Mental health is not feeling good: why fitting distress means you're well

The Short Version

Clinical psychologist Lisa Damour says psychologists do not judge mental health by whether a person feels good, calm or relaxed; they ask whether the feelings fit the circumstance and whether they are managed well [1]. By that measure, sadness after being dumped, anxiety before a test you have not studied for, and hurt when someone is mean are "evidence that we work exactly as we should" [1]. Therapist KC Davis and Mel Robbins apply the same idea to the person who cannot face the laundry after a layoff or a breakup, whose pile and paralysis Robbins calls "a sign that you're mentally well" [2], and Robbins and her colleagues Amy and Lynn say the same about the upset that comes with a big change, even one you wanted [3]. Psychologist Susan David rejects the sorting of emotions into good and bad altogether, and calls forced, false positivity "basically emotional avoidance" [4]. What deserves worry, in these conversations, is narrower: mood that gets in the way of living, coping that comes at a cost, and a collapse that turns chronic and stops being functional [1][2].

Table of contents

What They Said

Lisa Damour: two questions, and neither is do you feel good?

Damour told Mel Robbins she wrote The Emotional Lives of Teenagers because the way the culture talks about mental health does not square with how psychologists understand it [1]. So much of the public conversation, she said, suggests that being mentally healthy means feeling good or calm or relaxed or at ease; those are good things, but they do not factor into how psychologists assess mental health [1]. Psychologists look for two things: "Do the feelings fit the circumstance? And are they managed well?" [1]

Asked directly what it means to be mentally well, she answered: "What it means is that the emotions you have are actually in concert with what's happening in your world." [1] She went a step further: "And I think that mental health is often defined by experiencing distress. And that is 180 from where the culture is right now." [1] Too often, she said, mental health concerns and distress are treated as though they are one and the same [1].

Her examples are deliberately ordinary. If somebody gets dumped in a romance, psychologists expect sadness, and the absence of distress would be the concerning thing [1]. If a teenager has a huge test tomorrow and has not started studying, "The absence of anxiety is more concerning than the presence of anxiety." [1] If someone is really mean to you, teenager or adult, she expects hurt and then probably a self-protective anger [1]. All of those emotions are unpleasant and unwanted, and all of them, in her words, "are evidence that we work exactly as we should" [1]. To pathologize them means that "people are spending their normal, healthy days feeling like there's something wrong with them when in fact that distress is proof that they work perfectly" [1].

Damour named the confusion she is worried about: "for far too many people, uncomfortable feels like unmanageable," which leads people to treat normal hard days as proof that something is wrong with them [1]. Robbins restated the idea in her own terms during the conversation: guilt, fear, shame, anger, upset and heartbreak have been painted as making a person weak, when, "If it's occurring in reaction to the appropriate situation, that is a sign that you're mentally well." [1]

Damour added a second way psychologists think about feelings: as data. Feelings, negative and positive, tell us how things are going [1]. If every time you have lunch with somebody you walk away feeling stepped on and diminished, that is good data, and her advice was not to have lunch with that person if you can help it [1]. If a job interview feels thrilling, that is good data too [1]. Psychologists, she said, are "surprisingly agnostic" about emotions: "We don't really value positive ones over negative ones." [1]

She was also careful not to turn fitting into a rule about which feeling is correct. There is "no real right feeling," she said; feelings are informed by who we are and by our histories, so there is not always a perfect map of what to expect [1]. Psychologists, in her description, take a curious, "borderline anthropological stance towards emotion" as opposed to judging or valuing [1].

Most of the conversation is framed around teenagers, and Damour explained that adolescence begins around age 11 and can stretch to about 24 or 25, when reasoning is still more easily knocked offline under stress [1]. Both women stressed that the same thinking applies to partners, friends and adults [1].

Damour's two red flags

Because distress is expected, Damour looks for something else when she decides whether to worry [1]. The first flag is mood that interferes with life: in her words, "mood that actually disturbs the ability to live one's life" [1]. The summary of the conversation gives her examples: sadness turning into depression that casts a pall over everything, or anxiety that becomes paralyzing [1].

The second is what she calls "costly coping": people are coping with their moods, but in ways that come at a cost [1]. She listed abusing substances, being incredibly hard on the people around them, or turning it against themselves, whether by running themselves down or by self-harm [1]. Her point about these habits is that "those may be actually providing some relief" [1]. People do them because they work, and understanding the purpose a destructive behavior serves, such as numbing pain, is what opens up other choices [1].

Robbins described the same line from the outside: distressing emotion is part of being mentally well, but when someone starts opting out of seeing friends, stops showering, exercising and eating, or starts over-medicating feelings with alcohol or weed, that is the red flag [1]. Damour agreed and then separated it into her two categories [1].

KC Davis and Mel Robbins: the pile of laundry

In a follow-up episode with therapist and bestselling author KC Davis, two listeners wrote in: one recently laid off, with zero motivation, and one who had lost all motivation to clean or care for herself after a breakup with her high school sweetheart [2]. Davis heard something different from what they were telling themselves. They believed they were not doing anything anymore; she heard people who were doing something: "They are processing emotionally a significant crisis in their life." [2] That takes emotional resources and cognitive resources, and nobody has an unlimited amount of either on a given day [2]. If a good portion is going to processing pain, caring for a child, processing a breakup, re-experiencing trauma or being terrified about how the bills will be paid, there will be less left for laundry [2]. Her verdict on that: "Like that is normal and human." [2]

Robbins added a line she says she uses with other people and with herself when life produces paralysis, overwhelm or a breakdown: "the pile of laundry and the breakdown and the paralysis is a sign that you're mentally well." [2] Her reason: "Because your body is processing it." [2] After a major breakup, a layoff or losing someone you love, she said, of course you will go through a period when you do not have the energy [2]. Davis agreed, and the summary records her qualification: the concern arises only when this becomes chronic and nonfunctional, when you want to get to things but are so depleted you cannot even begin [2].

Davis's answer to that stuck state is not a diagnosis; it is a change in how you speak to yourself. The first move is self-compassion, because, she said, "shame is arresting. Self-compassion is motivating." [2] She said studies show greater psychological functioning in people who can practice self-compassion [2]. So she has people check the sentence they are telling themselves. Is it true that you are doing nothing? Her answer, in the voice she wants people to use: "I am doing something right now. I'm doing something very important. I'm listening to my body. I'm processing pain." [2]

She does not let this slide into giving up. "And you still deserve clean clothes," she said, which is where her idea that "good enough is perfect" comes in [2]. The options are not lying in bed all day or doing all the laundry; she offered a third: resting for ten hours and then laundering one outfit [2]. Robbins called the shift from paralysis to the mantra "I'm allowed to be human" life-changing [2].

Davis made the same move with a listener whose son had been diagnosed with autism, and for whom every task had felt impossible for months [2]. She challenged the picture of life as a highway with crises as side roads where we push a broken car: getting an autism diagnosis and processing it is life [2]. She then gave a plan for surviving such a season, covered below [2].

Mel Robbins, Amy and Lynn: upset about a change you wanted

The third conversation started at Robbins's kitchen island with two colleagues and fellow moms, Amy and Lynn, talking about college drop-off, and Robbins said it applies to anyone starting a new job, moving in with a partner, joining a new team or dating again after a breakup [3].

Robbins's central observation is that people build a transition up in their heads and then panic when it does not feel the way they pictured it [3]. "What you think it's going to feel like in your mind is very different than how your body experiences it as it's happening," she said [3]. It feels different because it is new [3]. That is why a person can be excited about a new school, job or move and still fall apart on arrival [3].

Her suggested words to someone in that state begin with "of course you're upset" and name the pattern: this is your process for going through change; you always get excited, then you get there and you do not like it [3]. Then comes the reframe: "This shows me that you're mentally well" [3]. She even said, "This makes me feel good that you're sad," because this is what the person always does before a major change that turns out great [3]. Her instruction: ride the wave, and "Don't expect it to be exciting" [3].

She closed the episode with the story of a young woman she considers like a daughter, who called mid-panic attack from the side of the road while juggling graduation, a delayed job start, a family move and a sick grandfather [3]. Robbins used a grounding technique, breathed with her, had her put a hand on her heart, and then told her that being upset showed she was mentally healthy, because that much change should turn anyone around, and that it was temporary [3]. Robbins generalized it: "It's a sign that you're mentally well if you're turned upside down because everything is new" [3]. The body needs time to process a new environment, a new rhythm, new people and a new commute, so feeling activated is expected [3]. The sentence she wants people to tell themselves is that "the fact that I'm upset about this change doesn't mean that it's going to be bad" [3].

Amy and Lynn supplied the other half: what the people around the upset person should do. Lynn described her son's first college drop-off, when he did not know a soul and thought he had chosen the wrong school, and she was pulled into his emotions, crying, not encouraging him, wanting to take him home [3]. She came to see that by rushing to rescue him she was robbing him of the chance to learn to handle change [3]. With her daughter she kept her own emotions in check, let her daughter have her feelings, and reminded her of the skills she already has [3]. Amy recalled leaving for a semester in Hawaii at 18 or 19, terrified, and asking her mom whether she could come home if it did not work out; her mom said no, and Amy calls it the best thing, because with an exit she would have kept looking back for permission to quit [3]. Amy's line from dropping her own daughter in Málaga: "I have to believe in her more than she believes in herself" [3].

Susan David: there are no good and bad emotions

Psychologist and emotions researcher Susan David, author of Emotional Agility, made the broadest version of the argument on The School of Greatness and again on The Mel Robbins Podcast [4][5]. On The School of Greatness she said plainly: "There is nothing wrong with sadness." [4] The culture tells us that joy, happiness and gratitude are good emotions and that grief, sadness, anxiety, shame and anger are bad [4]. She says that narrative does not match a life in which beauty "holds hands with fragility," where relationships end in loss [4]. The idea of good and bad emotions, in her words, "sets us up in an inner war with ourselves" [4].

She described how the war starts. Someone is unhappy about something at work or in a relationship; psychologists call that a type one emotion [4]. Then the world's message arrives, to be positive, be grateful, "good vibes only," along with everyone else's highlight reel, and a type two emotion gets added: "I'm unhappy about my unhappiness" [4]. People become stressed about being stressed, or grieve about their grief [4]. The first emotion, she said, is authentic to the world the person is living in; what gets layered on top is judgment, fighting and avoiding [4].

With Robbins she traced the same thing to the language people inherit: the idea that emotions are weak, feminine or bad, so that anything other than a so-called positive emotion becomes something to fight [5]. She called the fight a hidden hustle with ourselves: should I feel this, am I allowed to feel it, is this okay? [5] Her own account of what emotions are is functional: "The purpose of our emotions is to help us to adapt to the world around us." [5] Thoughts like "I'm not good enough" or "I'm a fraud," emotions like anger, fear and grief, and old stories about ourselves are, in her telling, normal, and they are helping a person see what needs attention [5]. On The School of Greatness she put it this way: "Any of it and all of it is actually normal." [4]

David on forced, false positivity

David is clear that she is not against happiness: she rates herself a 10 on joy, and she edited The Oxford Handbook of Happiness [4]. Her objection is to positivity that is forced and false, which she calls "basically emotional avoidance" and "a denial strategy," wrapped in rainbows and memes [4]. Her example is someone unhappy at work who tells themselves they should just be grateful to have a job; instead of using the unhappiness as information, they ignore it, and five years later they are still stuck in the same job [4].

She listed three costs [4]. First, "we aren't developing the skills to deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it to be" [4]. Second, she said avoidant coping strategies are associated with lower well-being and higher rates of depression, anxiety and burnout: "There is a real cost." [4] Third, presenting a false "everything's okay" to other people who are also in pain makes a person inauthentic, and she connects that orientation with poorer relationships [4]. She also said that when people get bound up in the narrative of just being grateful and just being positive, "we chase happiness rather than connecting with meaning" [4].

Her own history is her evidence for the personal cost. She grew up in apartheid-era South Africa, which she describes as a society built on denial [4]. When she was 15 her father died of cancer; she went back to school the following Monday and for months told everyone she was okay, and was praised for being strong [4]. "We become the masters of being okay," she said [4]. Inside she was drowning; her family was struggling financially and she began binging and purging [4]. She found that the just-be-positive narrative was making her "more fragile, less resilient, less well, less healthy" [4]. What turned it was an English teacher who handed out blank notebooks and said, "write, tell the truth, write like no one is reading." [4] Writing daily about her grief, loss and regret, she slowly found healing [4].

With Robbins she gave the two unhelpful extremes names. Bottling is suppressing difficult emotions in ourselves or in others: ignoring them, watching Netflix to avoid them, trying to fix, or saying "don't worry, it'll be okay" [5]. Doing it once is fine; as a default coping strategy, she said, it makes a person ineffective [5]. She was pointed about leaders who answer hard times by saying everything will be fine: "forced positivity is not leadership," she said; it is denial "wrapped up in rainbows and sparkles" [5]. The opposite extreme is brooding, getting stuck in the difficult emotion, and co-brooding, having a big moan together; she said brooding and co-brooding predict longer-term depression and anxiety [5].

She told a story against herself to show how automatic the positive reflex is. When her newborn son screamed at his shots, she kept telling him it was okay, until a nurse said to her, "Susie, it's not okay. Your child is in pain." [5] It will be okay, but right then it was not; despite her PhD she had done the thing she tells others not to do, which is invalidate [5].

David: data, not directives

David's working rule matches Damour's word for feelings. "Emotions are data, but they're not directives," she told Lewis Howes [4]. Emotions signal needs and values: boredom at work says a person cares about learning and growth, and loneliness points to a need for intimacy and connection [4]. With Robbins she said emotions are "sign posting our needs and our values," and that anger often signposts a need for fairness or a sense that values are being crossed [5].

The second half of the rule matters as much. Being angry does not mean yelling at everyone, and being sad does not mean surrendering to staying in bed [4]. Feeling something does not mean you must act it out or announce it [5]. Her example is Nelson Mandela, who, as she tells it, did not push his anger aside; he saw that it signaled a threatened value, equality, and acting on that value required sitting down to talk with his oppressor [4].

The danger she names is being "hooked," her word for what psychologists call fusion: when "I'm not good enough" becomes "there's no point in me trying," and "it's literally like the emotion owns you rather than you owning it" [4]. Her counter is the line "We own our emotions. They don't own us." [4]

Where They Agree, and Where They Don't

On the main point the five conversations line up. Damour says the presence of distress can be evidence of mental health and that its absence can be the more concerning sign [1]. Robbins, with Davis agreeing, says a breakdown after a layoff or a breakup is how a person is supposed to respond [2]. Robbins tells an upset college student or new employee that the upset shows they are mentally well [3]. David says difficult thoughts and emotions are normal and that the narrative of good and bad emotions is the thing doing harm [4][5].

They also agree that feelings are information. Damour calls them data and says psychologists are agnostic between positive and negative ones [1]. David says "Emotions are data" and adds "They're not directives" [5].

And they agree on where concern begins, though each draws the line in different words. For Damour it is mood that disturbs the ability to live one's life, and costly coping [1]. In the Davis conversation it is when the paralysis becomes chronic and stops being functional [2]. For David the trouble is being hooked, when a normal thought or feeling starts to define a person and hold them back, and brooding, which she ties to longer-term depression and anxiety [4][5]. None of them says that all distress is fine.

There are differences of emphasis, and one real tension.

The emphasis first. Damour's test has a second half, "are they managed well," and most of her conversation is about managing: red flags, rumination, avoidance, when to get a therapist [1]. Davis's emphasis is on lowering demands during a hard season, with rest as "a right and not a reward" and shortcuts like paper plates [2]. Robbins, Amy and Lynn lean the other way for transitions: do not offer an easy exit, and give a big decision a year [3]. These are not contradictions so much as answers to different situations. Davis is talking to someone whose capacity is used up by grief, trauma, caregiving or fear about bills [2]. Amy and Lynn are talking about a young person in a new place they spent a year choosing, where the feared thing is the change itself [3]. Damour's point that "avoidance feeds anxiety" explains why the second group should stay: skipping the feared thing brings instant relief, which teaches avoidance, and the imagined horrors never get tested [1].

The tension is about talking. Damour treats venting as healthy in moderation; when Robbins's daughters, or anyone's teenagers, unload on a parent, she calls it externalization, a normal defense especially common in adolescence, and advises letting them fill an emotional garbage bag and then disposing of it [1]. She also warns that endless discussion can spread distress to friends and become rumination, where the more you talk the worse you feel [1]. David is more wary of the shared moan: co-brooding leaves you feeling closer to your friend while the underlying relationship gets worse, and she says it predicts longer-term depression and anxiety [5]. Robbins's own comment in that conversation is that venting relieves the pressure of the moment but does not solve the problem [5]. The two psychologists end up near each other, since both object to the stuck, repeating version; Damour simply gives more room to the ordinary unloading that ends when the call ends [1][5].

A smaller difference: Robbins tells people outright that their upset is a sign they are well, and uses that as reassurance [2][3]. Damour is more careful about predicting which feeling a person should have, saying there is "no real right feeling" and no perfect map [1]. A reader can hold both: the reassurance is that distress matching events is expected, not that a particular feeling is required [1].

Why It Works

The sources give several reasons why reading fitting distress as health is more accurate, and more useful, than reading it as a symptom.

Feelings track what is happening. Damour's definition is that the emotions you have are "in concert with what's happening in your world" [1]. David says emotions evolved to help us adapt and survive [5]. On both accounts, a feeling that matches the event is the system doing its job, which is why Damour says the missing feeling would worry her more [1].

Processing uses up capacity. Davis's explanation for the untouched laundry is a budget: emotional and cognitive resources are limited each day, and a crisis spends them [2]. Robbins says the same about change: the body needs time to process a new environment, rhythm, people, space and commute [3]. Seen this way, the drop in everything else is the cost of the processing, not a second problem [2].

Judging the feeling adds a second feeling. David's type one and type two emotions describe what happens when a person decides the first feeling is bad: unhappiness about the unhappiness, stress about the stress, grief about the grief [4]. Damour describes the same result from her side: people spending normal, healthy days feeling there is something wrong with them [1]. Dropping the judgment removes the added layer and leaves the original feeling, which fits something real [4].

Shame stops movement. Davis's claim is that "shame is arresting. Self-compassion is motivating," and she says studies show greater psychological functioning in people who can practice self-compassion [2]. She adds that "people who rest in shame work in shame, people who work in shame rest in shame," which is why a person who collapses out of guilt does not come back rested [2]. David makes the parallel point that self-compassion is not weak or lazy: like a child exploring a restaurant because it knows its parents are there, people take risks when they have their own backs, and she calls self-compassion "the cornerstone to thriving and resilience" [4].

Avoidance has measured costs. David says avoidant coping strategies are associated with lower well-being and higher rates of depression, anxiety and burnout [4]. Damour says the most important and least publicized finding about anxiety is that "avoidance feeds anxiety," and that the answer agreed on across psychology is exposure in small steps [1]. Forced positivity, in David's account, is one more form of avoidance [4].

Feeling a feeling is how regulation is learned. David explains that families have display rules, implicit rules about which emotions are acceptable; a child repeatedly signaled that "sadness has no place here" learns to turn away from themselves [5]. Children become good at regulating emotions by feeling them and finding that the sadness of yesterday has passed [5]. She calls helping children be with discomfort "the core work of parenting" [5].

Naming and writing help. David says expressive writing, even 20 minutes a day for three days, helps because of the meaning-making it creates, and that the people who do best are not Pollyannas; they hold beautiful memories alongside pain and regret [4]. Holding the joy together with the grief, she said, "is the litmus of psychological health and well-being" [4]. She also says children as young as two and three who label their emotions more accurately show higher well-being over time [4][5].

Other people's steadiness sets the size of the problem. Damour says teenagers watch adults' reactions; if the adult hits the ceiling, the teen concludes a "15-year-old size bad" day is actually "52-year-old size bad" [1]. Robbins says getting sucked into a child's nervousness is destabilizing for them [3]. Damour's broader claim, from decades of study of adolescent mental health, is that "the single most powerful force for protecting teenage mental health is strong relationships with caring adults" [1].

Where It Applies, and Where It Doesn't

It applies when the feeling has an event to fit. The sources' cases are a breakup, a layoff, a death, a diagnosis in the family, an unprepared-for test, cruelty from someone else, and a big change such as a new school, job, city or living arrangement [1][2][3]. Robbins's phrasing of the condition is that the big feelings are related to a corresponding event that makes sense [1].

It applies to wanted changes as well as unwanted ones. Robbins is explicit that a person can be excited about the change and still be nervous and activated, and that this is a good sign [3].

It applies to adults. Damour's book is about teenagers, but she and Robbins say the framing covers partners, friends and adults, and Davis's listeners are adults [1][2].

It stops applying at Damour's two flags: mood that gets in the way of living, and coping that brings relief at a cost, such as abusing substances, being very hard on the people around you, running yourself down or self-harm [1]. Robbins's plain-language version is withdrawing from friends, dropping showers, exercise and eating, or over-medicating feelings with alcohol or weed [1].

It stops applying when the collapse becomes chronic and nonfunctional: when it is your everyday life and you would like to get to things but cannot get to the beginning of the task [2]. Davis still starts with self-compassion there, and for long-running limits she moves to accessibility, with long-term solutions such as a grabber tool for chronic back pain [2].

It does not mean every feeling should be acted on. David's rule is that emotions are data, not directives [4][5].

It does not mean dwelling. David separates accepting a feeling from brooding on it, and says her gentle acceptance is not passive resignation [5]. Damour warns against rumination [1].

It does not mean avoiding what frightens you because the fear is valid. Damour's advice for anxiety is small steps toward the feared thing, such as agreeing to go to the party for 20 minutes with an easy way out [1].

And fit is not a strict table. Damour says feelings are shaped by who we are and what has come before, so there is not always a perfect map of what to expect [1].

Damour's guidance on when to bring in help is direct: it is time for professional help when what you are doing is not working and you have run out of ideas at home [1]. If either red flag appears, or you are worried that someone may harm themselves, the advice of a qualified mental health professional or a doctor is the next step, not an article.

What To Do With It

1. Ask Damour's two questions before you call a feeling a problem. "Do the feelings fit the circumstance? And are they managed well?" [1] If you were dumped and you are sad, or you have a test tomorrow and you are anxious, the first answer is yes [1].

2. Keep your worry for the two flags. Watch for mood that gets in the way of living, and for costly coping: substances, harshness toward the people around you, running yourself down, self-harm [1]. In a hard season, also watch whether the shutdown has become chronic and nonfunctional [2].

3. Change the sentence from I'm doing nothing to what is true. Davis's version: "I am doing something right now. I'm doing something very important. I'm listening to my body. I'm processing pain." [2] Then do the small thing that keeps you functional, because "you still deserve clean clothes": rest, then launder one outfit [2]. Her tool for getting started is that "we can use 5% momentum to do 5% of the task": fold one item, wash two dishes, or set a timer for five minutes [2].

4. Lower the load during a crisis instead of demanding more of yourself. Davis's survival kit: switch to paper plates and napkins, outsource cleaning, laundry or groceries as far as the budget allows, keep one small corner that can be made beautiful in under five minutes, put hygiene kits around the house, put a laundry basket and trash can in every room, and rest [2]. Treat rest as "a right and not a reward" [2].

5. Read the feeling as data, then choose the action. Ask what the emotion is signposting: boredom, a need for growth; loneliness, a need for connection; anger, often a need for fairness [4][5]. Then use David's questions: what action would be most aligned with my values, and "I may be right, but is my response serving me?" [4]

6. Name the feeling more exactly, and step back from it in your wording. Replace a broad label like stressed with a precise one such as disappointed, unsupported or bored, which points to the cause and to what to do [4][5]. Instead of "I am sad," say "I'm noticing that I'm feeling sad" [4][5]. David's image for what this does: "You are the sky." [4]

7. Stop the second layer. When you catch yourself unhappy about being unhappy, or telling yourself you should just be grateful, recognise it as the type two emotion and the forced positivity David describes [4]. Her grounding practice is feet on the ground, hands on the chest, and the words "it's hard to human right now" [5].

8. Write it down honestly. David cites expressive writing of 20 minutes a day for three days, in the spirit of her teacher's instruction: "write, tell the truth, write like no one is reading." [4]

9. When someone you love is upset, be steady and say less. Damour's bottom line: "Our job is to try to be a steady presence." [1] Ask, "do you want my help or do you just need to vent?" [1] Often "That stinks" is enough [1]. In a transition, tell them the upset is part of their process and a sign they are well, lend them your confidence, give them a specific next time you will see each other, and do not offer an easy exit; if they spent a year choosing it, they give it a year [3].

10. If you see costly coping, or you are worried about suicide, act directly. Acknowledge that the behaviour is working at some level and side with the part of the person that wants help, using Damour's phrase "what you're doing isn't working" and a commitment to find another way [1]. If you are worried someone may be suicidal, she says to ask: say why you are asking, then ask whether they have had thoughts of harming themselves or ending their life [1]. Asking does not plant the idea, and she says research shows that "if a teenager is thinking about suicide, they're glad you asked" [1]. When you have run out of ideas at home, get professional help; to suggest it she offers the words, "listen, for what you are up against, you deserve way more support than you have." [1]

Sources

1. Dr. Lisa Damour on How to Help Someone You Love Who Is Struggling · The Mel Robbins Podcast
2. KC Davis on Momentum Over Motivation, Rest as a Right and Fair Rest at Home · The Mel Robbins Podcast
3. How to Handle Big Transitions: Mel Robbins, Amy and Lynn on College Drop-Off, Borrowed Confidence and Change · The Mel Robbins Podcast
4. Susan David on Forced Positivity, Emotional Agility and Why Emotions Are Data, Not Directives · The School of Greatness
5. Dr. Susan David on Emotional Agility: Mastering Your Emotions and Handling Difficult People · The Mel Robbins Podcast