Mm.

And the only way that that happened is I got really, uh, serious about, um, giving myself back some agency and power in sort of navigating it, and what I mean by that is it's very easy to be like, "Okay, the next therapist or the next, um, uh, psychiatrist, the next medication, the next tincture," you know? [laughs] "That's gonna be the, the end-all, be-all, and, and that will be the fix." And um, I think over time that started to wear on me because I started to feel very disempowered.

Um, and so I made the choice, and not realizing it at the time, again, I think it's this what is one next best step? I don't know where I'm going, but it feels like it's the right direction.

And so started to get really serious about, like, what can I control? What can I do? And yes, I can go to my appointments.

I can be open and honest with people close to me that I trust about what's happening.

But the other thing too is I gotta stop beating my own self up.

Right.

And so our brains are still wired that way, and so the really powerful thing is it's, it's not about, it's not about looking at yourself in the mirror and saying nice things to yourself.