Here’s one that weirds me out: Why is everyone in the West in therapy? And, why are they all talking about it? It’s like you can’t have a conversation with anyone if you don’t have some sort of psychological or emotional disorder to share. What’s a Sane-y to do? I’ve thought of making up some crazy, just to be sociable.

It’s a phenomena that developed after I left. Don’t get me wrong, I’m honored Canadians decided life without Darren is enough to drive them bonkers. I understand, truly, but still it seems a mite overwrought.

The experience I’m addressing likely varies a lot according to where you’re from. Therapy may, traditionally, have been a more common feature of life in your geographic locale/socioeconomic strata. I come from a farming region where everyone was at most two generations away from the farm. Nobody was in therapy. We all just made friends with voices in our head. Now, sheee-it, everyone is like, “I think I might have had an errant thought about my great-aunt’s boob, I better get intensive therapy to figure out what’s going on.” We had the medical advice of parents and guidance counselors to guide us through those hard times; give your head a shake, pull up your socks, straighten up and fly right. If none of those worked—well then science couldn’t help you. Where I come from, the difference between when I left an now is stunning.

Of course, this post is concurrently insightful and facetious (my standard setting), if you need help—get help. But if the color red freaks you out, and you fear you might have Ocular Rouge Hypertrophic Disorder with possible Blue-Green Syndrome, maybe, just maybe, you don’t need therapy. Maybe you should get off WebMD.  Instead of a therapist, make a friend (a real honest-to-God face-to-face friend) and talk with them.

Now when I interact with Westerners in a Western setting, I find myself in conversations where I’m not sure what my role is—I think I’m meant to be supportive, but unfortunately I was born with a finely-honed bullshit meter, and I’m like: Jesus, there’s nothing wrong with you, at most you have a quirk, and quirks are charming. Of course, if you’re clinically quirky, you might benefit from counseling. Most of you aren’t nearly as uniquely idiosyncratic as you seem to think.  Most of you are just little quirky, and that makes your personality more interesting.

It’s gotten so bad, last trip to Canada I didn’t just listen to several of my friend’s psychological diagnosis, one of them, when he finished talking about his perceptions of his own mental health, then—I shit you not—he talked at length about his dog’s mental health issues. Apparently his dog suffers from Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) and assorted other mental health conditions. The dog…..a dog(!)….was on psychotropic medication. Prozac,…I think. That’s crazy. As a voyageur from past-Canada to present-day-Canada, I can offer a lesson from the past: learn to deal. If you don’t like your quirks—they’re easily changed. Get a friend, pull up your socks, shake your head, and fly right.