Relative Something

I am wondering about something. And part of me is considering the possibility there is no answer to what is on my mind.

Is there a moment when someone experiencing mental health challenges will make a definitive decision to seek a solution? I expect it is not so clear-cut as to be one specific moment. In my case, I tend to refer to the morning I lived up to a promise I made to myself to call for help if I ever experienced another shutdown from depression. I can’t really identify what brought me to even make that promise. I think it is funny that I didn’t feel it worthy of making a call right then and there, at the time I deduced I might have a problem deserving professional intervention, but that it could wait for some future incident of difficulty.

As I continue to come upon the difficult stories posted in depression forums by suffering people, I am moved to come up with something to say that might inspire a seed of initiative for them to choose to change. It is sad to witness the pain people endure while they avoid facing the reality of their situations. The pain of depression is familiar to sufferers, and, in a dysfunctional way, more comfortable than the unknowns of healthy thought process. We unconsciously harbor fears which our minds then put a lot of creative energy into defending, even when those fears are unfounded.

What is it that finally causes a person to decide they have had enough of the old struggles? What rouses us to choose to take a step in the direction of optimal health and seek help from mental health professionals? If there were a single answer, we could bottle it and send it out to all the hurting people of the world.

Instead, there are a lot of people suffering, figuratively banging their heads against the same problems over and over. I wonder if it is possible to help them find that moment in which they discover an inspiration to take action toward better mental health.