Love the nuance here--fun to see nuances worked through in real time. We don't need you to be perfect! Human is more than good enough and good enough is perfect.
Hi Alison, I'm a (dare I say it) psychiatrist and have been following you for a while. Your story is so powerful and just so important. I love that you consider both 'how might this help' but also 'how might this harm'. Social media as we all know is a blackhole and anchoring ourselves with questions like these is just so important.
Thank you so much for sharing this! This is yet another thing you write about that I struggle with: Worrying that my work/writing may, in fact, accidentally be harming others when of course, that's the opposite of the goal!
APPRECIATE this as it's something that I've struggled with while talking and writing and speaking about my own mental health etc as well over the past decade. It's a struggle for sure and one that weighs on my mind. So much so that I started adding a disclaimer at the beginning of episodes when I did Anxiety Diaries podcast and that disclaimer is also now at the bottom of every issue of my Anxious Dude newsletter. As much as I want to help, it's hard not to wonder if I've given advice that worked for me, but might not for others.
This is exactly why I love reading your comments and advice on mental health, because it is so nuicanced and of course catering to a wide variety of people with all kinds of different mental health struggles will always have a component of generalized advice, otherwise you‘d be doing one on one therapy sessions and that is not the goal of your account! But you always share any and every advice and insight you have with an open mind and an attitude of „take what you need from this and leave what doesn‘t fit“ and I think that is incredibly helpful. It also teaches us to rely on our own critical thinking when it comes to our own lived experience. It teaches us that we can absolutely rely on you to have brilliant insight and knowledge about an abundance of things, while also knowing that we are the experts in our lives and get to choose and pick the advice that feels relevant. And I think to hold that balance as an online mental health advocate is such a hard thing to do and you do it very well.
This might be a bit weird, but I haven‘t struggled with my mental health in a long time. I don‘t suffer from OCD and I used to have an eating disorder which I consider myself fully recovered from, and haven‘t had depressive episodes since I recovered from my eating disorder, and I still follow you avidly and love to listen to your thoughts and advise, just because it is still incredibly helpful even though I don‘t have an actual mental illness diagnosis. It is just the way you approach life and challenges in your own life that I find so admirable and that I love to see you work through and share what you have learned through that.
I have learned so much from you over the years through the couch show, podcast, and now here as well. While I continue to have multiple other pillars of support in my mental health journey (therapy, medication, my support network), there have been multiple times that you have provided deep insight to an issue that I have been struggling with. Additionally, I appreciate how thoughtful you are with your platform and with the information you choose to share. Thank you <3
Your posts have helped me figure myself out (even though we are very different people) but even going back to the old couch videos - they've helped me better understand friends of mine who are more similar to you than they are to me. One example (of many), would be a friend who everyone (including me!) sees as being very "accomplished" and "successful" but because her standards/expectations for her own life were different than what it currently is... she doesn't seem to accept those compliments the way people might expect. It was helpful seeing you talk about your own feelings of not being successful enough over the years despite perhaps people on the outside telling you that you are. Anyway, your imperfections and biases and strong storytelling are definitely as important to your unique POV as your wit and education. When mixed with as much compassion as you currently have - it's tough for me to think of anyone better able to communicate mental health advice.
I loved this!💕 Thank you for sharing your journey about giving absolute advice to telling your story that might help someone. I imagine it must have been hard. I’m also guilty in giving absolute advice to people and I resonate so deeply with a changing perspective of that.
Love the nuance here--fun to see nuances worked through in real time. We don't need you to be perfect! Human is more than good enough and good enough is perfect.
Hi Alison, I'm a (dare I say it) psychiatrist and have been following you for a while. Your story is so powerful and just so important. I love that you consider both 'how might this help' but also 'how might this harm'. Social media as we all know is a blackhole and anchoring ourselves with questions like these is just so important.
Thank you so much for sharing this! This is yet another thing you write about that I struggle with: Worrying that my work/writing may, in fact, accidentally be harming others when of course, that's the opposite of the goal!
This was great. I definitely agree with you about the power of stories!
APPRECIATE this as it's something that I've struggled with while talking and writing and speaking about my own mental health etc as well over the past decade. It's a struggle for sure and one that weighs on my mind. So much so that I started adding a disclaimer at the beginning of episodes when I did Anxiety Diaries podcast and that disclaimer is also now at the bottom of every issue of my Anxious Dude newsletter. As much as I want to help, it's hard not to wonder if I've given advice that worked for me, but might not for others.
This is exactly why I love reading your comments and advice on mental health, because it is so nuicanced and of course catering to a wide variety of people with all kinds of different mental health struggles will always have a component of generalized advice, otherwise you‘d be doing one on one therapy sessions and that is not the goal of your account! But you always share any and every advice and insight you have with an open mind and an attitude of „take what you need from this and leave what doesn‘t fit“ and I think that is incredibly helpful. It also teaches us to rely on our own critical thinking when it comes to our own lived experience. It teaches us that we can absolutely rely on you to have brilliant insight and knowledge about an abundance of things, while also knowing that we are the experts in our lives and get to choose and pick the advice that feels relevant. And I think to hold that balance as an online mental health advocate is such a hard thing to do and you do it very well.
This might be a bit weird, but I haven‘t struggled with my mental health in a long time. I don‘t suffer from OCD and I used to have an eating disorder which I consider myself fully recovered from, and haven‘t had depressive episodes since I recovered from my eating disorder, and I still follow you avidly and love to listen to your thoughts and advise, just because it is still incredibly helpful even though I don‘t have an actual mental illness diagnosis. It is just the way you approach life and challenges in your own life that I find so admirable and that I love to see you work through and share what you have learned through that.
I have learned so much from you over the years through the couch show, podcast, and now here as well. While I continue to have multiple other pillars of support in my mental health journey (therapy, medication, my support network), there have been multiple times that you have provided deep insight to an issue that I have been struggling with. Additionally, I appreciate how thoughtful you are with your platform and with the information you choose to share. Thank you <3
Your posts have helped me figure myself out (even though we are very different people) but even going back to the old couch videos - they've helped me better understand friends of mine who are more similar to you than they are to me. One example (of many), would be a friend who everyone (including me!) sees as being very "accomplished" and "successful" but because her standards/expectations for her own life were different than what it currently is... she doesn't seem to accept those compliments the way people might expect. It was helpful seeing you talk about your own feelings of not being successful enough over the years despite perhaps people on the outside telling you that you are. Anyway, your imperfections and biases and strong storytelling are definitely as important to your unique POV as your wit and education. When mixed with as much compassion as you currently have - it's tough for me to think of anyone better able to communicate mental health advice.
"Pobody's nerfect." - Eleanor Shellstrop
Thank you for your thoughts, as always!! Love reading your newsletter ♥️
<3<3<3
hi allison!
happy to hit that LIKE button (because i LIKE this!)
love,
myq
Thanks for your transparency here. Life would be so much easier if advice truly was one size, fits all. But alas... 😩
I appreciate your thoughtful approach to your work! 💜
Really liked reading this 💜
I loved this!💕 Thank you for sharing your journey about giving absolute advice to telling your story that might help someone. I imagine it must have been hard. I’m also guilty in giving absolute advice to people and I resonate so deeply with a changing perspective of that.