We need more resources and more access to care. Not less.
We need care located where people live and work so they can remain part of their communities.
We need NIH grants to pay for more mental health research.
Our government is in the process of doing the exact opposite while claiming to care about mental health.
Anchoring myself in the present moment means focusing on the situation in front of me and doing what I can to improve it. That can mean donating money or time to causes I care about, calling elected representatives, supporting the people around me who are suffering, speaking out where I can, educating where I can, and staying aware of opportunities to do the things I can do.
The hope doesn’t lie in one person changing everything; it lies in enough of us doing what we can to make that change.
As Marisa Kabas, who should be credited with bringing all of this to light, points out, the NCMEC website no longer talks about the increased risk of trafficking to LGBTQ+ youth. They can no longer provide resources and education about those risks or information about how to support those kids. They are even expected to dead-name missing trans kids in all announcements.
They are leaving LGBTQ+ kids behind. The alternative to doing that was not to have funding to run the only reporting agency for online CSAM, the clearinghouse used by many online services and law enforcement agencies to combat CSAM and trafficking, and the primary source of information about missing children in the US.
For more like this, subscribe to the newsletter and get everything I’ve been sharing in your email.
We often underestimate how much we can help because we live in a society constantly looking for a quick solution to problems. Depression doesn’t have that, which leads us to feel helpless to solve the problem. That being said, there is nothing better when dealing with depression than knowing that someone (preferably multiple people) is going to be with you during the struggle. Everything seems overwhelming when you’re in the midst of depression; you need someone to make it just a little less so.
It’s worth a try. This process usually reduces my stress around projects at work. There’s no reason it shouldn’t have a similar impact on social anxiety and other stresses in daily life.
