talk; preach; future; choice; mental health; daniel thompson; kenosha journalist; uptown observer

Mental Health Moment: You CAN make it

Humanity-Centered Stories

First off, take a breath. It’s Saturday. Despite whatever you’ve gone through or will in the future, you’ve made it through another week. 

You have made it this far. 

If you need a few minutes to calm down from a little stress, this video should be useful to you.

Oftentimes, if you look at your life in its entirety and the long road ahead, the seeming vastness of it can become daunting.

In fact, the uncertainty of the future ⏤ that shapeless blob that forever hangs on the periphery of the present ⏤ creates the same response anything unknown does: fear.

Personally, much like Motion City Soundtrack, the future freaks me out. 

We are horrible predictors of the future

I have always tried to look at the whole picture of the future. And I’m going to say something I wish my younger self had pieced together: You have no idea what the far off future will bring because you don’t have adequate data to predict it. 

While I’m not going to dive into it beyond this mention, COVID-19 proved this point over and over and over again. Absolutely no one predicted that coming or how it would change things. 

In short, you are a horrible fortune teller. 

You are a cookie claiming to hold ancient powers of telling the future ⏤ made by Nabisco. 

Take it as it comes

Along the Road: Taking those difficult steps to address anxiety

Instead of trying to see the “big” future, I encourage you to take it in little chunks. 

Think about how you felt seven days ago. Think about what you thought you’d do this week. 

What did you actually deal with above and beyond those things you planned? 

What unexpected adversity did you overcome this week?

If you are still here today and reading this, you have overcome all of the things that could have kept you down or made you permanently give up on yourself for another seven days. 

Now, with that perspective, doesn’t it seem more likely in your mind that you’ll be able to do the same thing over the next seven days?

You ARE capable

I’m not saying that the same things will happen to you over the next seven days, but whatever does happen, doesn’t it seem like ⏤ just as with this week ⏤ you’ll  be capable of facing it and overcoming it?

I’ve found that the future is easier to deal with if we break it down into easily digestible, easy-to-be-confident-about chunks. 

Don’t choke on the uncertainty of the far future. Sustain yourself on the confidence you’re building up for the near future.

There is Help

Vivent Health offers fentanyl test strips, so that users can determine the presence of fentanyl in other substances. For more information, call 262-657-6644.

Kenosha County Public Health also offers free training and supplies of Narcan, a medication that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose. For more information, visit https://bit.ly/KCNarcan or call 262-605-6741.

The Kenosha County Mental Health and Substance Abuse Resource Center may be reached from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday at 262-764-8555. 

The Kenosha County Crisis Hotline operated is also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, at 262-657-7188. Kenosha Human Development Services operates the hotline.

EP 14: Do what you can – Inside the Mind of Daniel Thompson

In this episode, I talk about how changing ones area of focus can make the difference between meaningfully addressing an issue or just giving up on trying to entirely. — Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mind-of-daniel-thompson/support
  1. EP 14: Do what you can
  2. Ep. 13: The problem of being overly positive
  3. Ep. 12: 'Where have you been?'
  4. Ep. 11: 'Framing and Sobriety'
  5. Ep. 10: 'Loneliness is part of life.'

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