About this publication

Welcome to Decyphering Emotions! I am happy you are here!

1. What Decyphering Emotions is:

There was a time I felt completely lost. I was an anxious teenager, and I had so many feelings I did not understand. What scared me the most was that the people in my life that would typically help me—my parents, doctors, teachers, even my school counselors—could not help me. They did not understand what I was going through, and I had to learn to help myself. Eventually, I went to school and learned to help others as well. Today we live in an era where technology rules our lives, and we have to be more deliberate about how we choose to spend our time. Decyphering Emotions is the product of all my experiences, hobbies, and theories in harmony on my journey to find balance in my life. I would love for Decyphering Emotions to become a community where people can reflect on themselves, their emotions, their habits, their behaviors, and how to live an all-around more balanced, healthy, fulfilling life.

2. What Decyphering Emotions is NOT:

I am sharing my thoughts and opinions on my own experiences, but Decyphering Emotions is primarily a blog/newsletter where I can combine several passions of mine. I aim to primarily reflect on mental health and my personal theories surrounding mental health, but it is not a substitute for counseling services. If you or someone you know is suffering from a mental health condition, please seek help from a local mental health professional. There are free resources available in every community, and I have listed some resources on the homepage. Sometimes schools, primary care physicians, and local churches are able to point you in the right direction as well. Additionally, many employers offer free counseling services, even if they are limited to a certain number of sessions. If you are a student, most schools and universities offer free counseling services.

3. Who I am and why I write

Since I was in middle school, I wanted to become a high school teacher. I felt it was a noble profession that helped others and allowed one to continue learning through life. When I finally became a teacher at 22, I decided I was too young to stop going to school and went back for a Master of Arts in English. By the time I finished it, I had become disillusioned with the degradation of the education system as I observed it from my own youth to the time I had spent as a teacher (I could probably write a book on that). With that, I decided to go back to school and become a therapist. I felt it was one of the many hats I wore as a teacher already, and I had many personal experiences with counseling as well. I was on a journey to understand myself, create balance in my life, and getting a M.Ed. in Counseling and Guidance was a way of breaking myself down and rebuilding myself. After nine years of teaching high school, I changed careers. Today, I want to combine all I have learned to help others who may be trying to help themselves through a moment when they feel lost the way I did.

4. When I will be posting and how

I try to focus on quality over quantity, so the frequency of my posts may change over time. However, I feel I have so much to say about mental health. At the moment, free/paid subscribers receive the same posts because I want the content to be accessible. I aim to write primarily discussions and anecdotes followed by analyses of those anecdotes. I want people to know they are not alone the way I thought I was when I was a teenager. If you become a paid subscriber, it would mean that you have a strong desire to support my publication, would like to see it grow, or simply want to express gratitude.

Decyphering Emotions is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.