IT’S OKAY TO FEEL SAD. OR HAPPY. OR BOTH AT THE SAME EXACT TIME.

Emotions are weird, aren’t they? As someone with a love/hate relationship with her hormones (mostly a hate relationship), I tend to feel extreme levels of feelings both positive and unpleasant. What I’ve learned through all the crying jags and overly emotional text messages sent at three a.m. is that feelings are just things. You can’t help them; they aren’t your fault; they just are. And that’s mostly because feelings are totally uncontrollable. Want a quick example? Don’t feel sadness and pity when you think about how many puppies will never have happy homes and families to enjoy. Okay, that was a bit dark. Let me try again. Don’t feel adorable joy when you think about those same puppies playing with babies from their happy forever homes and licking the babies’ chubby faces and making them laugh short little chortles. Now, STOP THINKING ABOUT HOW CUTE THEY ARE AND HOW THERE’S HOPE IN THE UNIVERSE. STOP THINKING ABOUT THE MANIFEST HAPPINESS OF ALL THOSE BABIES AND PUPPIES. STOP THAT RIGHT NOW. See? Harder than you think to control your emotions.

What I want you to know is that all these feelings we’re feeling aren’t good or bad—it’s only our actions that can be positive or negative. In the wake of any emotion, you have the choice between good behavior and bad behavior. Let’s say your dad eats the last ice-cream sandwich in the freezer and now you’re upset. You have one of two options: Hex him with an ancient pirate curse that will leave him unfortunate for the rest of his life, or let that sandwich go in exchange for a scoop of your mother’s sugar-free diet vanilla ice cream. Sure, the saccharine taste of aspartame and sadness will coat your tongue the moment that fake Tahitian vanille hits your palate, but at least you’re being nice to your dear old dad. When you’re mad, you could choose to take it out on others or your environment, but nine times out of ten, that’s not the correct avenue. I’m not telling you to control your emotions—no one should have to wrangle or change how they feel—I’m just suggesting you control your reaction to emotions. You’re better off letting your feelings do their thing.

Even better, get a therapist. I can’t tell you how life-changing it is to have a person in your life whose sole job is to listen to all your shit and make you feel slightly better by the end of a session, mostly by just repeating your questions back at you. Seriously. It’s an odd feeling at first, but once you get used to the idea of a complete stranger knowing all your deepest, darkest secrets, you’re totally capable of getting everything out there. You can take inventory of your mental well-being and understand the healthy and toxic sides of your psyche. For instance, I never knew that I struggled with obsessiveness until I saw a therapist. I was living in a state of willful ignorance, thinking my daily internal turmoil was Just a Girly Thing and not something I could be medicated for.

In fact, you might be surprised by how many people are on antidepressants. The Journal of the American Medical Association reports that the percentage of Americans on some form of antidepressant went from 6.8 percent in 1999 to 13 percent in 2012. So if you took a random sampling of one hundred Americans, thirteen of them would be taking mood-altering medication. And the actual number of people who would have been medicated with antidepressants in 2012 was 4,066,155 in the United States alone. That’s a pretty big chunk of people. I don’t think this increase in medicating is necessarily a negative thing. With the rise of the internet and the inevitable increase in communication and understanding of others, people were bound to be more comfortable opening up about their issues. I mean, we no longer live in an era where housewives are brought to climax by doctors as a means of combatting hysteria. Though now that I’m a little older and have a long-distance boyfriend, I do see how that technique could help with stress.

The problem of not being believed, or of being told “you’ll shake it off in a month,” by a doctor is still a prevalent issue for people battling mental illnesses. I think that’s one of the major dick moves a practicing doctor can pull. When someone comes into the office with a broken arm, they get taken seriously. If someone comes in feeling low or sad or not quite themselves, it’s just a phase to move past. It’s incredibly difficult to put into words what your brain and body are constantly at war about! When I’m really low, I feel like a bland bowl of oatmeal. No dried cranberries. No almond slivers. Forget the sexy drizzle of honey. I’m snotty, old, gray oatmeal. But my gray oatmeal feeling is such a complicated thing to communicate to someone I’m close to or respect. I have an easier time relaying my feelings to strangers on the internet (or those of you precious people reading this) than telling my doctor that my brain feels like a numb big toe. Which is a backward philosophy. I feel like I can’t talk about struggling mentally because I don’t know how to put it into words or because I’ll worry people, and that is NOT a good way to think about your mental health. So many folks out there are sad! And so many psychologist folks out there want to hear about your sadness and help you with it!

I’ve learned that I need to treat my brain, feelings, and moods like limbs. If I was that girl with the broken arm, I’d be at my doctor’s office in a jiff to get it looked at, cared for, put in a cast. As my good friend Drake once said, “a sprained ankle ain’t nothin’ to play with.” But why can’t I make the connection that depression can be just as detrimental as a wounded arm, if not more so? We humans have to better recognize the struggles we put ourselves through. Relying on a medication to stabilize our moods or the chemistry in our brains is a completely normal and acceptable way to live life. And it’s good. As long as you’re not abusing your prescriptions, medicine is there for a reason: to help us get through this cluster-fuck of anxiety and sadness we call life.

Wooo, that got heavy real fast. All I’m saying is: Give your brain a break. Use this moment in your day to check in on your head. Hey, beautiful. How’s that glorious mind of yours doing? Does it need a nap? Need to take a chill pill? Go for it. Treat your mind and body as equals. You wouldn’t let a broken arm heal on its own, so make sure to be giving your emotions, thoughts, and feelings proper time to heal when they need to—whether that means enrolling in therapy, going for morning walks by yourself to clear your head, or just listening to your favorite album when you’re having a rough day. Give your brain a treat every now and then. It deserves it.

Here’s another thing worth saying on the topic of emotions and mental-health well-being: you’re allowed to be happy. I’ve had to combat a serious case of guilt nearly every time my life seems to be going in the right direction. I used to feel undeserving of positive events or people in my life, and I needed to get over those self-sabotaging vibes quickly if I was going to enjoy even a fraction of my success. You work and work and work for a better life, and then you’re not allowed to appreciate it. That’s been my brain’s life philosophy since I was seventeen years old. I felt like I cheated the system by engaging in a job I loved doing, or finding a partner who fulfilled my every want and ask in a romantic relationship. Some weird, grotesque part of me would wait for disaster to strike. And I would dread the day everything would crumble around me. And then that day didn’t come. I’m still here. Alive. And decently satisfied with what’s going on in my world. I love my boyfriend. I love where I live. And I love the creative freedom that my work provides. I’m allowed to feel good about the places I’m going. So are you.

Don’t listen to the little voice in your head saying that you’re not worthy of happiness. Or that you’re crazy. Or that you can’t express your emotions. Everyone deserves to feel justified and content in their life. You’re allowed to be proud of what you’ve done and what you’re doing. You’re allowed to feel sadness and despair. You’re allowed to be human. You need to start accepting compliments and giving yourself a mental pat on the back when you’ve accomplished something for yourself. You need to rest and recover when you’ve had a rough, emotionally taxing time.

You need to meditate. I know I sound like a crazy hippie, but it’s the only thing keeping me sane as I write this. A short fifteen or twenty minutes of just sitting and letting my brain decompress has become my everything. When your to-do lists pile up and start feeling like should-have-done lists, stop your life and take a breather for a second. I never thought I would be some Californian stereotype, what with my shaggy bangs and lack of breast support. But here I am, nipples out, currently burning bras, and calm of mind. Or at least getting calmer. I’m not saying you need to run out and find religion, twelve different sizes of rose quartz crystal, and discover the meaning of life to become a relaxed individual. If you can sit in your chair, put in some earbuds, close your eyes, and rest your mind for ten minutes, you’re going to be shocked at how soothing it can be over time. This might be a phase I’m going through until my schedule doesn’t induce panic deep within me every time I take notice of my calendar. Hopefully, it’s a technique you and I can use to keep it cool and positive when life wants to suffocate us.

Also? Stop worrying all the time. I feel like I get stressed out over how everyone in my life is stressed out. Let’s all just shut it down, people. Stress and worry are states of mind. You have control over whether you go on an intense crying jag of self-pity for five hours or whether you just get on with the damn thing. This doesn’t mean you should dismiss your emotions (see above). Give them a nod and a moment to take over. Assess your emotions, decide which ones will get you through this particularly trying time, and don’t let the negative ones cause you to spiral. You are the captain of your own ship, and it’s your job to steer it in the right direction. I know you’re not an old-school eye-patch-and-peg-leg pirate. But it’s true.

This might make you feel like a slight crazy person at first, but repeating positive mantras to yourself when you’re in a pinch can be lifesaving. If you say something enough, you start to believe it. When I’m nervous to do an audition, or I feel anxious about meeting someone for the first time, I always repeat some damn nice things to myself. I’ll talk about how I’m going to smash the read when I get in the audition room. How girls with glasses always get the quirky-cool roles. I’ll remind myself that people are self-conscious. That person I’m about to introduce myself to? She’s probably just as concerned about making a good impression. Be a positive realist. “But that’s just an optimist, Arden.” I KNOW. Let me explain.

Optimism is always seeing the bright side of things—noticing only the good and rejecting the decent chance that negative things are going to occur. Being a positive-minded realist means tackling the outcomes of an event you’re nervous or worried about and boiling it down to logic. Half the time, you’ll realize that you’ve been covertly negative and shooting yourself in the foot by only considering possible bad outcomes. Just think of the absolute worst thing and best thing that could happen when you’re about to go on a date with your new coworker who’s supercute and also smells faintly of pine and pencil erasers. He could take you to a sketchy dive bar and have nothing to talk about other than his five pet rats. He could also be the love of your life and sweep you off your feet, dancing you into the sunset after a romantic candlelit linguini sesh. Most likely, a middle ground between the two of these extremes will occur. Count on the realistic. Hope for the optimistic.

One of the most important things I want to stress to you, my precious shining star, is that your emotions are your own property. You can’t hold other people responsible for them, but you also deserve to do what you need to in order to take care of them. If a friend always makes you feel bad, you can separate from that person. It’s that easy. Whether that human being makes you feel anxious or not good enough or sad or unendingly envious, if you get the constant urge to cut all ties and forget they exist, stop spending your time with them. I wish I could reach back into my high school days and slap fifteen-year-old Arden in the face. Along with fourteen-, sixteen-, and seventeen-year-old Arden as well. I kept so many terribly toxic friendships because I was fearful of loneliness. I was constantly walking on eggshells, worried I wasn’t going to be invited to the next sleepover. I felt paranoid that my “friends” were saying mean comments behind my back. I knew they were shit-talkers when they would gossip about each other with me. I would just spend the whole gross conversation wondering what atrocities they would spew about me later that night. I didn’t want to leave them alone in a room for fear of them embarrassing me by ragging on my entire being.

Eventually, those friendships ended in a messy and degrading divorce. I was left feeling isolated and unwanted. I thought everyone had a terrible image of me, and I projected that same image onto myself. I wanted to blame every single girl who said I was a slut for breaking up with my boyfriend (yeah, that was an actual reason people came up with for being mean to me). I would have revenge dreams about exposing all of them for their snaky insides. I also dreamed about going full-blown Parent Trap and setting a million booby traps in their houses so they would wake up covered in fake spiders and maple syrup. But I never enacted my vengeance. I stewed and boiled away, poisoning myself with the grudge I had built up against those catty bitches. I would see pictures of them on Facebook from when they would all hang out, and then I would eat sweet and salty popcorn and cry.

Eventually, the only thing I could control in my life—not other people, not my family, not the weather, not whether boys liked me—was order. So I began treating my life rather obsessively. I would only eat three things a day. And by things I mean, like, three ingredients. Apple, bag of popcorn, slice of cheese might be one of the appetizing menus I would stick to. The one allowance on top of the three things was coffee, and I would drink it obsessively because I was so concerned about being thin; I wanted my metabolism to be revved up constantly. If I forgot to make coffee at home, I would beg the administrators to let me have coffee from the teachers’ lounge. I was convinced my life would crumble around me if I didn’t have coffee and three other food items during the day. No more, no less. It was a weird time for me.

I’ve heard from several other women who went through the same food control issues that this is a common coping mechanism. I restricted my eating to the point of being considered anorexic, but I never got scary thin. That’s one common misconception about eating disorders. You don’t have to be starving to death to have disordered eating. It’s just a matter of making your food and eating habits a guilty, negative, or control-related activity that can constitute an eating problem. I regained a normal eating schedule after my mom pulled me aside and explained that I had to eat regularly like a normal human. She didn’t threaten to ground me or punish me. The sheer fact that someone had noticed my eating made me self-conscious enough to eat around my family. Eventually I realized that controlling my food wasn’t going to solve all my issues, and I regained a healthy lifestyle. But in the beginning it was rough. My trichotillomania only got worse; I would show up to school with marker eyebrows since I had no hairs left.

My parents got worried about me the summer after freshman year. I would sit inside my room all day, lying in bed and just hanging out on my laptop. YouTube was a kind of escape for me early on in my channel history. I would spend all day watching other people, filming videos, editing, or uploading. It was an amazing distraction. I felt productive, and because I was watching so many fascinating people online, I didn’t feel lonely. I didn’t think much then of my self-induced isolation, but in hindsight, I was avoiding confronting the outside world. I didn’t want to talk to or see anyone from my school. I really hated the idea of running into my ex-friends in the real world. I remember going to the movies with my parents and realizing we were waiting to see the same movie as my old friends. I was mortified that these girls were going to see me out and about with Robin and Jett. And I felt even guiltier about being embarrassed of my parents. So I just subconsciously decided to never leave the house unless I was going for a drive around the block.

Between my mild agoraphobia, my OCD, and my lack of calorie intake, I was a real big ole mess. I can understand my parents justifying an intervention. When they confronted me about how I was acting and how I looked, I acted and looked shocked that they even considered I had a problem. How dare they judge me just like everyone else did! I was just fine! I was totally cool! I just needed to make sure that trail mix only had three ingredients in it and I’d be eating it quietly in my room for the next twelve hours, seething over their confrontation. I had allowed my issues to control me. I couldn’t enjoy life because I was too busy blaming others and feeling scared of everyone. If I had just stepped back for a second and looked at the reality of my situation in proper lighting, I would have come to the swift realization that everyone at my age goes through this awkward period of awkwardness. Granted, I was struggling with OCD and disordered eating, but the actual issues causing my problems were very common teen issues. I was just wired to deal with them in a more extreme way. Everyone feels alienated at some point. Everyone feels strung out by the social order at their school. Not everyone pulls out their hair to deal with these things, but high school can be hard for anyone. You don’t 100 percent know who you are, and you’re constantly questioning everything. Everyone in your class is having a mild existential crisis at the same time, so it results in a messy sludge of teenagehood that will leave you begging to be thirty. Yes, if Snapchat is to be believed, it would seem like everyone is having the fucking TIME OF THEIR LIVES. Believe me when I say that they are not. But this period in your life doesn’t last. You learn from your misery, grow thicker skin, and get a move on. You stop taking as much shit. You respect yourself and others more because you know what it feels like to be an outcast.

I wish I hadn’t been so hard on myself. I wish I hadn’t let other people get to me. But I’m glad that I struggled a little bit. Now I know my self-worth, and I know how little I should give a shit. Fuck letting other humans dictate your personal standards in life. Live and let live. I’ve learned to do my own thing, dance to my own drum, and seemingly not be bothered about what other people think. Obviously you can’t entirely tune out the opinions and thoughts and feelings of others. You would be a sociopath if you did. But self-preservation is surprisingly unselfish. You can only be the best you if you take care of your physical and mental well-being. By being the ultimate form of yourself (the best version of myself is probably the equivalent of a fat and lazy house cat napping in the sun), you’re helping others. You’ll be at the top of your game and able to efficiently deal with the outside world with an unclouded mind.

Take it easy, kiddo. Go to the doctor when you need to. Visit your therapist regularly, or sign up for therapy pronto if you have a more stressful lease on life. Meditate when you feel overwhelmed. Meditate when you feel at ease. Realize that your constant anxieties and worries and personal pitfalls are all in your mind and that you are in control, even if you feel a bit nutty sometimes. Address your feelings like relatives; you’re going to have to see them all every now and again, probably and especially at family reunions. Some of them you’re very familiar with and get on with just fine. Others cause a complete scene and usually ruin all the festivities and make terrible pumpkin pie. You don’t have to see that overly dramatic aunt who constantly rags on your very state of being all the time, but it’s okay to entertain her for a short time. That emotion will pass on eventually. They all do. You’ll never hit a point in your life, whether you’re almost adulting or full-on adulting or nearing actual death, where an emotion isn’t merely a temporary state of being. It’s survivable. I promise.

We’re tough as shit and we’re going to make it.