Hi, Vasties. Welcome back to Try Not To Care. It's your girl, Ashley. I hope you had a good weekend. I can't believe it's already May.

I feel like I have no sense of time because to me it feels like it was just January and I just started the podcast

but nope, it's literally almost summer. What the fuck is going on? But with it being May, which is Mental Health Awareness Month,

I wanted this week's episode to touch on that. So today we're going to be talking about struggling with mental health,

not being taken seriously, and the negative mindset and weight of struggling with your mental health.

Just like last week, I do want to issue a trigger warning since we are talking about mental health and that can be very emotional and triggering.

I have a lot of lighter episodes you can listen to, but I do think having harder discussions and topics like this is important.

So we're going to do that today.

I love that mental health is becoming way more talked about in social media and it's being acknowledged.

I love that we're working towards breaking the stigma and being able to be open with what we're struggling with.

It's almost to the point where if you don't struggle, there's something wrong with you. Like you had a good childhood, you were raised properly,

you don't have any mommy or daddy issues. You don't think about often yourself like every day.

Like I'm so happy that we're having these conversations and people feel comfortable to share their experiences with each other,

but I do think there is a long way to go.

I think it's a lot easier to look at someone who is open with the fact that they've struggled and have gone through something traumatic

and praise and celebrate that person if they have successfully gone through it or have gained something from going through what they did.

It's admirable to look at someone who has struggled with their mental health or who has had a very public breakdown and see them rise from that and do well.

And we should celebrate others getting better and doing great things, but it seems like we are commemorating getting through something hard,

but discredit the process of that hard thing.

We respect others, we're getting better, but often shame them for the struggle itself.

We talk about mental health so often on social media in particular that we throw it around like it's nothing.

It's so common to joke about your own experiences and make self-deprecating jokes. Hell, I do it all the time.

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