#BellLetsTalkDay

Now before you say, Shawna...."writing a blog about this won't donate money to mental health initiatives"....realize that I know this. If you don't know this WELL now you do and there's a few ways you can donate today, you can text, call, tweet, Instagram post, and even use a snapchat filter. Every time you do any of these things, Bell will donate 5 cents.

5 cents ads up fast when millions of people are doing all these things all day long! This initiative started in 2010 and has already raised $79,919,178.55 and they're estimating it'll be incredibly close/if not OVER $100 million by 2020....which is incredible.

I haven't been strong enough to face my own self. I've talked to a friend about my depression a lot and she recommended I should see a therapist and that it will really help. I'm incredibly scared and I just don't feel ready to do so....BUT the more I think about it the more I want to get help.

I'll be honest and say that I don't want a "title" attached to me. I don't want to be known as "Shawna the girl with bi-polar" or "Shawna the girl with the high anxiety".

Just typing that out lets me know that I'm still having a hard time overcoming the stigma....

There are days when my highs are extremely high, and days when my lows are extremely low. There are days when I can't make decisions, easy decisions like what to eat or what to watch. There are days when everything upsets me and I cry until I get sick. There are days when I'm so motivated to do things that I become extremely proud of myself, even if they are little things like doing the dishes and putting away laundry.

Last year around this time I was the most depressed that I've ever been. I'm still not sure why, maybe just the winter blues, maybe just things not being the way I thought they would be in my mind. These things upset me, I was in my bed crying a lot. I got to a point where I would scratch my arms without even realizing it, until they bled. My mother and my boyfriend were extremely worried about me, my mom wanted me to go to the hospital. My mom kept googling things saying that I might have bi-polar or adult ADHD. Then I would look these things up and become terrified of myself. It made me worse because I thought all of these horrible things about these mental illnesses.

Only a few people know about the paragraph above, and I feel weird sharing it BUT I want to be as honest as I can possibly be.

I'm the person you see every day who smiles, and puts on a happy face even if she may not be feeling that way. I can be a great actress sometimes. I try to keep a positive head at my workplace and when out in public, but doing this all the time can break me into pieces when I'm safe in my home, hidden from everyone else.

I overcame all this, and I'm still not sure how. I think I just had enough love and support in my life for me to pick myself up and start again. I wasn't sure why I was living. I didn't understand what the point of living was. Life since then has never been that low.

But on a day like today when we are all affected by mental illness in some way or another, I see, hear and feel the reasons to live and the reasons to break the stigma and live and be there for each other.

Good mental health isn’t about avoiding problems or trying to achieve a ‘perfect’ life. It’s about living well and overcoming challenges. Even with mental illness, we can and will thrive. I believe in us.

Remember you're not alone. An incredibly large amount of people feel the same way you do, or have and are now overcoming it. I am one of these people trying hard to get myself help and take each day one at a time. I have days where I take ten steps forward, and others when I feel like I'm taking ten steps back. When I go backward, I reach out to someone I love and trust. Reach out to a therapist, a family member, a friend, anyone you can talk to and someone who can help. Don't lock yourself away with the monsters of mental health. There's so many ways to conquer this disease thanks to all the money being put towards it. Find the outlet that will help you!