An image of a road, showing three steps to good mental health: (1) social media cleanse, (2) Community, (3) Self Love & Gratitude followed by handwritten text reading: "What really helped me firstly on my road to bettering my mental health was to cleanse my social media platform. I keep social media limited to only Instagram and try to spend as little time on it as possible. I use filters on Instagram to tailor my feed and avoid content that I find harmful. For example, I block content by specific key words related to my triggers, such as dieting content and substance abuse. Secondly, Community is really important. Surrounding yourself with good people who will uplift you and who you can confide in..."
Handwritten text reading: "Social media isn't only a place for posting your breakfest or scrolling through cat videos, but can be a judgement-free space where you can meet and befriend people who have similar experiences to you. Creating a world in your phone full of people and content you relate to can be a wonderful thing. Despite my criticism of social media, I do think it has its pros and it should be utilised to its potential. Lastly, but most importantly, self love. It definitely is a hard road and it took me a long time to reach self love. However, witha social media feed full of people similar to yourself you can eliminate self comparison. It is important to consume content that will help normalise your insecurities. A creator that helped me do that is Ezra Butler who, like me, is a transgender queer man who openly talks about his mental health and frequently aims to 'normalise' common insecurities by helping the audience see that what you may percieve as flaws are normal things many people experience."
