Reading Self- Help Articles did Nothing for My Mental Health.

Photo by Shiromani Kant on Unsplash

It’s time to stop healing and start living. I spent these past two years working on inner healing and resolving my traumas. I have cried, had panic attacks, and dealt with my depression as best as possible.

The only reason I had even subscribed to Medium was because of the unlimited access to self-help articles. I assumed if I had read every manifestation, spirituality, or how to make money blog, that I would be smarter, healthier, richer, and better than I was before.

But here’s the catch…

I don’t remember a single damn article that I read that magically changed my life. All that self-help bullshit only piled on to the millions of thoughts running through my mind. It made me “believe” I was better, but it didn’t fix the internal problems I had felt inside.

Reading all these self-help articles made me feel more broken inside. I felt that I wasn’t good enough to live life the way I wanted. I assumed I needed to wake up at 5 am every day to feel productive or write my self-help articles to feel “good enough” to be on this app.

I couldn’t handle it anymore. I even hired a life coach from a writer on Medium who gave me a panic attack on our last call because he made me feel like I was weak for even having a panic attack! How fucked up is that for a life coach to make me express my emotions and traumas just for him to make me feel depressed and shit again. Even his self-help articles were all just an illusion that trapped me in the rabbit hole of self-help.

The only person I needed help from was myself. After being on this healing journey for so long, I realized I didn’t need those self-help articles, books, or coaching sessions to see my worth. As perfect as I was following the guidelines, doing the meditations, or forcing myself to produce content every day, it didn’t feel like my best self.

The more I did self-help shit, the more I realized I needed to stop. I needed to stop listening to everyone’s advice and start following my own even if it sounded stupid. At least it’s my own stupid choice to make.

Being a goodie self-help guru was not fun for me anymore. It hurt me every time I had forgotten to meditate, or I felt depressed if I had a…