The three Cs mental health in lasting hard times are Connection, Caring, and Comedy.  If you are not formally diagnosed in these profoundly difficult days, for the average American, these three Cs add ballast to your boat in the storm we are destined to live through.  This of course is only advice from a relatively healthy person from hard times.  Our current government is counting on the three Ds of autocracy: Division, Despair, Disgust.  Turn away dear voter, for God’s sake, turn away.

Connection: Start connecting again with neighbors and new friends.  Never mind their politics for political idiocy is a suit merely painted on the body and often is not even skin deep.  Certainly idiotic views never get as deep as humanity itself.  Do not join your five person choir where you exchange versions of yourself in relatively monotonous harmony.  Make new friends and connect. Isolation is the grandchild of division and isolation is dangerous in a life threatening way leading in democracy to powerlessness.

Caring:  Care for America and its imperfect history.  Those who love this country may find themselves having to care beyond their previously sufficient tolerances.  Care beyond your self interest for we have a president who is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory as a perfect example of being limited to self interest in an interconnected world. Care for immigrants in your own way even it it is just working to convince Congress of come up with a bipartisan solution that is humane, good for human rights, and our economy.  Concentration Centers of Detention point to due south of the true north of a good solution.

Comedy:  Keeping in mind that most sarcasm is not comedy but anger’s self indulgence, find ways to laugh at healthy humor and help your neighbors laugh. There really is no point to a good laugh other than, for some reason, laughter expels a kind of poison from the body that accumulates in times of stress. Mark Twain is the Patron Saint of this C.   Laugh as long as you are alive.  Laughter is free.  To lose the comedy thread in your life is as serious as comedy is seriously important in a mysterious way.

Practice the three Cs of Mental Health.  That would be good.