Over the years, my diaries have collected an amount of angst worth a visit to the therapist. Except that today, it's over. I've got 99 problems but the inability to cope with the remaining 98 ain't one. In other words, I'm fine.
Just as one can strengthen their body, so can they strengthen their mind: become immune to mood swings and intrusive thoughts. Or, even better, learn how to evacuate the negativity they accumulate throughout the day.
My parents deny the realness of mental health problems. To them (who pulled through the economic collapse that ravaged Russia in the 1990s), mental health problems were but attributes of boredom induced by comfort.
The First World youth who gets everything on a silver platter can afford to feel depressed and to whine, sipping on Moët and Chandon, unlike the hungry and unemployed. The latter would perish if they gave up positive thinking, for it is all they have left.
The fall of the Soviet Union caught the whole nation unaware. Young people of my parents' generation didn't dig into their psyche — they were too busy cleaning up the debris of what once was the leading ideology of Eastern Europe. Getting by was the priority.
My parents' upbringing emphasized the "no trespassing" rule: they chose not to interfere with what was happening in my head and insisted that I resolved my inner conflicts autonomously. They associated teenage tantrums, moodiness, and tears with the doings of puberty and handled them accordingly.
How could I be depressed when living in a well-illuminated apartment with high ceilings and going out to lunch on weekends? The 15-years-old me felt a lump in her throat the size of an apple at the idea that something could be wrong with her. She was definitely not entitled to depression.
I like to think that our family climate turned me into a resourceful individual: in my view, one who takes their time seeking can find a solution to any problem, be it mental or mathematical.
Confronting one's mental health problems is insanely brave. We all suffer from some deeply buried insecurity, albeit the majority chooses to do without medical help for the sake of believing in their own "normality." As for me, I'm fine — the "fine" embodied by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's: everyday worries are like water off a duck's back to her.
I am the advice-giver type of listener. Someone who'd stay outside of a music venue with a weeping stranger they just ran into, holding a hand on their trembling shoulder and listening to their life story. The morale-booster you come to as soon as something crops up.
Cry your eyes out, listen to my objective outsider point of view, promise not to do anything stupid, — and you are good to go!
My "help" is a charity of questionable efficiency. All I accomplish is share someone else's burden. Some malfunctions can't be fixed unless a qualified doctor lends a hand or a pack of antidepressants.
Someone I know already found solace within the walls of a medical cabinet smelling of disposable gloves, sterility, and desperation. He suggested I did the same out of sheer curiosity. Only over my dead body will I let a money sucker "specialist" scrutinize my emotions.
What if I am just running away from my own monsters? — Guess this mystery will remain unsolved.
