Part of the same reason why I advocate so strongly for Suicide Prevention Month and mental health awareness in general is because I still sometimes encounter those struggles and the same type of way, in the same type of manner, of around five or so years ago—looking at a prescription bottle or looking at a prescription to see how much I needed to take to do something or feel anything. 

Before saying anything or going any further into this, it’s not, and never have been, and never will be, about attention. Also, this isn’t a cry for help, nor is it for me to get help. I am actively seeking help, and I actively have someone to talk to.

This is more of an opportunity for me to discuss or simply see eye-to-eye with you guys in terms of the struggles of living every day, and painfully trying to get through almost every single second of it. 

I have been diagnosed with Severe Anxiety and Depression Disorder, as well as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). I was recently diagnosed with ADHD in my college years, as well as OCD, but after looking back, I had really struggled with OCD, hyperactivity, and attention my entire life and for as long as I can remember. 

I never use these remarks about myself or these diagnoses in any way, shape, or form to try to give me an excuse or an out or an easier path in life.

Honestly, from the moment I was young, I’ve always loved the competition. 

I’ve always loved trying to give my all for different things and not being the best at it, but just trying to do the very best that I can. I’m always competitive by nature, all the way down to me playing athletics and even school, for goodness sake, to get a better score than I got the last time. 

Saying these things or having these diagnoses about myself doesn’t make my struggle easier, nor does it give me the easy way out, nor do I actually even want the easy way out.

I kind of am okay with having a hard life or a hard struggle. I mean, granted, I wish I didn’t have a hard life, and by all means, I know people have it a thousand times worse than I do, and I’m not comparing myself to that in any way. But I like to compete for individuality and authenticity, and to just to be myself in all of my passions. I like to try to compete against myself, essentially to be the best version of myself. That’s the way that I choose to go through life, and that’s the way that I choose to go through these things on a day-to-day basis.

A motto that I have, and it’s just always stuck with me and probably will for the rest of my life, is:

It takes the same amount of energy to be mean to someone as to be nice to someone. So, why are we wasting that extra energy, that extra bit of breath, to say something rude? 

• Also, if all you say are nice things to people or about people or to people, all they have to say about you is only nice things. There’s nothing mean that can come from it against you. I don’t do that for the approval of anyone else. I just do it for myself because I think, especially with going through the things that I went through, it’s not like this whole world is a really nice place to live in anymore. 

There’s a lot of hate and there’s a lot of negative stuff out there, especially on social media.

The Stigma Surrounding Mental Health

That’s where it’s going to get me kind of started, and I hate as well that as someone who advocates for mental health and as someone who is neurodivergent, I hate that I have to say all of these precautions or all of these forewarnings or even justify all these things just for me trying to have peace of mind and be able to kind of talk about my life. 

Because what I say, I feel like maybe while it might not help you, you might be able to take something out of it, or there might be that one person who’s struggling or who’s looking at the next thing to get by that could read this article or benefit from hearing any bit of my story. I don’t do it for that, but I do it because there’s just such a big stigma, a big negative connotation around mental health in general, that it breaks my heart that I have to justify these things. 

This is my life, and I have been living in it. I’ve been living through these depressions, these anxieties, these thoughts, and it’s my life. It’s normal to me.

Why do I have to be so secretive? 

Why do I have to keep my mouth shut? 

Why do I have to jump around anything and everything for all these things to be able to speak my mind or have any peace of mind for how I am, how I think, how I do anything? 

Why do I have to justify these things? 

It should be things that we just deep down as a society just accept and know that not everyone can have happy days all the time. Some people are chemically depressed, and it doesn’t have to have a negative connotation. That medicine and taking medicine isn’t that negative connotation, like, “Oh my goodness, I can’t believe you’re on meds or you must be crazy, of course you’re on meds”.

These are all things that I have literally been told.

I have been called a psychopath, and that is just something that shouldn’t just be thrown around, and that’s just something I strongly stand by.

It just breaks my heart to think that I have to even justify myself as someone who struggles with mental health and as a mental health advocate as well.

We need to be accepting of everyone, and need to live under a similar motto of just being kind to everyone, because truly, you really genuinely do not know what goes on behind the scenes.

The Importance of Sharing Our Stories

The last thing I wanted to say about this is that my story is unique and different, just like everyone’s story is. 

Just as you guys give me the platform or the space to be able to hear my story, I want you to try and welcome that space and that energy to let your friend share or be more open to them expressing their thoughts and their feelings. 

• Also, reach out to your friend just for the heck of it because you don’t really know the importance of your words or the harmfulness of your words. 

Like I said, right now we’re in such a culture of hate and negativity that it’s just very important for us as a society and as a person to be able to surround ourselves with those things and those positive energies that we would like for ourselves, that we provide that space for everyone else as well because everyone is so uniquely and authentically made, and that goes for their story as well.

Everyone’s story is so unique and different. 

• Just because you hear my story doesn’t mean that I have all the answers or know everything, because I’m so far from knowing all these 

I am always learning every single day about new stories, new hardships, and everything about that every day.

I don’t want my vulnerability to be kind of somewhat taken advantage of, or in that sense, because it’s so hard for me, and this is saying so much because I’ve been a part of this program in the George-Anne for as long as I can remember. 

Since I was a freshman, I’ve been dying to tell my story or even just shine light on my thoughts and my feelings towards suicide prevention and mental health for so long, but I’ve just been so scared of what everyone else might say or think or how people might potentially treat me differently. None of those things are things that I want to have to face just because I chose to be vulnerable with you guys.

After all of that forewarning and all of that prior information, after getting everything out there or trying to, so that we can all be nice and understanding of everyone’s lives, I want to take a couple of seconds to talk briefly about a couple of parts of my story. 

Of course, it’s taken me this long to be able to feel comfortable to express these things, but also just because there are still parts that I’m not ready to share. ‘m still worried that I’m going to be thought of as weird or rude, or that my friends or other people that I might come across this think that I’m crazy. That I’m not doing things that I can’t support myself independently or that I am actually crazy. 

I’m here to write to you, to prove to you, and everyone that has said those things, that’s not the accurate definition of mental health and mental health awareness at all, or suicide prevention, for goodness’ sake.

This is something that I wish that I could have thought differently, felt differently or even made separate decisions or acted differently. I would have if I could. 

Through my lifetime of meditation, every coloring page, every crossword, every puzzle, every podcast—it feels like I tried literally everything. 

I just don’t think that there’s as much of an outlet of this awareness as there should be. 

So, that’s why I finally realized that even though it is hard for me to do this, the pros far outweigh the negatives that could potentially come from this.

I don’t want these perceptions of these thoughts or anything that I say to make people think that she can’t have a job or a job on her own or that she’s meant to be in a mental health institution, because my struggle is different than other struggles.

You can’t generalize one person’s struggle or what I go through to determine mental health for everyone. 

• The way that I cope, the way that I do these things, or the way that I relay my positive message and thoughts is not the way that everyone is going to act about mental health and suicide prevention in general.

Honestly, as long as I can remember, there has always been a stigma associated with it. No matter how many precautions I take, I still get worried that it’s going to hurt me or bite me in the ass. 

But if there are people or if I’m in this world and I’m going through this, there has to be triple, even quadruple, the amount of people going through the same thing or even worse than I go through. 

So, if people like me choose not to speak up or choose not to use the outlet in ways to help people, then I don’t think we should use them at all. That’s why I am choosing to use this platform as a form of positive and genuine transparency of who I am and my struggles of what I went through, so you can have someone to confide in and have that person, just as I had a podcast and some people when I was younger. Friends then and now.

This isn’t a shame on you or your lack of knowing or you not being a good enough friend. 

Like I said earlier, I think there are some of these things that just can’t—no matter how hard you try—they can’t be changed unless they’re supported with medication or other alternatives. 

If you were my friend during that time and my friend now, I don’t want you to feel as though you’re obligated to take care of me or be my friend or worry about me because I know that you have struggles as well. 

I think it just goes to show that if everyone can just be that little bit more kinder to their neighbor or even a random person, it could truly change their life.

My Ongoing Struggle and Hope

This doesn’t mean that I didn’t have friends or people who supported me at that time. 

I felt like everything was so dull and dark that there really was nobody there to help me. 

• It felt like my vision immediately dimmed so much that it was hard to see things that were right in front of me. 

Like I said, I don’t want to or I don’t want to go into everything about my mental health or the struggles that I go through because, one, it would probably be the world’s longest article you’ve ever read, and two, these things are still very real. 

Of course, not to the extent of my struggles now and the thoughts of not wanting to be here anymore, but I will say that those thoughts pass through my mind here and there. 

Because even with my thoughts, it’s exhausting to do a lot of things in my life.

But I have hope, and I hold hope because right now I’m actually in a huge period of change in medication, self-realization, and figuring my life out. 

Because medication helps, but it can also hurt so much. 

• Changes in medication can be very life-altering at the same time. 

Right now I’m in another period of severe depression, but I know that there’s a way out. There is a positive to all of this, and that I can learn from it. 

If not, if I don’t feel like I learn anything, I’m still going to grow as a person. So, it might be something hard and not fun now, but I know that as a person, I can grow so much.

Figuring life out is not fun all the time I will say that.

The Harm of Social Media and Hate

Why I wanted to write this was mainly just to kind of bring awareness to the fact that we still get stigma thrust upon us in the mental health advocacy community. 

It’s just crazy that we still get this amount of hate, ill intent, ill thoughts, and negativity, and it’s 2025, almost 2026, for goodness’ sake. 

With the depression and suicide rates only increasing. 

Social media, to me, it just makes me feel like—not saying it’s all of the problems—but the freedom that people feel that they have by just being on their phones or being under a different name or under anonymity makes people feel like they can basically say anything about anyone or post anything about anything and glorify things that don’t need to be glorified.

This isn’t a whole anti-social media spiel because, as a photographer and writer, I use social media as an outlet to be able to communicate with people and to be able to make those contacts to be able to book myself for events and other photography and creative needs. 

So, I’m not completely anti-social media because I think social media itself can be used in good ways. 

• But I think that a lot of my depression and anxiety and my OCD can be completely—not encouraged, so to say—but more apparent the more that I or that I start to immerse myself into social media.

I think that there’s too much of a free range in social media, and even the same freedom used to love is the same freedom used to hate so much more than there used to be, or even similar to how it used to be. 

It feels like it’s a whole big circle back to where we were: back hating, back diminishing other groups of people, back stereotyping, back doing all these things that we fought so hard, or people in our past fought so hard, to be able to get us to a point so where we can love and respect everyone’s differences. 

Why are we going back to our old ways?

I’m not foreign to being discriminated against. 

• I will say even people that I had considered friends or even potential relationships in the past have used my mental health against me to push people away from me by making claims and saying things about me. 

It’s one thing if I go on a stealing spree after I’m not friends with you, but it’s another thing if I have to wash my hands a second time because I forgot to do something or count to a certain number ahead of time. 

I feel like those two things are two definitions of crazy. And the ‘crazy’ definition being used to define mental health doesn’t constitute ‘crazy’ to me.

I already feel like I’m going crazy having all these OCD thoughts because of my medication switches, or all these negative thoughts.I already think that I’m crazy. I already think that I’m insane. I already think these negative things about myself and the way that I think and do things. 

• I already have these negative thoughts—what are you getting out of it by just pressing them deeper into my heart, because they don’t just go over my head? 

I may act a certain way and act like it doesn’t matter, but every little thing matters when it comes to mental health and mental health awareness, and just protecting people’s peace. 

We’re at a point where this has gone too far, and the hate has just gone too far that I deem it absolutely unacceptable.

My Motto and Call for Kindness

I’m not going to let this evilness of depression, anxiety, OCD, ADHD, and these thoughts and these feelings pour over onto my social media… 

I have stopped being on most social media for this exact reason. 

I only use my Instagram as an outlet for my photography, and then I also have a platform where I post for a podcast, but those are both outlets that I try to streamline as more of my safe space. 

So, I don’t tolerate any negativity and will block or choose to block comments from videos that could bring hate because, like I said, it’s not worth that extra breath or that extra text sent to hurt someone because you don’t know what they’re going through.

As a teacher or as a student teacher, almost graduating, I hear all these different stories. 

We all have these societal expectations, and we all have these things going behind the scenes. It takes so much out of us, and it takes so much out of the people that you are talking about negatively. It takes so much out of both parties, so why is it even worth it to say anything mean if you’re not going to say anything nice?

We can positively discuss things, or have discussions, or think differently because we are authentic and unique, but that doesn’t give us an excuse to diminish a group of people or make people feel less than, or make people feel like they’re crazy when that’s not a term that should be thrown around lightly.

So, I guess, kind of to put a wrap on things, I wanted to just reiterate how important it is to just be kind to everyone. 

Even that random person who holds the door for you or that person that you get coffee from in the morning, literally anyone, because this world is only going to be destined for hate if that’s all that we are giving to everyone. 

We are only going to get out what we put in. 

If we only put in hate, then we’re only going to get out hate from this world. 

So, I want us as a culture of Georgia Southern, or as alumni, or as staff, or as a person who has come across this article, to take a second to say something kind about yourself. 

• Then, in the next second that you can, or if you’re with someone else, try to say something kind to them.

With that, live your day or make your own motto out of your day that keeps you going or gives you a reason to keep living. 

I use my love to talk and these unique experiences with mental health and other diagnoses as an outlet to be able to record myself,  to make and write these articles, or even take pictures of content relating to these things.

We just need to be kind to one another tenfold than we are now.

Connect With Me

If you’d like to connect more about this or something resonated with you, my Instagram is @clearlybycarly, and my podcast, as well as the Instagram for my podcast, is @sayitanyway. 

If you’re interested in being a part of the podcast and “just saying things anyway,” and just talking about things and life, I’d gladly do that.

Welcoming you here, because I want to be there for you guys, just like I had a podcast there for me.

My podcast that I listened to and that I will relisten to every single day (obviously not the same episode, different episodes) is Armchair Expert with Dax Shepherd, but specifically Armchair Anonymous. 

• It is just an anonymous caller calling in about a specific prompt. The prompts range from funny, happy, to sad and scary.

Just hearing the authenticity of everyone else just inspired me to be able to create my own culture of authenticity in my own podcast and use that as a way to express myself and as an outlet of safety and love.

So I guess without further ado, that’s pretty much what I wanted to say as far as kind of a wrap-up to my thoughts and feelings about Suicide Prevention Month and mental health awareness as a whole. 

I hope that you guys were able to get something out of it, or if not, you got a pretty good podcast recommendation to save the least. 

If you feel as though you’d like to share something or talk to me personally, feel free to reach out to my Instagram or on this post on the website.

I love hearing about everyone’s stories and what makes them authentically and clearly them. 

And that is why I will never stop advocating for mental health and suicide prevention itself.

With love,

Carly Kennedy