From: Sophie

Dear reader,

If you're anything like I was, you've probably read the same message three times before sending it. You've probably replayed conversations in your head for days afterwards, wondering if you sounded weird, annoying, rude, or awkward. You might even be reading this while thinking about ten other things you should be worrying about instead. I know because that was me for most of my life.

When people think of anxiety, they often imagine panic attacks or someone visibly distressed. For me, anxiety was much quieter. It looked like lying awake at night imagining every possible thing that could go wrong. It looked like over-preparing for situations that hadn't happened yet. It looked like convincing myself that everybody secretly disliked me because someone took a little longer to reply than usual. The exhausting thing wasn't even the anxiety itself. It was never getting a break from my own mind.

I remember going on holiday with my family when I was seventeen. We were sitting on a beautiful beach in Spain. The sun was shining, everyone was laughing, and all I could think about was a presentation I had to give when I got back home. I spent an entire week worrying about something that lasted ten minutes. That became a pattern in my life. I worried before events. I worried during events. Then I worried afterwards about how I had behaved at those events.

For years, I genuinely believed that worrying was helping me. I thought if I worried enough, I could somehow prevent bad things from happening. The reality was that all I was doing was experiencing things twice, once in my imagination and once in real life. What nobody told me was that anxiety is a liar. It tells you that every thought deserves your attention. It tells you that every possibility is a probability. It tells you that you're responsible for controlling things that nobody could ever control. I wish I could tell you there was a magic moment where it all disappeared. There wasn't.

What changed my life was much smaller than that. I started questioning my anxiety instead of automatically believing it. Whenever my mind told me something terrible was going to happen, I started asking myself a simple question:

"Has this actually happened yet?"

Most of the time, the answer was no. Little by little, I stopped treating every fearful thought like a fact. I'm twenty three now, and anxiety still visits me sometimes. The difference is that it no longer runs my life. It sits in the passenger seat instead of taking the wheel.

If you're struggling right now, I want you to know that you are not your anxious thoughts. You are the person hearing them. And that person is far stronger than they realise.

The advice I'd give you is this: stop trying to solve every problem your mind invents. Focus on the life that's actually happening around you. Most of the things you're worrying about belong to a future that hasn't happened yet. Don't let them steal today from you.

Love,

Sophie

From: Jake

Dear reader,

This feels strange to write because loneliness isn't something I've ever been good at talking about. Most people assume loneliness means sitting by yourself. For me, it was the complete opposite. I felt loneliest when I was surrounded by people.

I remember sitting in my college common room watching everyone talk and laugh together while feeling completely disconnected from all of it. Nobody was being mean to me. Nobody was excluding me. Yet somehow I felt like everybody else had received instructions on how to belong and I'd missed out. The hardest part was pretending I was okay. I'd go home and spend hours scrolling through social media watching everyone else's lives. Birthdays. Parties. Group photos. Inside jokes. It felt like everyone was moving forward while I was standing still. I became convinced that there was something fundamentally wrong with me. Maybe I wasn't interesting enough. Maybe I wasn't funny enough. Maybe I was just one of those people who would always be on the outside looking in.

Looking back now, I realise loneliness changes the way you see yourself. It makes you believe things that aren't true. It convinces you that being alone means being unwanted. But those two things are not the same. At nineteen, I can honestly tell you that some of the people I admire most have gone through periods of intense loneliness. Not because they were unlikeable, but because life sometimes moves in strange seasons. Some seasons are loud and full of people, Others are quiet. The mistake I made was assuming the quiet season would last forever. It didn't. 

Slowly, things changed. I joined a football group even though I almost backed out at the last minute. I started saying yes to opportunities I would've avoided before. I stopped waiting for people to magically appear and started putting myself in places where connections could happen. The friendships I have now didn't arrive overnight. They arrived through hundreds of small moments. A conversation after training, A random message, A shared joke, A coffee after class.

What I wish someone had told me is that loneliness often lies about the future. It makes today feel permanent. It makes you believe that because you're alone right now, you'll always be alone. But that simply isn't true. There are people you haven't met yet who will become important parts of your life. There are conversations you haven't had yet. Memories you haven't made yet. Friendships you can't even imagine yet.

The advice I'd give you is this: don't isolate yourself while you're lonely. I know it's tempting, but loneliness grows in isolation. Keep showing up, even when you don't feel like it. Give people the chance to know you. You might be surprised by who walks into your life.

Take care,

Jake

From: Eleanor

Dear reader,

I don't know who you've lost. Perhaps it was a parent. Perhaps it was a friend. Perhaps it was someone you expected to grow old alongside.

Whoever they were, I'm sorry. Not in the polite way people say it when they don't know what else to say. I mean genuinely sorry. Because losing someone you love changes you. My husband died nine years ago. I still struggle to write that sentence. People often talk about grief as if it's a single emotion. It isn't, It's sadness, of course. But it's also anger, Confusion, fear, guilt, sometimes it's even laughter, which feels terribly unfair at first.

I remember standing in the supermarket a few weeks after he died. I suddenly realised I no longer needed to buy his favourite cereal. I stood there staring at the shelf and cried. Not because of the cereal, but because of everything it represented. That's the strange thing about grief. It hides in ordinary moments like songs, photographs, empty chairs,certain dates on a calendar. The world expects grief to become smaller over time and in some ways it does, but I don't think grief ever truly leaves us. I think it changes shape.

For a long time I thought healing meant letting go but I couldn't have been more wrong. Healing isn't about letting go of someone, it's about learning how to carry them differently.

These days I still think about my husband every day. The difference is that the memories make me smile more often than they make me cry. I tell stories about him. I talk about him with my grandchildren. I keep his favourite photograph in my hallway and he's still a big part of my life but just not in the way I expected.

If you're grieving right now, please be patient with yourself. There is no correct timeline, no right way to do this. Some days you'll feel okay, some days you'll feel like you've gone backwards but neither means you're failing.

The advice I'd give you is this: don't rush yourself towards healing because other people are uncomfortable with your sadness. Grief is the price we pay for loving deeply. Let yourself remember, let yourself cry and let yourself talk about them. The love doesn't disappear, and neither do the people we carry in our hearts.

With love,

Eleanor

From: Liam

Dear reader,

I spent a long time wondering whether what I was feeling was actually depression or whether I was just bad at life.

That probably sounds ridiculous, but it's true. People often describe depression as feeling sad, and because I wasn't crying all the time, I convinced myself that couldn't be what was wrong. Looking back now, I wasn't sad as much as I was empty. Things that used to make me happy stopped doing anything at all. Music sounded flat, food tasted fine but I didn't really enjoy it. Even spending time with people I cared about felt like something I had to force myself to do.

The strangest part was that life looked completely normal from the outside. I still went to work, I still answered messages, I still showed up to family events. Nobody could see that I was spending most days feeling like I was walking through wet concrete.

One evening I came home from work, sat on the edge of my bed, and realised I'd been staring at the wall for almost an hour. Not because I was thinking about anything in particular. I just didn't have the energy to do anything else. That was the moment I realised this wasn't something I could simply ‘snap out of’.

For a long time I felt guilty. I had people who loved me, I had a roof over my head, I had reasons to be grateful. So why couldn't I just feel better?

What I eventually learned is that depression doesn't care how good your life looks on paper. It isn't a lack of gratitude and it isn't weakness. Sometimes it's simply the result of carrying too much for too long.

Recovery wasn't dramatic. There wasn't a day where I suddenly woke up feeling happy again. It happened slowly enough that I almost missed it. I started sleeping a little better, and I laughed at something on television and realised it was genuine. I went for a walk and actually noticed the weather. Tiny things, but those tiny things were signs that I was coming back to myself.

If you're struggling right now, please don't judge yourself for finding things difficult. I spent years doing that and it only made everything heavier. The version of you that's struggling isn't lazy, broken, or failing. They're tired. There's a difference.

The advice I'd give you is to stop waiting until you’re completely broken before accepting support. Talk to somebody, even if you don't know how to explain what you're feeling. You don't have to carry everything by yourself, and you don't have to earn the right to ask for help.

Take care,

Liam