Seeking help for depression or anxiety helps your friends and family too. By comparison, if you just try and get through it alone without saying a word, they’ll wonder what they’ve done wrong because you’ll be exhausted, irritable, and anti-social.
So you’ll feel lousy and guilty and so will they. You have to believe that reaching out to a professional for help and talking to those you trust is actually a sign of strength, not of weakness.
You may not want to, but now’s the time to see your doctor and tell them the truth. Don’t sugar coat it. If you’ve been crying or can barely get out of bed, don’t tell the doctor you’re just a bit blue or tired. Tell them the truth.
If you’ve been struggling with alcohol or drugs, there’s some great advice here from the Canadian Department of Health:
Younger people wondering about how to seek help for mental health issues, ReachOut Australia is brilliant:
https://au.reachout.com/#figure-out
If you’d like to speak to someone to discuss what you are going through, Beyond Blue have a range of great services that are free:
https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support
If you’re wondering how to talk to your boss about how you’re feeling this page from Medibank is great:
https://shorturl.ahttps://www.medibank.com.au/health-support/mental-health/articles/should-i-tell-boss-mental-health-issue/t/uGIJY
And, of course, you don’t have to be suicidal to talk to Lifeline on 13 11 14 or text them on 0477 13 11 14.
Mental Health on Tap 