Is it normal for my anxiety & depression to come and go? #KatiFAQ

Hey everybody! Happy Thursday

and since it's Thursday here I actually

have a bunch of different things to

talk about today.

So let's get going! Right?

The first thing is I'm starting to think

that our community is growing and I

know that a lot of you help each other

like in the comments. You talk amongst

yourselves on katimorton.com, my website,

you do the same.

You really help each other and I was

thinking, what should we call ourselves

as a community?

You know, like uhh Miranda Sings has the

Mirfandas and PewDiePie has the Bros.

And uhh, you know Hannah Hart has the

hartosexuals. Hart-o-sexuals.

Um, so what should we call ourselves?

I don't know.

I wish minions wasn't copyrighted.

I was talking to Carly about this on

Twitter and I wish minions had not been

so popular. But then maybe we wouldn't

have talked about minions anyways,

I don't know.

But, let me know. Leave it in the comments

Are there any ideas, any cute catchy

things that we think will be cool as a

community to call ourselves?

Because I think it would be cool to have

that and then when we do meet ups, we get

together, we do things we have a name for

it. Maybe I'll make tee shirts. Hey!

And there are new t-shirts on my

spread shirt thing.

I haven't put the ones up for the men yet

so stay tuned for that.

But I'm putting those together as well.

I'm trying to make them a little more

something that I would want to wear

that's not just a tree, with fun sayings

and things like that. So check them out!

And let me know what you think.

Okay, so that was my first thing.

Now the question that I'm going to answer

today, and I kind of like doing

one question each because then I get to

really talk about it. Kind of like the

olden days, when I just rambled on and on

and on and on and on, you get the idea.

Okay, so the first question and only

question is "Hey Kati, is it normal for

things such as depression, anxiety, etc.

to sort of come and go, like sometimes

they're so bad you really can't function

at all and other times it's like they

barely exist? Also, is it normal for my

self harm to improve my mood so that I

can't even really remember the issue?

I've found that sometimes I have a week

that I feel okay, but then I look back

and I have self harmed every day that week

and I think that's why my week was okay.

Does that make sense? Thanks."

And I wanna talk about this for two

reasons because it touches on two

different things that a lot of people

struggle with.

Number one being depression, anxiety for

those things to come and go.

And I think I may have talked about this

in the past. I've talked about a lot of

things you guys but it's definitely

normal. That's honestly why depression,

anxiety, all that stuff.

Well I guess mainly depression, but all of

those feelings that come along with

depression which can be even like an

anxious feeling is under mood disorders.

And our mood can shift and our mood can

change and some days we feel better than

others and worse and so on. . .

Because different things are going on at

different times, and everyone experiences

that.

I even, as a person who doesn't struggle

with depression, have good days and bad

days. And so you have to always,

I find this is always the issue is that

people think that okay well this person or

if you're talking to yourself, I, have a

mental illness therefore I have no other

normal baseline.

But that's wrong, because even though you

have a mental illness, let's say you

struggle with depression, you're still

going to have the normal person ups and

downs and good days and bad days.

Yours may just be amplified by the fact

that you struggle with depression.

And so taking that into consideration and

thinking, well do other people have this

and like, do they talk about it coming

and going? Does my best friend have good

days and bad days? Or is it normal for

some people to feel really good, then

feel really bad?

The answer is yes. It varies day to day,

moment to moment. Okay.

Second part of this question and another

reason I thought it was really cool to

answer it "is it normal for my self harm

to improve my mood, so I can barely

remember the issue?" Uh, ya! Hello! It's a

coping skill. I don't mean that like duh,

but that's the truth. That's what we talk

about all the time.

I think often people forget that we use

things that are unhealthy, like drugs,

alcohol, self harm, eating disorders,

exercise to the max like over exercise,

obviously some exercise is good, but

we use those things as coping skills and

they're detrimental to us but they help

in the moment.

And sometimes they don't even help any

more and they're still hanging around.

And we're like why the fuck are you still

here? But it's definitely there for a

reason. It serves a purpose.

And for you, whoever asks this question it

improves your mood and makes it so you

don't even remember the issue.

Ta da! Coping skill is working, but you

really don't like it.

And that's why we have to replace our

eating disorders, our self harm,

our alcoholism, whatever it is, why it's

so important to replace it with a

healthy one.

And yes it may take like ten healthy ones

to even barely get to the point where

you're like okay I can tolerate it.

I can tolerate the feelings, the emotions

the issue where it only takes cutting once

I know it doesn't always equate, like one

to one, but know that it's worth the fight

Do you want to be self harming your whole

life? Trying to hide your scars,

trying to hide it from people.

It ends up not really being a good thing

for us. And so, of course it can help in

the moment, but let's think long term.

Let's try to replace it with other

healthy coping skills,

and if you haven't checked it out on my

website katimorton.com I have a

free self harm workbook.

And if any of you have had trouble

downloading it, I know a lot of times it

gets in into junk folders or doesn't come

through. I'm not sure why some of you

have trouble and others don't.

But you can always let me know in the

comments, and I will correct it on my

side and shoot it back out to you.

Okay. I love you all.

I will see you on Saturday with

a journal topic.

And thanks for everybody sending those to

me. And then I'm on my way, well I'll see

you Monday, but then I'm heading up north

to the northwest.

So if you're going to be at VloggerFair,

I can't wait to meet you.

Talk to you soon. Bye!