How to Fix Your Mental Illness

By Natalie

​A quick and dirty guide to curing your brain of all those little beasties giving you the sads. 

Step 1: Are you sure you have a mental illness? Here's a quick checklist:

• Do your crying bouts only follow Pixar movie viewings? Particularly during montages of couples growing old together and then one dies? 
• Do your manic episodes only show up on sunny Saturdays?
• Do you get easily irritated/angry when people stand on the left side of the escalator?

Most importantly, how's your health insurance? If the answer is crappy, skip this article and try to convince yourself that you're fine, definitely fine, and you just need to try a plant-based ketogenic diet because carbs are triggering your PTSD.
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Step 2: So you think you have a mental illness! Here are some suggestions on finding a mental health provider to get some help. First, decide what kind of provider you need: psychiatrist, psychologist, psychiatric nurse, social worker, therapist, counselor, primary care doc, neurologist, entomologist, suffragette, grand wizard, etc. 
 
Now that you've picked one of those names out of a hat, check out your insurance website and call 34 different providers that claim they take new patients. Once you've spoken with all 34 liars, try your local community service board to get some actual direction.
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Step 3: Repeat your life story over and over to different intake counselors until you can knit a blanket with your self-pity. This is 2018, and there are all sorts of fancy medical record technologies out there. But not in this office. Here you'll fill out the same depressing forms and tell your story on repeat to therapists while wondering if you look the right amount of sad to warrant treatment. 
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Step 4: Get some pills. Sure these drugs make you forget how to spell things like the word "achieve," but it's a tricky one! I mean, there are i's and e's and whatnot. Plus, isn't it worth losing the ability to spell if you only feel mild existential ennui? No? Okay, taper off the drugs and enjoy those sweet, sweet withdrawal effects. 
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​Congratulations! You are now certifiably sane!