Readers, I am writing this column to say goodbye, and it has taken me weeks to get to a place where I could even begin to put words to page.

So how do we come to understand our own mental health and what that looks like for us? One way, as discussed above, is to recognize what happens when we feel in poor mental health, and work our way backwards.

There is an ableist foundation to the concept of “normal” mental health, and it is worth recognizing and validating that we humans are all born with variation and difference in bodies and minds, some of which lends to great pleasure and creative ways of engaging with the world, and some of which causes discomfort, pain, or challenges.

The toxicity of grind culture is not just that it describes a baseline of survival for many people, but that it also has found a way to glorify overwork so that it is celebrated.

After pursuing psychology, I had relegated writing and art, my other great loves, as secondary activities. They had become one of my least favorite words: hobbies. And my insides, dear reader, were, in a word: fucked. 

A therapist of mine once used the term “fighting with ghosts” to describe those early childhood patterns that just keep coming up again and again. They can feel so persistent, so automatic, and so deeply ingrained that it is hard to imagine a different way.

Insight can be tough-won, for sure—most of us encounter certain things that we, consciously or unconsciously, are invested in not-knowing. For most of us, though, it is the working-through that is the really tough work of creating change. 

How skilled are we, as adults, at identifying and communicating our own needs? The answer for many of us is: not great.

What I have come to realize during this period of interrupted social autopilot is just how much autopiloted social interactions drained me in a cumulative way.

My experience has taught me that psychology and literature are remarkable bedfellows, each exploring the experience of consciousness from different yet compatible positions.

The client is never responsible for taking care of the therapist’s needs — emotionally, financially, or physically. This dynamic comes up a lot as clients, particularly when we have caregiving tendencies, or tend to defer to those around us.

North American culture has a disastrous fetishization of individualism which shows up in two significant messages: 1) you can and should “do it all” and do it perfectly; and 2) if you experience a problem or concern, you should solve it on your own. Humans are just not designed this way, folks.

Specifying “today” may sound a little strange, but it helps us remember that self-care should respond to a want or need, and those can change day to day, hour to hour. It suggests that we check in by asking ourselves “what would feel good now?”

I want to talk to you about breathing, specifically about the anatomy and function of the breath and how we can learn to work with our own breathing to take care of our nervous system and emotional well-being.

There are many studies in research psychology that demonstrate what has been coined “emotional contagion.” One much-replicated study demonstrates that babies only a few days old will cry when they hear other babies crying (and will not cry at other loud noises, showing emotional discernment).

I am a clinical psychologist, trained in identifying and treating psychopathology and mental illness. Almost every person that I have worked with met some diagnostic criteria for a mental health disorder on paper. And yet, I would describe few of these clients as mentally ill.