“What I would tell my teen self about mental health 1. Mental health will become a “trend” in a few years but nobody talks about it now. But you need to know it’s just a basic part of taking care of yourself. 2. Stop being a doormat/pushover thinking you’re being “kind” or “nice”. Listen, you can be at peace for a couple of years this way but at some point you are going to burn out and then become the opposite extreme. Don’t let that happen. Speak up. Be kind and be nice but first and foremost to your own self. 3. Love is whatever you let it be. Love can be jealous. Love can be possessive. Love can be abusive. Love can be whatever unacceptable shit you let yourself be subject to. People do unspeakable things on the name of love. Love has no definition. That’s dangerous. Whatever happened happened. But from now on know this, love is overrated. But freedom, joy and safety are not. 4. People say you’re the writer of the book of your life. Bull shit. There’s a lot we have no control over. We are not the writer of our life. However, we can be the editor. Whatever is handed to us, we can edit. That power is solely ours. Even if a chapter is so bad and painfully written, we can somehow salvage it so that it holds the book of our life together, so that we can get through it and still continue. 5. Their mental health is important. But so is yours. So you have the right to leave. It’s okay. It’s not selfish. But if you expect to get back in touch when you see them doing better, that is. Because then you leaving wasn’t for your mental health but because you simply didn’t care enough. 6. People apologize and do the same things over and over and over. They don’t need the benefit of the doubt after the 2nd time. Every other chance you give them is taking away a chance from you for living a better life. Don’t do that to yourself. 7. Don’t take everything you read/hear on face value. But don’t have your eyes on auto eye-roll either. Find that balance between ignoring and believing. 8. Just because you express and feel emotions more intensely than most others doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you or that you’re emotionally or mentally unstable. You’re just more capable of feeling, more aware of everything and more reactive to every word and sensation than those around you. It may seem like a drawback at first but it’s your strength, you’ll realize that in the long run.”
— creatingnikki