Today marks the two month anniversary of No Laughing Matter! Two months ago, I went live with this website with a mission in mind: Bring change to the world and share my story. This site was created to spread awareness of mental health and share experiences. Honestly, I had no expectations at all. If it worked, great! If not, then I can safely say that I tried. But over the past couple of months, I’ve been bombarded with positive messages and overwhelming support. This subject matter isn’t an easy one to talk about.

But I did. I conquered my own fears. I accomplished my goal! I started my own website. I had a niche. I knew my target audience. I knew that I had to promote this website through various methods of social media such as Facebook (the most popular and has loads of fans!), Twitter, Instagram and the new Snapchat (I still new with that!). Before I joined social media, I had no access to social media accounts. I said “Why?” But sometimes, you have to adapt with the times and just do it. It’s a Digital World and we are all (most of us) are digital people with devices.

One thing that I was terrified about was sharing my story. I was ashamed and also scared to tell it. I was afraid that people would categorize me in a box or worse: call me a derogatory name. But I had to overcome that fear and just share. Honestly, I had no clue as to setting up a website. So I purchased a book called “Blogging for Dummies” and “WordPress for Dummies”. Those books are very handy and have loads of information. It took about 24 hours for me to set up the website (myself! No help!) and go live. The name and logo were already in placed before this started. After the site became public, I started signing up for social media accounts. You could imagine my fright when I had to add a profile picture. So I chose my senior high school picture because it’s one of my favorites and was taken by a professional photographer. From then on, I just write and shared on social media. Very quickly, I had followers. I was like, Whoa!

We are now in the 8th week and I have almost 4,100 followers on Facebook, smaller crowds on Twitter and Instagram. But Facebook is the most popular. Many people of all different ages and from different backgrounds all love following the blog and the website. It’s weird that sharing my story is so universal. Typically, I will get about 40-90 likes a day. Sometimes, in a shorter time period. But people are really responding and sharing this with other people.

For me, I’ve noticed a significant change in myself. My depression has gone down dramatically. My anxiety is lower. My mood is great. I still struggle daily, but now have even more reason to get out of bed and do something. It’s given me motivation, an outlook, a purpose or a reason to live. For anyone out there struggling, start a blog! Get your story out there! I don’t do this for money or fame or fortune. If I did get money, I probably would donate it to a charity. I don’t sell any products, only my experiences.

I highly recommend starting a blog. If yours is a non-profit like mine and you’re raising awareness about whichever cause is important, than go for it. You can do it. I did. For me, writing everyday helps so much. Vlogging is something that I do a lot now on Facebook. I make my own little PSA about various things that I’ve dealt with and will continue to do more. FYI, I was very nervous doing vlogging because I’m a little camera shy. But I did it. And if it sounds like I say the word “Um” a lot in videos, this is mostly, out of my fear of the camera. Forgive me on that one. I’m well educated and have extensive experience in the workforce, I guess this is just a natural reaction to being on camera.

Find your passion and go out there and do it!