So you know how you’ve tried the watermelon-only cleanse, taken up step-aerobic yoga, quit your job, cut off that friend who smells weird, signed up for cooking classes with your cat, started a new job, tried wearing a starfish on top of your head, spoken with a video game guru, and quit your new job? Yet somehow, nothing you do seems to help resolve your depression in the long term?

If the present seems to be perfect, first off, think again because it’s probably not, and second, recognize that maybe something in the past is still having an effect on you. It sucks to realize that you’re one of those people who can’t get over some dumb childhood trauma, or high school nightmare, but what sucks even more is not being able to figure out what the hell is causing your present day difficulties.

Everyone has things in their past that have had an adverse effect on them. Many people resolve those issues on the spot, by somehow expressing their anger, sadness, pain, or whatever else. However, sometimes people can’t express those negative emotions when they first occur. If you’re depressed, you could be someone who had something shitty happen at a time before you knew how to handle it, and how to channel your feelings in a way that would allow for healing to happen.

Maybe you were scared to deal with your feelings. Or maybe you even wanted to protect the person who was hurting you. Or maybe you always meant to address something, and then so much time passed that you feel like you should “let it go” or “just forget about it.”  Or maybe you think that you are a rock, not a person, and so you should not have any feelings to deal with. Or maybe you want to be stoic, and just keep that pain inside for the rest of eternity. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe…

Fuck all that. Who cares about why you were not able to deal with your shit in the past? The question is: how are you going to deal with it now? You may not be able to stop bad things that have already happened, but you can change them. Not through time travel. At least not yet. You can change the past by changing the present. Instead of being someone who cannot forget his or her time as a teen ugly duckling, find a way to address that remaining pain and become that self-aware swan you always dreamed of. And rather than becoming that maladjusted adult with a fucked up childhood, work to heal the hurt and be a redeemed wise-man who transcended a difficult youth.

So yeah you can’t actually change the past. That was a lie. For now… Still, by reframing your personal narrative you can change the impact your past has had on you. Find that past pain, and resolve it in the present. Then you’re life story doesn’t have to end in the early chapters. It can be a full book of angst and joy. Repression and release. Damnation and redemption. And kittens. Don’t forget the kittens.