Asked for help but still feel really stuck?

Hello dear listener,

Graham here. (Aka 'boyfriend Graham' from the No Feeling Is Final podcast.) Here to tell ya about our little club for big feelings.

“A club that feels more like a big hug. A constant reminder that I'm never alone in terms of my mental health.” — Big Feels Clubber

In a nutshell

Big Feels Club is a unique little community for people navigating the long-term mental health path. People who don't fit the "just asked for help and now I'm better!" mold. Made by two big feelers, Honor Eastly and Graham Panther from the No Feeling Is Final podcast, we tell the truth about mental health in a way that’s still encouraging, through our monthly newsletter, podcasts, and occasional online meet ups.

Already keen? Join 7,000+ fellow big feelers and get monthly reminders you still belong on earth, even when life gets really hard.

“Big Feels makes me feel so seen and like I’m not a messy puddle of feelings but someone who shares this stuff with other people.” — Hannah, Big Feels Clubber

The longer, Won’t-Fit-in-a-nutshell version

Maybe you've just finished listening to No Feeling Is Final and you're wondering what to do with all those FEELINGS? Or maybe you're halfway through, in which case I promise zero spoilers about what happens to Honor's haul of psych hospital cheese.

I only ate some of it I swear. That stuff is addictive.

I'm gonna guess that you've clicked this far because you heard us mention the Big Feels Club in the show or on Honor's website, and the idea of 'a club for people with big feelings' sounds at least a little bit intriguing.

How does one join such a club?

Does anyone actually turn up to the meet ups, or do we all just RSVP "yes absolutely!" before inevitably canceling last minute?

(See below; and, surprisingly, Yes people actually show up!)

Just wanna look for yourself? Click here to check out our website, read some of our articles, and generally noodle around. Or read on for why we started this club in the first place, and what you might get from joining this (free) little community of big feelers. .

From a dozen strangers in my living room to 7,000+ big feelers worldwide

When we made No Feeling Is Final, seven years ago, Big Feels was just a tiny experiment. As Honor mentions in the show, we started by inviting a dozen strangers to my living room to talk about feelings.

Perfectly normal behaviour.

After No Feeling Is Final came out, thousands more people found our tender little corner of the internet. Big Feels Club became the place where Honor and I could write about our experiences on the long-term mental health path – stories we weren't hearing anywhere else – and where other big feelers could share their own stories and compare notes.

Side note: in No Feeling, because the focus is Honor's story, I come across like I'm 'the one with his shit together'. This has become a running joke in our household. Because like Honor, I've been wrestling with my own version of the "how do I live with my brain?" question for most of my life too. (Shout out to all my anxious, neurotic boys out there and the people who love them!)

A Big Feels Club online member meet up :)

When "just ask for help!" is just the beginning

Why did we start Big Feels Club? Because while we’ve come a long way with our understanding of mental health, both Honor and I think there’s still something sorely missing.

We've all heard the standard mental health advice. That chirpy four-word slogan:

"Just ask for help!"

But what if you've been asking for help for years, and you still feel blown apart most days?

In No Feeling Is Final, Honor talks about being in psych hospital during Mental Health Week. She describes how, on TV, every story she heard went one of two ways:

Story Type #1: Triumph over mental illness. 'I was depressed but now I take meds or I go surfing and I feel better!'

Or…

Story Type #2: Tales of devastation wrought by long-term mental health struggles, usually told in the third person by hollow-eyed family members.

Honor knew even by that point that she didn't fit into Type #1. But where did that leave her?

After those first few meet-ups at my house, we decided that Big Feels Club needed to be a place people could map out a third option. A different kind of story, where you're not fixed, but you're not fucked either.

Because that was Honor's story. And it was my story too. And you know what?

Story #3 is the most common story!

1 in 2 cases of anxiety and depression will last for multiple years. Even if you're doing all the right things.

In one study, 74%(!) of people accessing help for anxiety or depression were still struggling four years later. And this is the people actually getting the help.

In other words, struggling for many years, even after asking for help, is completely normal.

But here's the thing...

Nobody TELLS you that!

So you can start to think, is the problem just… ME?

"Prior to the Big Feels Club featuring in my life I was sure I was a uniquely f***ed up weirdo. I can't accurately express via email just how much it's helped." -- Amber, Big Feels Clubber

‘I shouldn’t still be struggling’

When everyday life is overwhelming for no obvious reason, it's so easy to feel like you shouldn't be feeling this way.

When it goes on for many years, even as you do the therapy, try the psych drugs, and all the many other things we all do for our mental health, if there's no clear and obvious improvement, it just adds to that sense that you are failing at life.

That's how Honor felt for the longest time. It's how I've felt most of my life too.

It's such a lonely place to be.

So how do you shift that story? That you're not just screwed but uniquely screwed? How do you stop piling on yourself for the fact you find life really hard sometimes?

The Recipe: Honesty + Encouragement + Connection

We can only tell you what's worked for us. But it’s a recipe that's helped thousands of Big Feels Clubbers too.

It's not a magic bullet. It's not One Weird Trick For Not Feeling So Blown Apart Every Day. But it is a recipe that might help you stay on this long and winding path, even when you're really struggling.

The recipe has three main ingredients:

Honesty: Being more honest about the long-term mental health path. e.g. Naming the fact that for so many of us 'just ask for help' is just the beginning.
Encouragement: Honesty that won't just bum you out! Focusing on the little things you can do, and that others are doing too (while never pretending there’s some magic bullet).
Connection: Safety in numbers, proof that it's not just you on this messy, windy long-term path. Living proof that struggling doesn't have to mean failing.

If you pop your email address in the box at the bottom of this page, Big Feels Club can offer you all three ingredients, regularly in your inbox.

Every month or so, you'll get more honest mental health stories – messy stories of people who are still very much working it out over a long time period. Honest-but-still-encouraging stories of other big feelers finding small but powerful things that can help.

Plus you’ll also have the chance to see and hear from your fellow club members at our occasional online talks and other experiments.

"Your emails make my heart feel less heavy, and make it OK to be struggling, as long as I am still trying." — KC, Big Feels Clubber

"I always, ALWAYS feel less alone after reading your words." — Ellie, Big Feels Clubber

The aim is to slowly unpick the mismatched expectations we're given by those overly simplistic 'just ask for help! It's easy!' mental health messages. And to directly challenge the illusion that we're the only ones finding life this hard.

Because here's the truth: There are so many of us out there on the long-term mental health path! We are smart, creative, funny, resourceful people (even if we don't always feel that way). If it was as simple as following a to-do list, we'd have done it already.

The courage to keep going

It still seems wild to both me and Honor how helpful people find this little club, when in truth, it's largely just a monthly newsletter, occasional online meet-ups, and a few other random experiments.

But then, in a way maybe it's not so mysterious?

We do so much pretending, we sensitive cats. Pretending we're not anxious. Pretending we're not hurt by some small thing that, sure, we know shouldn't affect us so much, but it has.

We're good at pretending. And that's a very useful skill!

But it's also a lonely skill.

So what a relief to share that path in some small way, even if just through the limited nodes of the internet.

Join our community of 7,000+ big feelers

Join the club and you'll get:

Our monthly newsletter with honest-but-still-encouraging perspectives on the long-term mental health path
A special email welcome series featuring our most-loved articles
Invitations to our occasional online meetups where big feelers gather to share and connect

Plus, you’ll be the first to know about whatever other experiments we think up (previously we've done everything from a live version of No Feeling Is Final to 600 people, to spending over 100 hours on the phone to club members to better understand the unique challenges of life + big feels)

Rather dip your toe in first?

Check out these issues of the Big Feels newsletter from Honor and me:

Hard But Not Impossible: Honor’s take on why the long term mental health path is even harder than a marathon, and what’s helped her stay on the path even when it got really hard.
Am I Too Much For Other People?: a piece I wrote that was meant to be about the weird and wonderful alternative therapies so many of us try when the standard stuff doesn’t help (in this case, something called a ‘listening therapy’) but ended up being about the terror and joy of asking for what you really need from the people closest to you (good god man why would you do THAT??)
Daring To Hope For More: Honor writes about the trap we can easily fall into on the long term mental health path, the trap of thinking ‘this is as good as it gets’. What if there’s more to life than just surviving? What would that even look like?
Learning To Speak Your Body’s Language: For as long as I can remember I’ve lived in a tense and anxious body. In this piece, I write about one surprising (and free!) thing I’ve found that reliably calms me down.

Enjoy.

And remember… We see how hard you're trying. It’s not just you!

– Graham xx