A tip - increasing jokes about suicide are a definite sign that somebody is getting close to the edge. Used to see it all the time at work. It seems innocuous, like yeah of course these millenials joke about "wanting to die", but usually it's a silent cry for help because nobody is allowed to say how they're really feeling. Every time I've confronted somebody about it it turns out yes - something horrible just happened in their life and they're teetering close to the edge.

But that's humans looking out for humans, not the horrible impersonal clinical nightmare of "therapy." If therapy has ever actually worked for anyone, please let me know. How can the triviality of big 5 psychologists help you when your issues are birth, sex, and dying?

And I used to get this all the time too, but it's never been a consistent thing. High school is, generally, an engine for the production of suicidal thoughts and actions. But that's an anomaly, and a function of living in a prison system where you're told where to stand, eat, and shit by bald middle-aged white guys with walkie-talkies and no future. A.k.a. institutional goats.

Beyond that though, I've started to notice two problems, both 1) the epidemic itself and 2) a kind of cottage industry of mental health professionals and self care bloggers who I think are helping exacerbate the problem. They are almost certainly incapable of relating to the average person, and mainly because they don't tell the truth. Mental health bloggers bother me because it seems like they could benefit from spending a little less time thinking about their own mental state. It becomes an identity for them. If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And disorders and diagnoses can pile up when really all you need to do is look and the mirror and say hey, apart from a biological need for Prozac, of course I feel discombobulated, I'm basically a sack of meat. I used to be a kid, now I'm an adult, pretty soon I'm going to be a senior citizen. That's just the central crisis of biological existence. She was a senior editor at BuzzFeed. She has some type of cushy journalism job. Social exclusion? Financial instability? Existential angst? Knowing you're going to be doing hard work the rest of your life? Look around your city and look at all the old dudes working shitty jobs. Driving UPS trucks, serving you cinnabons, building houses. She's clearly doing better than them. 99% of people on this planet work shit jobs. But most therapists have their heads so far in the sand they couldn't possibly help anyone. Think someone who's self identifies by their astrological sign is going to help us out of the maze?

Here's how you start treading water kids:

1) take prozac

2) use God's natural treatment options, aka Ian Dury's song

3) don't major in English poetry

4) stop kicking the shit out of yourself because you're 32 and back in college because you majored in English poetry

5) understand that using psychedelic drugs will turn you into a burnout and will not give you cosmic wisdom. It's not a myth that people go over "the edge". His name was Brendan T. and has been unemployed since he was expelled from your high school.

6) accept that your dad likely witnessed the moon landing and you have no right to even think about eliminating yourself from this great opera.

Get your shit together lady and stop making it worse. Attach yourself to this game and don't fear death.