Mental Health

You’re depressed and depression will show you everything in the worst light. It’s trying to protect you, actually, but the system has gone haywire. It creates a reality for you where everything, including you, is bad.

You’re living a reality that is unnecessarily negative. That can change but the change has to be inside you. Moving countries won’t change it.

You need help to break the cycle. Therapy and medication can help. Even religious practice might help if you avoid the most exploitative ones (like outright cults, prosperity gospel, etc). You can join a church that does charity work and help out.

Start by just observing your negative thoughts. Every time you feel inferior just make a mental note that it’s the depression telling you that.

And get help when you’re able.

A huge number of people around the world would give up everything they have to switch places with you. The U.S. is still one of the best places in the world to be born. If you can’t find happiness there, you likely wouldn’t find it here in the Nordics either. This isn’t the utopia you might think it is - people here deal with the exact same issues you’re dealing with there.

Far right authoritarianism is spreading across the world. I'm not sure any country is safe from it. Sure right now it sucks because we are in the middle of it but this likely won't last forever. There will be a pendulum swing.

I'm a computer engineer and have a good income and it's still not easy for me to simply up and switch countries even if I want to.

Something I've been trying to do lately is trying to appreciate what I do have in life and what is good. I can go outside and be surrounded by trees in my neighborhood. I can work on my art in my free time. I like the state I'm in since it's relatively liberal. I try to appreciate my coffee in the morning. The birds in my backyard. The fluffiness of my cat. Focusing on the positives here and now and being present in my present.

And I'm doing that not to shame myself for having it better than others. I'm doing it literally as a survival technique. It's very easy right now to focus on everything wrong, and where I want to be in the future but can't get to right now. But if I keep obsessing over things I cannot change, I will go crazy.

Try to find things you can appreciate about your life as it is now and slow down and really take the time to experience and appreciate those things.

America is huge and has large variation even among indivistates.

You might not be able to get citizenship somewhere else, but you can move somewhere like Minnesota who has liberal cities and a blue state government and still relatively low cost of living.

It's not easy to move states, but it's less effort that what you're saying you can't do.

America sucks, has for a while.

But globally we still won the lottery, just not the jackpot.

For now, don't worry about finding some career you love, that was always bullshit. Find something you're somewhat capable at or there's a worker shortage in

I'm pretty sure ADD is a good thing for flight controllers, it's practically tailor made for hyper focusing on a specific and very important thing. Use the money in your free time to do the art you enjoy.

Sorry to hear you are ok with the dehumanizing, ineffective, expensive system we use to incarcerate people, who not infrequently are in fact innocent people. Revenge is not rehabilitation. Torture is not ok.

All nations are terrible. All political systems are corrupt. In your lifetime that will not change. You can choose to search for happiness anyway. You are not responsible for the world’s problems. Just try not to contribute to them.