Life, Anxiety, & Direction
Everyone Needs an Uncle Kevin
By AG
OCTOBER 25, 2026 · 5 MIN READ
Everyone needs an Uncle Kevin. That’s the man in the picture above this post. Our bond is unique. He’s not blood, but he might as well be.
From trips to Dave & Buster’s, Kalahari, the zoo, and Hilton Head, we’ve done it all—and the journey is only going to continue.
To give you a little more context about our relationship, we used to spend every Thanksgiving watching Black Friday fights and catching up on TMZ. Specifically, what Snooki, Pauly D, and the gang were getting into. Clearly, we had some important things to discuss.
We bond on a lot of levels, but he’s also someone I can open up to, especially about my mental health. He’s often reached out when I’ve been in a dark place and found a way to make me feel better, even through a simple text or phone call.
When a good friend of mine passed away, he sent me a text that made me feel so much better. For a moment, I forgot everything that was wrong. It didn’t change what had happened, but I still remember how that message made me feel.
I love this man, and honestly, I need to reach out to him more.
How many of you have an Uncle Kevin? Maybe yours is a friend or a therapy group—someone you can rely on when things get hard.
Ray Charles & Hard Times
One of my favorite Ray Charles songs is “Hard Times.” You can probably guess what it’s about from the title. But if you don’t get it, it’s about hard times. Shocking, right?
He sings about his mother reminding him to pray because hard times are coming. Then he talks about losing money, pawning his clothes to pay the rent, and having his woman leave him. The man was going through it.
Life isn’t always going to be good. That’s part of being human, so we might as well try our best to be prepared. For me, part of that means knowing who I can turn to when things get rough.
Uncle Kevin can’t fix everything, but being able to talk to him means I don’t have to keep everything to myself.
Emotions? Never Heard of Her
Having someone like Uncle Kevin helps. But I also know what it feels like to need someone to talk to and not feel comfortable opening up.
That’s a pretty defeating feeling. I haven’t always felt safe expressing myself to certain people. Other times, I worried that talking about what I was going through would make me a burden.
It’s crazy how some people act like mental health is a foreign concept. Last time I checked, you’re human too. You’ve probably experienced stress, felt anxious, or gone through a period when you weren’t doing so well.
If I were struggling with a subject in school, I’d see a tutor. If I were sick and needed help, I’d see a doctor. But when I’m struggling with my mental health, suddenly seeing a therapist is something people question.
Sometimes, people’s reactions made me feel like getting help was something I should be embarrassed about. You don’t have to know exactly what someone is going through to try to understand them.
Someone in my therapy group once called our sessions “emotions class,” and I thought that was such a great way to put it.
Instead of saying, “I’m going to therapy,” maybe I should say, “I’m going to emotions class with my emotional professor and my classmates.” The professor is my therapist, and my classmates are other people trying to figure their own stuff out, just like me.
Maybe putting it that way would help it make more sense to someone who’s never been. We take classes to learn all kinds of things. Why should learning how to understand and deal with our emotions be so weird?
Vulnerability can be the key to connection
Choosing to go to therapy was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made. It meant being vulnerable, and that wasn’t something I was comfortable with. But it was also one of the best decisions I’ve made. Honestly, I feel like a stronger person because of it.
I know what it’s like to struggle and not know how to ask for help—or to wonder whether you even deserve it. If you’re reading this and struggling, I encourage you to reach out. You have something to offer this world, and you deserve support, even if asking for it feels uncomfortable.
One-on-one therapy was hard for me. Just sitting with a counselor and talking about myself was difficult. When things got worse, I started an intensive outpatient program, or IOP, that included group therapy.
I remember sitting there thinking, “How the hell am I going to talk to a room full of strangers about my life and my problems?”
It had taken me several years to tell my parents how I was feeling. Now I was supposed to open up to people I’d just met. I was intimidated.
Little did I know that opening up about my experiences would help me connect with them.
When I shared my story, the whole group rallied behind me. They listened and made me feel a lot better. Some could relate to what I’d been through. Others hadn’t had the same experiences, but they still tried to understand.
They saw me as a human being going through a hard time, and they were there for me.
I’d spent so long worrying about how people would react that I hadn’t given much thought to the possibility that they might understand.
That first moment of opening up reminded me of something Uncle Kevin had already shown me: people don’t have to fix everything to help you feel better.
Everyone needs an Uncle Kevin. You might not realize how much a simple text or phone call means to someone, especially when they’re struggling. What feels small to you might be exactly what they needed that day.
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