that comfortably numb behavior that feeling you don't think there's a way out you don't think you'll get better I'm here to tell you you will and I guarantee simply taking that one step is going to be so scary but it is going to feel

10 times better than you staying where you are and you not getting the help you deserve everybody deserves to feel good everybody deserves to have help everybody deserves to believe in themselves and have that trust with themselves and be able to work through those things if I did it you can and I think that's kind of the biggest thing that I am trying to push here with this podcast I'm a mess I'm fucking psycho I'm crazy I'm a top tier cunt like I am the messiest bitch on this planet but if I can be a good person and I can trust in myself and I can overcome the obstacles in front of me and I can make a life for myself then you can too and you deserve to as well this is mental health awareness month I've been meaning to get around to this

topic for a while now and I hope this has reached the people that it needed to um it might be a little bit of a shorter podcast because I did like an hour and a half on Tuesday and I do need to still hold space for myself with this day and I think I'm gonna go get some lunch um I don't have the energy to cook myself anything um but I do have the energy to still I need to go feed myself I still need to take care of myself um I'm probably gonna go lay in the sun for a little bit and relax and rest and really just work through these hard emotions with myself and I really encourage you to oh my god i really encourage you to do so as well um really sit with yourself and those uncomfortable feelings and ask yourself how can i help you how can i how can i show up for

myself what can i do for myself how can i be there for myself every single day it can be as little as you know being that hype man when you don't have one being that support system when you don't have one to um having that trust with yourself to work through those anxieties and those emotions and stand up for yourself before they spiral out of control or to you know be the parent and come home and do that deep cleaning that you've been putting off for weeks and is now causing you anxiety um i really really encourage you to just take that first step um and that really hard step i hear you it is really difficult but no one else is going to show up for you no one else is going to realize these things no one else is going to care about you quite like you care about yourself so if you

don't decide no one else will no one else will come for you there's no superhero that's you know flies in when I was younger I used to be like someone will notice you know someone will step in and say something someone will you know really feel for me here but it got to a point where I realized no one gives a fuck because everybody else is going through their own things and so if I especially don't give a fuck then no one is gonna care about me so I had to step up and take make that hard decision to show up for myself in every way possible in every way I could because I realized that I was waiting around for something to change when I could be the change when I could be the enactor of that step and I didn't have to suffer for so long so I love you all um I'm gonna

leave you with some depression tips before I get on with my day hold on let me find them so my first reminder which if you are in this stage of depression with me for depression besties um which is actually the law of holes um the first law of holes or the law of holes is an adage which states if you find yourself in a hole stop digging digging a hole makes it deeper and therefore harder to get out of which is used as a metaphor that when is when in an untenable position it is best to stop making the situation worse more generally it advises how one should solve problems of their own making the second law of holes is commonly known as when you stop digging you are still in a hole and you still have to find your way out i posted that on my story also

if you want to read it but along with the law of holes no hole is too deep you can start wherever you are um growth is ongoing and never final we are marketed the glow up to strive to become worthy and to arrive at the blossoming pinnacle of beauty and success this implies that we are less than worthy when we are uncertain or struggling is it possible to think of blossoming and growing as constant present and reoccurring in the now to think of growth as clumsy and messy and worthy all the same all the same the caterpillar and the chrysalis must be honored just as much as the butterfly budding is an ongoing miracle and growing is an eternal emergence not just in the future but in the ongoing divine now just because that first step is really hard

doesn't mean that it's impossible and doesn't mean that it's going to cause negativity in fact it usually does the opposite it usually brings you a lot of peace and joy you are unique but your experiences are not um and I think people really strive for uniqueness and experiences that are only pertaining to them and I also feel like a lot of people feel lost when they feel like you know they're alone and no one has ever experienced this one thing before like I said when i was in my depressive state um i well when i was younger and i didn't know depression could exist in many different life forms including myself i thought it was fucking crazy i thought i was unique to this experience i thought i was the only depressed person on the world

but you must rejoice in community and connection and find peace and understanding that you're not the only one you have to learn how to want your own life and stop seeking other people's and also stop consuming other people's lives um specifically through the form of like social media it's very easy to forget about your own life and find yourself in another person's but you have to want your own life don't long for anyone else's life even with the hardest most painful parts don't pretend they're not there just fill your life up with as much as what makes you love what moves you what fulfills you what makes you happy and the harsh the hardship becomes easier to deal with because you know there are all these things that keep you going want your own life it's yours

only yours no one else could have possibly been you isn't that cool jealousy never helps you grow it only teaches you to learn to hate yourself in new ways and to learn to hate others and the world around you in new ways dream constantly openly i feel like i used to be such a creative little fucking monster and i would just create create create i had these big fucking dreams and it's super important for you to carry these dreams throughout your adulthood no dream is too big and you need to constantly dream in order to constantly continue um once you stop dreaming that's when things get hard I used to have a very lack mindset and I used to constantly think that the world was working against me in every single possible way um but you have to develop a abundance

mindset I realized that things don't need to be hard if it's meant for me I don't need to worry and if it's not meant for me then I definitely don't need to worry this applies to all areas of life it can be simple when you have attachments to the outcome of things this is where suffering occurs when there are no attachments there are just life there's energy uh the energy is open flowing and in harmony with the divine order what's meant for you won't miss you and if it does it wasn't meant for you because of this everything is working in your favor at all times the more you affirm it the more you'll be shown by the universe that everything truly does work in your favor and lastly especially for my depressed girlies i think it's okay to have

a little bit of an ego as long as it's not you know a negative ego but quite honestly the key to life is to become obsessed with yourself you have to love yourself more than you love anyone on this earth you have to know yourself in every way possible your worth your standards your dreams your desires literally everything and you have to cherish yourself more than you could possibly cherish anyone else i think that's super important and so hard um when all you've ever known is to feel smaller and less than everybody but you will get there one day um you really will um and I had to learn to become obsessed with myself and every possible aspect whether it's my dreams whether it's my ideals whether it's my body whether it's how I'm speaking I had to learn to do that because

I was my own worst hater I hated myself in any capacity that I could I took every moment to hate on myself I took every moment to speak down on myself and so you just have to redirect those thoughts and truly let yourself become obsessed and consumed by yourself I love you all I hope we're all staying safe and relatively sane throughout this mercury retrograde if you ever find yourself in a low point I hope you find peace and understanding that you really are never alone and it does take a lot of hard work but you will be so proud of yourself in the year the three years the five years in the future once you have put in the work I am so eternally grateful for younger me and everything that I put in to myself and the work that I did and the hard decisions I had to

make and the boundaries I set and the you know just challenges that I had to face I'm so proud of her I'm so proud of how far I've come and I really can't wait to see where I get um I think this podcast has helped a lot I think I'm a little bit out of my um depression I think I'm feeling a little bit better now go treat yourself to something go do something for the day um go really honor yourself in some way today that's my challenge for you I also did a we have a little homework assignment for the week that I um gave you in last week's I don't know in Tuesday's episode um so if you are having trouble really doing things for yourself for yourself and taking that first step um give that podcast a listen I list them off in there but I feel like Mercury

Retrograde is really just getting to everybody so I'm gonna go lay outside again really soak up the sun um and feed myself i'm probably gonna go to subway subway is like my unhealthy slash kind of healthy not really um guilty pleasure i love it i absolutely love it and i don't get it a lot but i feel like you know i'm having a sad day so subway might be the fix all for that but i love you guys please stay safe get help if you need it never feel afraid to get help um also I really did emphasize the fact that you know you do go through this alone and you do have to work on this alone but when I hit the point where I couldn't trust myself in any capacity I really did need help and it took me reaching out to that one person who showed me kindness to completely 360 my life and

get me back on track so I'm very grateful for you know the the courage it took for me to you know open up about how I was feeling and being honest with my doctors and be honest with the people around me and be honest with my parents so that I could get to this point that they could have more understanding with me and that they could uplift me in the ways that I couldn't uplift myself at the time um you should never feel shameful or um sad or like a failure for getting help we all need help with in this lifetime and we're all simply I remember I had this like I still look up to her I think she is very incredible but um I she was a year older than me in high school and we were friends still are she's incredible she's a great insight on life but there's this one quote that

she would constantly talk about and then I think she got tattooed but it's a quote of um at the end of the day we're all just walking each other home and I find so much peace in that and peace in knowing that you know we're all here for each other we're all going through struggles together but you know sometimes you just need that little bit of help and we need that person to hold our hand and guide us and and take us home so I love you please stay safe I'm sorry this podcast is a little bit shorter we'll be back on track again next week my birthday is coming up I'm so excited but I think this is an important reminder to really take time to listen to yourself and understand yourself and show up for yourself in those ways that you need and you're never alone

I love you have a great wonderful incredible weekend and I will see you all on Tuesday