Send America to Counseling
By: Garrett Rutledge
Tags: Change, Mental Health, Unity, America, Culture

Send America to Counseling

If America were a person, would it be that hard to see her biggest faults?

Photo by tom coe on Unsplash

Imagine America as a person, the same as you and me.

To avoid confusion, let’s assume for this exercise that America is a “she/her” Given that America is now a person, try to attach a personality to her. I imagine we all would come up with different answers, yet I believe our person generally has a lot of mental health issues. We don’t need to address identity here; for this piece, let’s focus on the psychological aspects of America, the person. At this point, one can assume there is a consensus that if America were a person, she would need professional help. Given that, let’s now assume that we’re the therapist and America is our patient.

Here’s what I see in the patient:

The person I have in my head is struggling a great deal. She suffers from constant internal conflict. Making any decision is quite a struggle for her. Each situation is met with different choices, each option with significant influence within her and with different motivations. Regardless of context, whatever decision she makes, is a painful, exhausting, and generally destructive process for her and those around her. But often, she struggles to make any decision at all, as the conflict within her rages on.

Signs of Bipolar Disorder have shown before, but it’s likely just Depression that she’s suffering from. The past four months, in particular, have been overshadowed by numerous depressive episodes. Yet, the Bipolar tendencies linger just below the surface, as any number of “triggers” can send her into a deep depression or a manic rage in an instant.

Her ego is perhaps her most significant weakness of all, yet she’s oblivious to it. Her insecurity is off the charts and her deeply-embedded fear throughout many walks of life, only adds constant fuel to the fire that is her ego. She’s often defensive, prideful, vengeful, controlling, & dishonest, among other things. Criticism is never met well with her, yet she’s quick to get caught up in the victim mentality, in which all negativity in her life is to the fault of others and never herself. Her ego clouds her judgment always, lending herself to irrational decision making before rational thought processes. She’s unaware of this, as she moves on in life with a whole lot of confidence and arrogance.

America, she’s emotional to the core. Emotion is at the heart of her being and pushed her deep into a life lived with much ignorance. The abundance of ignorance only increases the role fear plays in her life, again only functioning to fuel the ego. She’s still unaware of how out of control her fear is and how responsible it is in many of the negative instances in her life. This irrational fear drives her to hatred, as she struggles to cope with entities she not only does not understand but is utterly afraid of. One must get through to America, as her hatred, as seen numerous times in her life, will soon spill over into destruction.

Such destruction she has survived before, but for how much longer? And how many people must she takedown in her destructive path until she’s pushed to change?

Despite the destruction that those in her path have been met with, America still has much beauty. She’s seen it before, she knows deep down it’s there, but that beauty is beginning to fade in the distance. Damage to herself, among many others, may not be salvageable. But her future is.

We cannot merely excuse past behavior like it never happened, but we can forgive. Only if, however, America’s willing to change herself. It seems as of late the willingness is there, but change requires much more than desire. First, she must get her curiosity in the form of genuinely wanting to learn. To do so, however, requires honesty with oneself, something America often struggles to do. Beyond these three factors, America must also display genuine openness. America must realize she doesn’t have all the answers, and even if she believes she does, to still be open to hearing and considering different perspectives. If she can take these factors and add focus as her final ingredient, she has a fighting shot at making real change.

Her ego has been out of control too long; it’s time she checks it at the door. Doing so will open up so much in her life and enrich the lives of those around her. She could also benefit from some cognitive reframing, as she often fails to see other perspectives in situations. Such lack of perspective causes every negative occurrence to get further out of control and often leads to a chain reaction of additional adverse events in her life.

America needs some help. She needs education. She needs to be humbled. She needs to understand the impact of her actions. But above all, she needs to be willing to admit she’s wrong and make an effort to change.

Let us all be the therapist that America so desperately needs. But in doing so, let’s make sure we hold ourselves to high standards as well. For if we’re to be a therapist that helps save America, then we must do our absolute best to rid ourselves of emotion and bias, no matter how hard it is to do so. America has enough passion to go around, let us not match fire with fire or hatred with hatred. As the therapist to our lost America, we must act in the best interest of the patient. This is not to say that our patient doesn’t need guidance and education as to the best way forward. Though our patient’s actions can significantly influence our life as her therapist, we must provide her with the best care, free of as much emotion and bias as possible. Despite our emotional ties and history with this patient, we must still treat her as if she were any other patient.

America the beautiful isn’t gone for good, but her beauty becomes more hidden seemingly every day. She needs to meet us in the middle, perhaps further than that, but let’s help her on her journey. Let’s allow America to see the beauty she still has, before the endless scars she bears. She has a lot to make up for and make right, but she first needs to be reminded that she’s worth fighting for.