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Our team is committed to bringing you mental health information that you can fully trust. We want you to feel confident that Tracking Happiness provides unbiased, trustworthy, and accurate information about your mental health, which is why we’re so committed to our editorial process. This means that we don't depend on any AI tool to create our content. Unlike other publishers, we steer away from using automatically generated text, to protect you and ourselves from misinformation and unactionable content.
Finally, we try to include real examples and stories from our community. Mental health advice can often seem unactionable and ambiguous. We always aim to give you actual steps to help you incorporate best practices into your life.
Read more about our processes here.
“When you’re going through a difficult time, it can be difficult to remain hopeful. However, please know that recovery is possible, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. You’ve got this!”
“In the past, I didn’t understand my behavior or intense mood swings, but now I understand much of it is rooted in past trauma. Nearly everything in regard to close personal relationships can trigger or set me off. I often describe it as living life with no skin. Everything hurts and my brain interprets every single interaction as a threat or rejection.”
“Every ache or feeling I had in my abdomen required a call or trip to my doctor’s office to get assurance that everything was okay. One morning on my way to work I slipped on the ice in my driveway….I wasn’t hurt, but I couldn’t stop obsessing over it until I knew that the baby wasn’t either.”
“Just because I’m mourning, doesn’t mean that I’m not happy in life. Being happy to me means accepting all of the emotions as they come without judgment. I still experience anxiety and depression but I no longer beat myself up about feeling those things.”
Believing that talent is a prerequisite for success is linked to your happiness. But what if you don’t think of yourself as talented? Our study shows how your mindset influences your happiness.
“The struggle was very real and daunting. I was trapped in an endless cycle of anxious thoughts that seemed to take control over my life. I naively tried to suppress my anxiety, hoping that if I ignored it, it would somehow disappear. Instead, this approach only made my symptoms more acute and pervasive.”
“In my first job in mining, I saved my company millions. I thought I was on the fast track to success and happiness, but it all came crashing down. I had a toxic boss and it led me to turn in on myself. Day by day, my manager ground me down. He made me question my choices at work, then my purpose, then whether my life itself had any meaning…”
“Leaving my home country and studying abroad presented its own set of challenges. I experienced months of intense loneliness, barely leaving my student hall. I slept during the day, avoiding people for weeks. I felt emotionally numb, happy for others’ successes but powerless in my own life.”
“I was ready to do anything and everything to get sober. For the first time in a long time, I was honest. I got honest with myself and everyone close to me. I was going to do whatever it took to successfully detox from the drugs and live a sober life. I dropped my ego and asked for help.”
“I couldn’t perform simple tasks like cleaning the bathroom or planning the weekly menu. Thinking of what to cook for the next meal was overwhelming. Little things like the water pump conking out, the dogs missing a feeding, or my household helper going on her weekend off seemed like the end of the world. I had to stop driving because I would have a panic attack at the most unexpected moments.”