#my coping method is making fun of myself on tumblr apparently

[aflyingcontradiction]

Also, there's this whole thing of some people equating the idea that bad mental health is due to outside circumstances with ... idk, an immature, unhelpful mindset that'll get you stranded in depression forever? Like, the one true way of dealing with bad mental health is to change your mindset and then, and only then, will you be able to claw your way out of misery? Which may be true for some people because of the way their brains work or because their circumstances truly are unchangeable (at least through their own agency). And the general state of the discourse may also be a reaction to the whole "Depression will only be solved by the glorious revolution. No, we don't have a schedule for that, why do you ask?" meme, which is obviously less than ideal.

But my personal experience is that when I've been in the deepest of pits, maybe I COULD have painstakingly crawled out of those pits by somehow forcing my brain into new pathways. I don't know. It's never happened. But what has ACTUALLY improved the situation every single time so far has been giving my brain whatever it was apparently screaming for*. Any change in perspective was very much DOWNSTREAM of that, not the other way around. And any time I've fallen back into the pit it wasn't because of some fundamental problem with my brain (even if it kinda feels like it at the time) but because it turns out I've accidentally stopped giving my mind all the things it needs. My brain is a high-maintenance little bitch that needs a lot of things, after all, and it's easy to fuck up the maintenance process. Once I figure out the need and fulfil the need, I'm mostly fine.

So when I see an exchange like A: "I'm miserable because of outside circumstances." B: "You childish idiot! You absolute ingrate! You would clearly be miserable in any circumstance with that mindset, what you really need is - insert therapy / method primarily aimed at changing thought patterns -

it just makes me go "bzuh?" Like. No. THEY MIGHT ACTUALLY BE PERFECTLY FINE IF THEIR CIRCUMSTANCES CHANGED IN THE RIGHT WAY??? (Whether or not that change is possible is a different argument, of course, so I don't have the same 'THE FUCK' reaction to "Fair, but seeing as that's not currently on the table, you could try coping with your circumstances like this...").

*In my case it's usually that I haven't people-ed enough or I haven't slept enough or I haven't been given enough work recently or I haven't gone outside enough or I haven't been to a fun event in ages or, fuck, I've spent too much time hatereading irritating opinions on tumblr and maybe I should force myself to not do that...