Traveling along this mental health journey that I've had, one of the biggest hurdles I have had has been being able to candidly talk about what is actually happening with my mental state. Most people offer a sincere, "Well, you know, it is okay to be vulnerable sometimes, and I'm here for you anytime you need to talk" which is very helpful in knowing what kind of support system is there in case I need it. But what comes after the conversation has ended has been the hardest, and possibly most harmful, part of this whole process.

Talking about our issues with people who care about us and want to help, without a doubt, does help to resolve the issue, but when it's a biological part of our being, can't we actually harm it? Recently I've talked to some friends about how I've been feeling and why I've been acting the way I have, and in the moment, it felt really amazing to have other people understand that crazy mess up there. And for most people, maybe depending on which mental illness and how severe, this could be the last step before real healing gets to start. But I know that with my anxiety, it was about an hour later, once I was alone and back to my normal routine, my brain just kept thinking back to the conversation I just had and telling me any of the following things: "You really should have said this instead.", "Maybe dumping that much on them was a little disrespectful.", "What are they supposed to do with that information now?", "Isn't it a little manipulative to blame your thoughts on their actions?", and so on and so forth. These after-the-fact thoughts send me into a cycle of destructive-supportive-destructive-supportive thoughts, so at the end of the night, mostly I just feel drained for having almost no interaction with people and at the same time having too much interaction with them.

Typically, this feeling of emptiness is common in mental illness, but it almost exclusively never exists in what we think of as a "healing" process. It can cause a lot of issues in trying to get better because it feels like you have fallen deeper into the rabbit hole than you were at the beginning, which is exactly the feeling that you don't want to have. I'm assuming that this idea is a lot different than what we've all kind of learned to accept, and it is helpful like I said, but it's also important to know how this vulnerability is affecting you and to make sure that you can nurture yourself and let people know what triggers you might have in a conversation. Don't let this idea that having walls is destructive and not letting people in is dangerous keep you from actually healing. Much love.