YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

My name is Taylor, I'm a male, and I'm 21. I started listening to the podcast about 2 years ago at a really dark and lonely time in my life. To say that this show helped me would be an understatement and I can't express what hearing the guests on the show, reading survey responses, and reading threads on the forums has done for my life. I've been seeing a counselor for a little over a year now to help deal with my social anxiety and depression. I always hear paul speak about support groups and on a recent episode he mentioned that forums are a great bridge into getting a feel for what support groups are like. So, here I am! Even though I am pretty shy and reserved in real life, I am always excited to make new connections on the internet. Crazy, right? I must be the only one who's like that . Well hopefully I can get to know some of you better and we can help each other like the show has helped all of us.

Hello LatinPhrase, welcome to the forum, can't wait to read your written contributions to the threads!

Welcome latin.

Good for you for facing your fears, and for seeking help.

Btw, 21 is a good age to be a little wayward.

As a 22-year-old female with depression and social anxiety, I can definitely relate. Welcome!

Thank you for all the kind words. Would it be ok if you all told me a bit about yourselves and some things that help you fight the "demons" in your heads? If you don't feel like it I completely understand, but if you do I'd appreciate it. Thanks a lot!

[1] talk back to demons in my head, and write out the whole conversation, both sides, being fair to the demons in my head. Writing it out on paper is so important, because it creates a permanent record, and it is objective evidence that a particular "voice" was truly heard.

[2] some of the "demons" are actually parts of myself that I must hold, like I might hold a weeping child

[3] all voices in my head need to be soothed with [a] writing down their concerns a plan of action, usually made up of two parts [b-1] what I can do in 30 seconds, maybe more, which is not a lot of time, but is a small concrete step toward honoring and committing to the concern of the voice [b-2] the rest, usually as a simple place-holder in a notebook for another 30 second chunk of work to be done later

30 second chunk of work is not much, but it can be a [*] google search, [*] mind-mapping a few bubbles on a piece of paper or with a on-line mind-mapping tool (like Mindmeister, which I like), [*] writing down 5 bullet points [*] making a very small to do list of tiny, clearly defined tasks with no prerequisites, [*] collecting magazine articles in a folder, [*] lightly cleaning and organizing a workspace for later work, [*] etc

I really appreciate that manuel. I'll definitely start using some of those. Its so comforting to see you talk about "30 second chunks" because its almost too exhausting to think about anything further than that haha.