Dealing with stress? Go to therapy. Got depression? Therapy will help. Suffering from PTSD? See a therapist. Severely anxious? Therapy! Body dysmorphia? Therapy! Night terrors? Therapy! Rage at the world around you? Therapy!

The world being a complete shitshow with no resolution in sight? Therapy! Uh…wait.

Yeah. This will sound like a very pessimistic blog but I’m telling you it’s not. It’s more about the journey of realization and acceptance that I can do as much as I possibly can to make myself a better person but that will not change the outside factors that aggravate, enable or worsen my mental health.

However, just because the world is broken doesn’t mean I have to continue to be. It’s been somewhat of a struggle to even get to this mental headspace. I have control issues that go beyond the normal, so accepting that I can do nothing about the world around beyond my own personal limitations, well, that’s been hard.

This past year has been a slap in the face and a lesson all wrapped into one. It taught me who people really are when shit goes south, but more importantly it helped teach ME more about who I am. And I think I like that person even if she aggravates the shit out outta me some days.

Therapy is incredibly helpful for people who have a lot going on upstairs but no way to manage it or assemble thoughts into a more cohesive line of thinking. Therapy is NOT helpful for existential despair about the world around you. At least not in my own experience. Therapy can definitely help you manage it though. Just gotta be open to adjusting your own perspective.

Adjusting how I view my place in the world (and dumping that Main Character Syndrome we all seem to have) is going a long way in helping keep me out of deep depression. Some days I’m struck with utter hopelessness and sadness at the world beyond me (like this morning, for example, with the media excitedly talking about billionaires going into space while kids are starving in neighborhoods around us) that used to bring me down for DAYS. Now, I’m getting better at shaking it off and using that to fuel my efforts in what I do for my community around me.

Yeah, we may have mental illnesses. Yeah, we may have severe anxiety and depression. Yeah, we may not be able to punish the guilty and save the innocent like superheroes. But we can do what can, which is often way more than most people do on the regular.

I will keep working on myself because it’s important to me. And that’s really all that matters. Work on you too.