“I notice and fixate on these things. It doesn’t lead to anything good.”
If you’ve ever heard the saying “it’s OK not to be OK,” then you probably know that talking about mental health is *so* important. Everyone struggles with different battles, whether it’s a tough day at work or something more serious.
I recently stumbled across a Reddit thread where people shared subtle signs that their mental health is starting to slip before they fully realize it. Here are the things to look out for that often go unnoticed, because every person deserves love and support during life’s roughest moments:
1. “Responding to text messages from people. When I’m feeling burnt out or depressed, I just want the world to stop so I can curl up in a hole and have nothing be asked of me, even something as simple as a text message.”
2. “Making dumb mistakes. I had a young guy working for me: a pretty stoic fellow, but a damn good carpenter; methodical and careful. In the same week, he made two dumb mistakes. They weren’t huge, just cutting the wrong parts of a template. The next day, I asked if he was all right. Turns out that a mentor and secondary father figure in his life, who recently had a fall, was in much worse shape than I had realized and actually died a few weeks later.”
—u/arkofjoy
3. “I don’t want to leave the house, like at all.”
—u/Alaskagirl_907
4. “When doing absolutely nothing starts feeling like a full-time job.”
—u/Visible_Yard_531
5. “I start getting teary in conversations. I can be talking about the weather, and I get tears in my eyes. That’s when I know I’m on the slide.”
6. “From my experience, my home becomes a mess. At some low points, I lived in a room where I literally couldn’t walk around because it was littered with clothes and other stuff. At the time, I didn’t even feel like trying to clean it up. That’s my flag that something is very wrong with my mental health.”
—u/Volgrand
7. “I want to hermit.”
—u/chiasmatic_nucleus
8. “Increased anxiety about stuff you normally wouldn’t worry about, especially in the form of paranoia.”
—u/weirdgirloverthere
9. “You lose interest in being friendly or hanging out with others.”
10. “Loss of memory.”
—u/Legitimate-Yam5505
11. “I start having a harder and harder time keeping the routines that usually help and keep me happy.”
—u/PunyCocktus
12. “I stop listening to music.”
13. “I feel like a bystander in my own life.”
—u/UraeusCurse
14. “No appetite.”
—u/Beezmom143
15. “Very simple things start to feel difficult and overwhelming. Like refilling my vitamins and/or remembering to take them every day.”
16. “I start having nightmares when my stress or anxiety is bad, or I’ll wake up suddenly and be disoriented.”
—u/AccomplishedJeweler
17. “You get more and more tired for no apparent reason.”
—u/Beezleboobz
18. “I stay in my bed and sleep off and on for the whole day.”
19. “First, I will begin to sigh heavily, randomly. I know it’s gotten bad when I start having imaginary arguments with people in my head.”
—u/pokersnek
20. “Racing thoughts.”
—u/Additional_Course965
21. “Skipping my nighttime shower because it feels like a hassle. But once I’m in the shower, it really helps relieve my stress, calm me, and prep my body for sleep.”
22. “Getting irritated with everything.”
—u/anqid97
23. “Nitpicking. I notice and fixate on unhelpful details and time-wasting things. It doesn’t lead to anything good.”
—u/FinanceMuse
24. And finally, “You start getting sick. Weird cough. Muscle soreness. Run-down in general. People who are burning out take more sick days before they crash.”
Share a subtle sign that your mental health is slipping in the comments, or submit anonymously using the form below. Your response might be featured in an upcoming BuzzFeed Community post!
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.

TAMPA, Fla. — Freestanding emergency departments have become increasingly difficult to miss across Tampa Bay.
These facilities promise convenient access to emergency care without requiring patients to travel to a traditional hospital campus.
But several patients told the Tampa Bay 28 I-Team that they did not fully understand the potential cost when they walked through the doors.
One patient said his insurer was billed more than $8,000 after a doctor treated his dislocated finger.
Another said a freestanding emergency room billed $35,000 following a visit for rabies vaccinations.
A third patient received more than $17,000 in charges after suffering a head injury.
“I think there’s something really broken here,” Abram Jacobson said. “And I know I’m not the only one, and this was a really trivial instance.”
Freestanding emergency departments expand across Florida
Florida has 166 hospital-based, off-campus emergency departments, accounting for nearly 2 million visits, according to information reviewed by the I-Team.
Unlike an urgent care clinic, a freestanding emergency department operates as a hospital emergency room and charges emergency department rates.
A Florida House analysis from 2021 found that treatment at an urgent care center averaged approximately $193, compared with more than $2,000 at a freestanding emergency department.
A separate academic study found that each additional freestanding emergency center entering a market was associated with an average 3.6 percentage-point increase in emergency department spending.
“The number one cost driver of every health plan in the United States is the emergency room,” said Bill Hennessey, a physician and patient billing advocate.
For less serious conditions in which a patient does not expect to be admitted to a hospital, Hennessey said urgent care treatment typically costs approximately $200 to $300.
“There’s a money-making opportunity,” he said. “Just follow the money.”
An $8,000 bill to treat a dislocated finger
Mark Currier dislocated a finger while playing basketball at a recreation center.
“It was bent back about a 90-degree angle,” he said.
Concerned that the finger might be broken, Currier searched online for nearby medical care and went to the closest freestanding emergency department that appeared on his phone.
“They ended up taking my finger and pulling it straight, which hurt, and put it in a splint and said, ‘OK, thank you very much,’” he recalled.
Then the bill arrived.
“The overall fee that they billed my insurance company was over $8,000 to pull my finger,” Currier said.
Currier said he believed an urgent care center could have treated the injury.
“Absolutely,” he said. “It wasn’t complicated at all.”
He also acknowledged that he did not understand the difference between an urgent care clinic and a standalone emergency center when he sought treatment.
“I didn’t,” Currier said. “I just Googled it and went to the closest place that came up on my phone.”
A $35,000 charge following a bat encounter
Abram Jacobson’s experience began when his dogs cornered a bat in his yard.
Jacobson said he found the bat and touched its chest with one finger to check whether its heart was beating.
As a precaution, he took his dogs to a veterinarian for rabies booster shots, which he said cost $180 for both animals.
The veterinarian reported the incident to health officials, who directed Jacobson to seek medical treatment. He went to a freestanding emergency department.
“I got in and out really quickly, and for me, a routine vaccination,” he said.
But the bill was far from routine.
“When I saw that they had billed $35,000 for the event, I was, ‘What? What universe am I living in?’” Jacobson said.
Jacobson said the freestanding emergency department did not administer all the shots he needed.
He had to visit the health department for subsequent boosters.
More than $17,000 in charges after a head injury
Linene Kates was attending a boat show in Tampa when she tripped over a concrete wheel stop in a parking garage.
“I went headfirst into a concrete piling,” she said.
Kates went to a freestanding emergency department expecting that she would receive treatment faster.
Instead, she said she spent approximately nine hours there.
“Nobody ever came to check on me, and my son kept going up there asking for more ice packs because they would melt,” she said.
Kates underwent an MRI, was placed in a head wrap and was cleared to return home.
The total charges were $17,437, according to a bill she reviewed with the I-Team.
Kates said she also received a separate bill from the physician who treated her.
Florida requires freestanding ERs to warn patients
Florida lawmakers have acknowledged that patients may confuse freestanding emergency departments with urgent care centers.
State law requires freestanding emergency departments to post signs informing patients:
The facility is a hospital emergency department.
It is not an urgent care center.
Emergency department rates are charged for its services.
The facilities must also post their average facility fees.
Those fees can exceed $5,000 in some cases.
Hospital association says the facilities improve access
The Florida Hospital Association declined the I-Team’s request for an interview but disputed criticism of freestanding emergency departments.
In a statement, the association wrote:
“The demand for healthcare continues to rise as our state’s population grows and ages. Additionally, families and visitors rely on timely access to healthcareservices when minutes matter. Whether restoring blood flow during a stroke, preserving an injured finger or addressing a psychiatric crisis, prompt diagnosesand treatments improve health outcomes and save lives. StandaloneEmergency Departments can complement existing hospitals and healthcare providers by bringing emergency carecloser to home and reducing wait times for patients.”
How to decide where to seek treatment
Hennessey said patients experiencing a possible stroke, heart attack, broken bone or another serious condition should seek emergency care rather than visiting an urgent care clinic.
He also advised patients who believe they need emergency care to consider going to an emergency room attached to a hospital.
“I want someone who really thinks he or she needs emergency care to go to an emergency room that’s attached to a hospital, so that in the event that you need further care by a physician specialist inside the hospital, you’re already there,” Hennessey said.
For patients whose conditions are less serious, understanding the difference between urgent care and emergency care before arriving could help prevent an unexpected bill.
Here’s a guide Hennessey provided to the I-Team:
Urgent Care Symptoms/Condition
Persistent cough
Sore throat
Ear pain
Asthma flare-up
Eye redness and/or discharge
Fever without a rash
Dehydration
Abdominal pain
Flu-like symptoms
Suturing of minor cuts
Urinary tract infection/increased urinary frequency
Sprains and strains
Vomiting
Strep throat
Sinus infection
ER Symptoms/Condition

A doctor in Florida performed a medical first on Sunday, using a robotic telesurgery system to perform a surgery at a hospital located 35 miles away.
Dr. Vipul Patel, founder and medical director of the Global Robotics Institute at AdventHealth Celebration in Celebration, Florida, near Orlando, used the robotic system to perform surgery on a 66-year-old man with prostate cancer.
While the patient was in an operating room at an AdventHealth hospital in Minneola, Florida, Patel was controlling surgical instruments remotely at AdventHealth Celebration, located 35 miles away, to successfully remove the patient’s prostate.
A qualified surgeon was also in the room with the patient at AdventHealth Minneola during the surgery, according to AdventHealth.
The patient continues to do well post-surgery, the hospital told ABC News.
The surgery — the first of its kind performed between two hospitals in the United States — is part of a Food and Drug Administration-authorized clinical research study to examine whether this type of robotic surgery could be implemented more broadly.
If so, Patel said it has the potential to transform the medical care patients can access, no matter where they live.
“For generations, access to highly specialized care has often depended on where a patient lives,” Patel said in a statement shared by AdventHealth “This study allows us to evaluate whether telesurgery could one day help reduce geographic barriers to specialized treatment. Important questions about safety, effectiveness and technical performance remain under investigation.”
As part of the study, nearly one dozen telesurgery procedures were previously done between hospitals in Orlando and Luanda, Angola, located more than 7,000 miles apart.

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A new diagnostic test could improve the prostate cancer experience for millions of men.
Researchers at University College London (UCL) analyzed a tissue-based molecular test called Decipher to determine which men with high-risk prostate cancer were most likely to benefit from stronger treatment — and which might avoid unnecessary medication and side effects.
The analysis focused on abiraterone, a hormone therapy that was shown in the STAMPEDE clinical trial to cut the risk of death in half among men with high-risk, localized prostate cancer.
The findings were presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2026 in Madrid, held Oct. 23–27.
JOE BIDEN SHARES HEALTH UPDATE AFTER PROSTATE CANCER DIAGNOSIS WHILE ISSUING WARNING TO OTHERS
Not every cancer is alike, and treating someone more aggressively than necessary could have “increased side effects and poorer quality of life,” noted a UCL news release.
Because prostate cancers differ at the molecular level, not every patient benefits from adding hormone therapy.
To determine whether Decipher could help guide that decision, researchers examined test scores from more than 27,000 patients in real-world data and 401 men with non-metastatic prostate cancer who had participated in the STAMPEDE abiraterone trial.
PATIENTS REMAIN CANCER-FREE NEARLY 3 YEARS AFTER RECEIVING EXPERIMENTAL IMMUNOTHERAPY
Higher Decipher scores predicted worse outcomes, meaning the cancer is more likely to spread and additional treatment may be valuable. A low Decipher score suggested more intensive treatment may be unnecessary.
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Lead researcher Dr. Sarah Howlett of UCL Cancer Institute commented in a statement that for men with very high-risk prostate cancer, preventing spread of the disease is “critical.”
“Understanding who benefits most from additional treatment can make a meaningful difference,” she added.
The findings suggest that genomic testing could help tailor treatment, according to the researcher.
Men with high-risk prostate cancer and low Decipher scores may face a lower risk of spread and could avoid more intensive therapy, while those with high scores may be the strongest candidates for additional treatment.
Identifying the same pattern in both a large, real-world dataset and a randomized clinical trial strengthens the findings, Howlett noted.
CANCER WARNING SIGNS MAY APPEAR IN DNA YEARS BEFORE BLOOD TESTS DETECT TROUBLE
“But further validation in other datasets is needed before the test is used routinely to make these decisions,” she said.
Elai Davicioni, medical director of urology for Decipher test maker Veracyte, also commented, “We believe this growing evidence gives physicians a stronger reason to use Decipher before making decisions that can affect both cancer outcomes and patients’ quality of life.”
Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel, who was not involved in the study, also commented on the findings.
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“Prostate cancer varies from person to person,” he said. “Medical science is increasingly aware that it is not one size fits all.”
Localized prostate cancer, which has not yet spread, may contain mutations that predict how aggressive the disease will be and indicate whether it could respond to targeted therapies, Siegel noted.
Certain targeted therapies are being used more with widespread prostate cancer, according to the doctor, as they include “more powerful anti-androgens, which works not just on the testes, but on the adrenals as well.”
Hormone therapies have “significant side effects,” including fatigue, and “don’t always help,” he added.
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Siegel said the study’s strength was its combination of a randomized treatment group with Decipher testing, which helped identify in advance which patients were most likely to respond to intensive hormone therapy.
“This is the personalized, precise approach of the near future,” he said.
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Prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death behind lung cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.
About one in eight American men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime.

AUBURN, Ind. (WPTA/Gray News) – An Indiana 2-year-old suffered catastrophic brain injury after police say he was exposed to a drug called 7-OH.
Police charged 20-year-old Kole Schwarz with neglect of a dependent resulting in catastrophic injury. Court records say Schwarz was the mother’s live-in boyfriend at the time.
Family members say the toddler was rushed to a hospital in DeKalb County on Sept. 6, where the affidavit says he was “unresponsive and placed in a medically induced coma.”
The child was later transferred to Riley Hospital in Indianapolis.
Court papers say a specialized lab test later found kratom-related drugs in his blood.
Investigators say the child’s mother told them she believed Schwarz used “7-OHs” and she was concerned the toddler may have ingested one.
Detectives say Schwarz admitted buying tablets sold as “7-OH” under the counter through a contact in Fort Wayne.
The detective calls that product the likely source of the exposure. Schwarz told police the tablets stayed sealed in his pocket.
Court papers say the child had an “unknown green substance around his mouth” and a doctor found MRI evidence that met the criteria for catastrophic injury.
Auburn police say the mother of the child is not a suspect in the case and has cooperated throughout the investigation.
The toddler’s grandmother, Josie Casebere, says she spent six weeks in the hospital with her grandson.
“It’s been the hardest thing in my life. I mean, I’ve lost parents and friends, and this is… I know we didn’t lose him, but it’s still been the hardest thing I’ve ever went through,” she said. “He’s got a wheelchair order that’s supposed to fit him until he’s six. If that tells you anything. They don’t know that he’ll ever walk again or anything.”
The FDA calls 7-OH a potent opioid concentrated from kratom, warning of a “concerning proliferation of concentrated 7-OH products that are sold over the counter and online.”
“This public health threat is troubling and requires immediate and impactful policies to educate consumers and take regulatory action that limits access to 7-OH-containing products,” the FDA’s report says.
It is illegal in Indiana, but in Michigan, it is sold as gummies, drinks and pills.
Berrien County health officials warned last week that kratom-related hospitalizations are rising. Michigan has no statewide age limit.
“Kratom contains a chemical called 7-OH (7-hydroxymitragynine), which acts like an opioid and can cause severe withdrawal symptoms. Kratom is an increasingly popular substance among teens and is sold at gas stations and smoke shops as candy-flavored gummies, drinks, pills and more,” the county’s health warning says. “While advertised as an energy booster, mood lifter, pain reliever and remedy for symptoms of quitting opioids, kratom can cause serious health issues, such as seizures, liver toxicity and substance use disorder. It also can lead to an overdose.”
Casebere says she spoke out to raise awareness about 7-OH.
“They’re labeling it however they want to because it’s not regulated, and they’re selling it to our kids,” she said.