Hello and welcome to Mental Health Coffee Time! My name is Nina and I’ll be your host for this blog. This is the written portion of the Mental Health Coffee Time Project; my partner host, Andy, runs the podcast portion of the project. The Mental Health Coffee Time project is intended to be an open forum to write and discuss mental health issues and stories. Our project has a dual weekly format: every Sunday, we will release a podcast about a key mental health topic; in addition, we will release a blog post which will further discuss the issues in the podcast.

The goal of the project is to provide an open platform and forum for us to discuss mental health issues. This is important for many reasons: one, we hope that it will reduce the stigma around mental health. Two, we hope that this project will facilitate interpersonal connection and help all of us who are struggling to realize that we are not alone. Third, we hope that we can use this forum to learn from each other about thought frameworks and habits that can help in improving mental health. Finally, we also hope that this can be a lighthearted environment at times; although the topics are very serious, we understand the importance of humor and laughter for good mental health 🙂 So sit back and grab a cup of coffee (decaf or tea totally fine) and welcome to the first episode of Mental Health Coffee Time! 

In therapy, it’s always important to go to the beginnings of stories, and this project is no different. So, for our first blog post, I wanted to provide an introduction of myself. As mentioned above, my name is Nina. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and I live there now, working as a software engineer in a tech company.  Outside of computer science, I love literature (my favorite novel is Anna Karenina), writing, politics and current events, fitness, mentorship and cats. Of course, through all of this, mental health has been a subject that is very personal to me, as I’ve struggled with a form of depression or anxiety for most of my teenage and adult life.

I first struggled with mental health sometime in early middle school. In sixth grade, I remembered feeling a persistent feeling of sadness which followed me around each day like a cloud. Depression has ebbed and flowed since then; like the clouds, there were times in which it parted and allowed the sun to shine through, but the clouds always returned. My depression peaked again in late high school, especially with the stress of college applications.  I felt unable to be truly happy. Every moment was heavy and simply going through the motions each day was a challenge that I was not sure I would be capable of overcoming. I told almost no friends about my depression, but it permeated everything I did and made me feel unable to have a deep connection with anyone. When I went to college, I was hopeful that I could finally be happy, but my depression followed me there, too. Still, I was resistant to seek help; I felt as if a therapist could never possibly understand what I was going through, and I was resolved to get through it alone. It took until junior year, when I struggled with a bad bout of insomnia and anxiety attacks on top of my depression, that my feelings became so intense that I finally saw a therapist. Seeing a therapist was the first step of a long road to healing, a road I’m still on to this day. 

I still struggle with depression and anxiety at times, especially when times are difficult. For me, it’s a chronic and evolving condition.  There are months in which I feel lighthearted and free, and I feel that I’m healed for good. Of course, it always comes back, sometimes in a different shape or form, but in some way or another. Today, I struggle more with anxiety than I do depression, although the two are often closely linked. Through therapy and friendship, however, I no longer fear my depression and anxiety. I see them more as old but troublesome friends, who come back at certain (often inopportune!) times. They need to be dealt with gently and carefully, but they aren’t the enemy to be feared or attacked.  They’re just a little confused and scared 🙂 Therapy has taught me helpful thought patterns and self care habits that have made my depression and anxiety less intense and have made my mind a much healthier place on the whole. It’s our hope that through this blog and podcast, we can share some of these strategies with you too. We hope that they can help you, even a little, in your journey towards healing. 

That’s all for initial introductions. Please make sure to listen to our podcast as well, where my co-host Andy and I discuss our mental health stories. We’ll be back next week, where we’ll tackle our first mental health theme: how our thoughts can sometimes be like clouds in the sky. So hope you finished that coffee, and we are looking forward to seeing ya next time!