No worries about the delay you weren't that late and we still haven't finished judging round 2 yet!

On Monday I visited a friend who is a music teacher and not only does she teach piano and flute, she also specializes in something called 'voice therapy', which is something between music and speech therapy. The concept is to use singing as a way for a person to express their feelings and emotions, sort of like instead of sitting down and talking to a therapist you are singing instead.

That sounds really interesting! I actually only recently just learned of music therapy so voice therapy is new to me as well. That's sad to hear she dealt with domestic violence.. Though great to hear she was able to channel it into something so positive and healing not just for herself but for others as well!

Also sorry to hear about the post-natal depression your friends friend dealt with, I didn't know about post-natal depression either.. That's really cool she was also able to improve and heal more through singing as well! Very interesting.. I've recently been working on sort of singing but not really cause I've never been taught, it's more spoken word poetry than anything but I feel like it helps me a bit with my depression as well! Something to consider in the future, maybe if I do it more it will help me in a similar way.

Once again sad to hear about the art therapist who lost her husband and dealt with a lot of stress in the relationship, though once again great to hear she was able to creatively channel that negative energy into love and healing not just for herself but others as well!

I have been able to connect with so many people in the 'real-world' that shared experiences which put them through a difficult period, something that added a lot of burden and threatened their mental health, yet each of them found a way to climb out of the abyss through a connection to the arts. More importantly, they have also managed to use this as inspiration and motivation to help others now.

That is really inspiring to think about! I think I've done similar with my poetry and photography and videos and other artwork in the past, for I did not want to just be consumed by the darkness and I wanted to make something positive out of it if possible and also to help others, so it was really cool to hear those 3 stories you just mentioned and it helps me put things into perspective more and realize how powerful art is.. I definitely think I need to keep trying to use art as a tool to help myself and others when I'm dealing with my darkness..

I did wonder if there could have been more done on the prevention of these issues, and this is something that I am using as my own inspiration to start working on ideas that will help people build up emotional resilience and mental fitness to deal with the tough situations in life.

That's an awesome set of sentiments and initiative.. Very admirable and noble and inspiring in my opinion and I wish you as much success as is possible in your efforts!

I also know many people in the Steemit community (but I won't mention specific names here) that also went through challenges in life, and through Steemit have made connections with others that share similar experiences. I have personally seen how many have also managed to pull themselves through some tough situations (or are still dealing with it), but the support and compassion shown by people in the crypto-community is so inspirational that it makes you really see the positive side of the social networks online.

Well said.. I've seen similar and experienced it myself as I'm pretty open with my sad feelings and I've got amazing support here on steem and on Facebook and in general in life, a lot of people especially men are sort of I think conditioned by society to repress it and keep it to themselves but I think that often makes it worse and more difficult to manage and understand, and.. If we can encourage people to be more open with their problems and let them know we will be there to help in whatever ways we can I think that is super important.

Great entry @plushzilla ! Super inspiring in my opinion and hit me on a bunch of levels that I've been thinking about a lot lately. I'm not sure how I'm going to vote on this round yet but I have a feeling at least one of my three votes is going to you. Thank you for sharing and also for helping me to look at things in a better light. :)