On September 9th, 2022 I celebrated 7 years since I launched my first blog! If you’d like to learn some fun history of my blog through the years (including my cringey first graphics!), check out this post. As a part of “GeekDis”, a conversation on disability representation in pop culture hosted each September by Heather of JustGeekingBy, and because I didn’t have many examples of bloggers with depression when I first started, I want to share some of my journey and what I learned along the way in case it helps and encourages another creator out there who suffers from depression.

If you have a moment, let me start off with some of my story with depression and blogging. I started my blog in 2015 with a weekly posting schedule

…while in college…

As you can imagine, I was stressed beyond belief, especially since I felt obligated to keep to that posting routine because that’s what all the successful bloggers said you’re supposed to do AND I was the kind of person that if I’ve said I will do something, I will do it even if it kills me. Yeah, I know—not the healthiest code to live by, but at least my intentions and commitment were admirable.

Despite the difficulty of maintaining a weekly blog while in school, I still felt like I wasn’t good enough when I’d see other bloggers talk about posting multiple times a week! (HOW!?!? I still don’t understand)

I sometimes would have to take a break from my posting schedule, but when I did I felt immense guilt. As I learned more about the importance of mental health and rest, I had this constant tug of war between knowing I should take care of myself and wanting to maintain publishing blog posts consistently.

After graduation I burnt out. I crashed HARD after having pushed myself for so long. I ended up as valedictorian, but my physical and mental health suffered for it.

By 2018 I hit an all-time low. I was experiencing chronic fatigue and depression like I had never experienced before. I finally talked to my doctor about it and started seeing a counselor. I eventually quit my job because it became too difficult. I’d come home from work and just sit down and stare at the wall for sometimes hours, physically unable to move. My doctor had me try several different things—both lifestyle changes and various supplements—before she finally had me try an antidepressant.

Honestly I have trouble remembering much of what happened between 2016 and 2018. Looking at my blog archive, I was still pretty frequent with my posts until 2018 when I’d MAYBE get 1 post out a month. I’m amazed I somehow did a big rebrand in 2017 and launched a YouTube channel at the end of 2018. Even though my medication started to help significantly, I can still tell how exhausted and out of it I was in those very first videos.

I think I’ve had depression for most (if not all) of my life, but I kept shaming myself for feeling bad. I felt like I didn’t have a right to feel depressed because I had a great, privileged life. Because of this shame, I hid it. I thought I could “get over it” myself. But when it became too overwhelming to bear in 2018, I finally opened up to my family and my doctor. I wrote a blog post, which would be the first time I ever publicly mentioned having depression. It was the scariest post I’ve ever hit “Publish” on.

I received an email from someone telling me that I “shouldn’t be depressed”, and he sent me many links to stories of people suffering around the world. It repeated the very thing that had kept me silent for so many years: “You have no right to feel depressed.” Thankfully I had just gotten to a place where I accepted my depression for being something I can’t help—a chemical imbalance—or else that email might’ve wrecked me. I still cried anyway.

BUT this little story does have a happy ending…

That blog post is now my MOST VIEWED blog post every month (still to this day that I’m writing this post!). It’s viewed literally every single day!

I don’t know who it is reaching, but I hope it encourages someone out there and helps them to not feel so alone. As I hope this post, dear reader, encourages you too.

Though I’ve learned to accept this mental illness, I still often struggle with a harsh inner critic that tells me “I should still be able to do this. Maybe I’m just lazy or not good enough. I just need to try harder.”

Do these words sound familiar? Has your inner critic told you similar lies?

It will be an ongoing learning experience of ups and downs. And with depression you never know when it will strike you back down hard. BUT I have been making progress with my self talk and taking better care of myself. I want to share some of the things I’ve learned on this journey in case it may help you or someone you know.

DISCLAIMER: Please keep in mind that these are my own personal experiences and lessons. My depression may look different than your depression, and that’s ok! That’s normal; we all experience it differently. So please be kind to yourself and learn to recognize your own unique needs and what helps YOU the most (which may even change season to season or even hour by hour).

 

7 Things I Learned from 7 Years of Blogging with Depression

1. What worked yesterday may not work today, and that’s ok

I personally love structure, routine, and figuring out how to make the most of my day. Roughly 10 years ago I even had this figured out almost perfectly. I prided myself in knowing myself and what times of day worked best for which kinds of activities. I’m a great planner and I thrived in school. Well…I started to feel burnt out all the time…but I got what I needed done enough to earn straight A’s and my place as valedictorian.

But everything changed after graduation. I talk about it more in this post how I discovered my tendency in Gretchen Rubin’s system as an “Obliger.” I now lacked the external expectations and motivation that helped me so much back in college. On top of that, I also faced burnout and my depression became worse and more frequent.

After finally accepting I was depressed and needed help, I started medication and therapy. My counselor helped me to see and accept that we can’t hold ourselves to what worked before if we need something different today. This is true of everyone because we don’t always work at 100% or in the same way every single day. Or as Andy Mort once told me: we are living, breathing, and changing organisms, not mechanisms. But it’s especially true of those of us with a mental illness that can make each day particularly unpredictable and sometimes even without warning or reason.

In order to begin to heal from burnout or even survive with my current state of depression, I had to go from planning and time blocking my whole day to hardly planning anything at all. Taking each day and each moment just one at a time.

My perfectionism and inner critic were at an all time high when I started this change. I’d beat myself up horribly if I wasn’t “productive enough” that day. I’d often overestimate how much I could accomplish in a day (trying to live how I once did when I had more energy and less depression) and then feel horrible about it…which then would also make my depression worse. I was stuck in this cycle of feeling bad and discouraged all the time. I felt like I simply wasn’t good enough.

Now that I’ve had time to heal, work on my self talk, learned to be kinder to myself, and manage my stress and depression a bit better, I’m finally starting to be able to plan a bit more while giving myself more grace if that plan needs to change. It’s still frustrating when that happens, but I’ve made a lot of progress in not beating myself up for it as much as I once did.

 

2. Burnout and suffering are NOT worth it

As I said before, I’d often push myself past my limits, but this continuously hurt me more in the long run. I think at one point I even gave myself adrenal fatigue as the part of my body that regulates stress (the adrenal glands) seemed to almost completely shut off from working too hard over a long period of time. Everything became 100x harder.

I used to think it was worth it. I’d rationalize skipping breaks or opportunities to have fun with friends by saying “this is just for a season. I can rest once I finish ___.” But then that season would lead into another…and another…”After I finish THIS project I can finally take it easy”…”Well I HAVE to get this done by this date, so I’ll just push through once more and then I can rest.”

And let me tell you, friend, it was rarely ever worth it.

There truly are sometimes seasons in our life when we need to push through, but that should never become the norm. And if it has become your norm, I want you to take a hard look at your life and your self talk to see where there may be more freedom than you realize if you make some changes. Sometimes it means making some sacrifices of things you want to do. Sometimes it means letting go of who you thought you “should” be.

Your mental health and well being is worth releasing some of this perceived control.

One of the most valuable lessons you can learn is to recognize when you can push and when to take a break.

 

3. Don’t set yourself up for failure or guilt

This may seem like an obvious tip, but if you’re anything like me it might be something that you continue to ignore or deny. If you’re regularly struggling to get a certain amount of things on your list done in a day and beating yourself up for it, then don’t expect yourself to suddenly be able to do that much work tomorrow.

Notice your patterns and set yourself up for wins. You may so badly desire to get more done, but put less on your task list than feels comfortable for you. That way you’ll feel successful when you accomplish them and if you’re able to get anything else done that wasn’t on your list for the day, then WOW! that’s a bonus! Keep it small and easy until you can handle it.

I’ve heard many productivity coaches out there say to put no more than 3 things on your list for the day. What are your TOP priorities? What’s most urgent? What’s most important to you? Everything else can be secondary if you complete those few top priority tasks. But don’t enter each day with an unrealistically long list.

If you’re someone who time blocks, also don’t fill every hour. It’s common for things to take longer than we expect or something comes up. So leave yourself PLENTY of space and margin in case something takes longer so you don’t feel like you’re behind all day if something takes longer to complete.

Setting yourself up for success and peace also includes avoiding people or work environments (when you can) that will set you up for failure, guilt, or unhealthy hustling. One simple example: if you’re struggling with feeling guilty when you don’t get as much done as you think you “should”, don’t have someone around you who struggles with the same insecurity, is a perfectionist with a neurotypical view on work ethic, or who will criticize you for not doing more. That will obviously just make you feel worse and doubt yourself more.

If possible, find friends or coworkers who are understanding and encouraging. It’s made such a difference in my life to have friends like that, as I’ll share more about in point #6.

 

4. Don’t compare yourself to others

We’ve already talked about when you think you “should” be able to do more based on your own ideal or how you used to be able to operate in the past. But there are also the “should”s we place on ourselves when we start to look around and compare our lives and productivity to someone else’s.

It’s like making a bird run in a race on its little legs against a cheetah. It’s not a fair race and doesn’t let the bird use it’s greatest strength: flying. Or comparing the success of a millionaire’s music career to a musician who is just as talented but couldn’t afford to hire the the same top notch producers and marketers.

My analogies aren’t perfect lol, but you get my point.

I’m not going to lie; there are very real advantages that some people may have over you. Some that you may not even see behind your screen. But that should help relieve you of some of the pressure, not add to it. They’re doing the best they can with the resources, connections, abilities, and mental health they have…and so are you. Stop focusing on and fretting over what you can’t do and instead make the most of what you can do.

(I’m preaching to myself here; I still majorly struggle with this)

Every moment you spend comparing and feeling sorry for yourself is one less moment to recharge and make the most of what you DO have. And honestly, I think those who had to work 10x harder are the most impressive and inspiring stories that help the rest of us to keep going.

Remember, “doing your best” doesn’t mean “doing as well as I could last year,” “doing as well as ___ expects me to,” or “doing as well as this other person”, but rather it’s doing your best with the time, resources, energy, and mental health YOU CURRENTLY HAVE in this moment right now.

 

5. Learn how to articulate your needs and set boundaries

For those of us with less energy than others, we need to be extra protective of what we spend that limited energy on. Going back to those meanie “should”s, we can sometimes sacrifice our own priorities and values out of obligation to others’ requests. Especially if you’re a recovering people-pleaser like me. But your time, energy, hopes, and dreams are just as important as anyone else’s.

Sometimes the people around us may simply not understand that we have a smaller bucket to pour from. After pouring energy into this social engagement, they likely still have plenty left to do what’s most important to them. Whereas for you, it may require most if not all of the little energy you have. Hopefully someone who claims to care about you will be understanding if you kindly explain this to them.

And if they don’t respect your needs or boundaries and try to guilt you into doing what they want…that’s not really someone you want in your life, or at least not be close to. I know it may be super duper hard, but stand firm in your boundaries. You don’t have to bend to everyone else’s will. Your needs and goals are just as important as theirs.

It’s also better to let someone down than cause yourself to downspiral. I can’t tell you how many times I was going through a depressive episode and pushed myself to go to a social engagement anyway, putting on that happy mask only to return home completely depleted and experiencing worse depression for days after. Sometimes occasionally pushing ourselves for the sake of meeting connection needs or showing support to a loved one is worth that temporary push, but it’s important to assess ourselves before saying yes. Think about whether it’s worth the potential future consequences.

 

6. Finding friends and role models can make such the difference

Even though I did have many kind and sympathetic friends, it helped me so much more when I saw friends and role models with depression or mental illness taking time for themselves or accomplishing their dreams in ways that were best for THEM, even if it differed from others.

Though we shouldn’t compare, seeing someone with similar struggles can help us feel less alone. It’s important to have representation, not only of the successes of those (real or fictional people) with similar struggles but also the reality of their harder days.

I encourage you to search for someone in your field who’s going through something similar as you. Sometimes all it takes is a Google search with those key words.

And when it comes to finding friends who may understand, look for support groups or other places (both on and offline) where such people may show up. Or, if you’re feeling up to it, perhaps bravely share pieces of your story with those around you; you may be surprised who may open up with their “me too” story.

I want to give a few shoutouts to two inspiring friends who greatly helped me on this journey.

One of my best friends, Antonio (check out his music), helped me through the darkest time in my life. I think he might’ve also been one of the first people to openly talk to me about personal mental health struggles, which gave me the courage to fully open up about my own struggles.

Christian Rivera also later played a major part in inspiring through example and helping me learn to accept myself and my needs more. He’s publicly talked about his cyclothymia and through one-on-one conversations taught me how he personally manages his business and creative work through different seasons of his mental health. It gave me ideas to try out in my own life and the permission I needed to act upon what my body needs in each moment.

 

7. Celebrate & keep track of every win & encouragement

Something that helps me when I’m feeling down on myself is looking at my “Encouragement” or “Accomplishments” photo albums I’ve created on my phone. Any time someone praises or encourages me, I screenshot it and add it to my album. And, as you can guess, I also screenshot or take pictures of my accomplishments and things I’m proud of myself for doing. It’s hard to look through my Encouragement album without feeling loved or look through my Accomplishments album without feeling at least a little pride.

It’s also important to not rush from goal to goal without pausing to truly celebrate and recognize a job well done or the progress you’ve made (even if it’s less progress than you would’ve liked. Progress is progress). You’ve worked hard; you deserve to let yourself feel good for it. What’s the point of working hard toward your goals and dreams if you never take a moment to reap the rewards of that hard work?

 

BONUS LESSON: I have so much to offer this world, not just in spite of my depression but because of it

Though I wish I didn’t have depression, I have been able to help others more deeply because I related to what they were going through. It’s also made me address and work through my perfectionism, the “should”s that drove my life, what I truly value most to prioritize, the boundaries (or rather the lack of) that I had for my time and energy, and so much more.

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Did anything resonate with you in this post? Is there anything else not on this list that’s helped you? I’d love to hear it! Comment down below. 🙂