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You haven't already tried to get help.

You must not be receiving help already, because if you were, your condition would be well-managed.

Help exists for your condition.

Effective help exists for your condition.

The effective help that exists is synonymous with the help that is advertised as treating your condition.

Effective treatments for your condition are provided through the medical system.

You have some way to afford those treatments, or you're eligible for a program that would provide them for free.

If help exists, and you have some way to afford help, that must mean help is available to you personally.

If you would have to pay for help, it will be better for your mental health than putting those funds toward some other purpose.

Seeking help is a good use of your time. It won't conflict too much with your other obligations, such as your work schedule. Trying to make time for yet another fucking thing is not going to worsen your condition. At the very least, it will be beneficial enough to make up for the time cost.

Help is available in a location you can access. If it's in an office somewhere, you can get transportation to that office. If it's provided virtually, you have a high-speed internet connection and private space where you will not be interrupted.

Nobody (such as a family member, boss, or romantic partner) will retaliate against you for seeking help.

The steps you need to take to find appropriate help are straightforward.

If it's difficult for you to follow those steps because of your mental illness, you can get assistance or accommodations of some kind.

If you followed the steps to seek help, you would receive it promptly.

Okay, maybe less promptly than anyone would like, but within a few months, at least?

Once you start seeing the right therapist/doctor/whatever, your condition will start improving more-or-less immediately.

If you're looking for a specific type of therapy, any therapist who offers that therapy will be a good fit for you.

A clinician who says they do a specific type of therapy is telling the truth, and will be able and willing to do that type of therapy with you. If you see a therapist who says they do EMDR and you have a condition EMDR might treat, that means you will get to do EMDR with them.

Psychiatrists do not routinely tell obvious lies to their patients. A psychiatrist wouldn't tell a patient "depression is caused by low serotonin, so take these SSRIs" in this day and age, would they?

The treatment you receive will not have adverse side effects.

Okay, everything has side-effects, but it won't have dangerous, life-ruining side effects, right? Those are pretty rare.

Medical professionals are meaningfully bound by medical privacy laws and a professional code of ethics. Your mental health information will not be disclosed without your permission.

...At least if you're not a minor, right???

It is safe to talk to your healthcare provider about what you're experiencing.

Okay, if you have thoughts of suicide then maybe you have to dance around that a bit, but that won't be a serious barrier to effective treatment for you, right?

If you disclose something like suicidal ideation without intent, or an incident of child abuse in the distant past, your therapist is not going to grossly overreact and try to get you committed/call CPS/etc.

If you get committed because you are judged to be a danger to yourself or others, then it's probably in your own best interests, and will be beneficial.

It's not normally a traumatic counterproductive mess, is it???

Okay, maybe help from the medical system isn't looking too promising. But you could get help from a friend, right? Assuming that:

You have friends.

You have at least one friend who you feel close enough with to talk to about your mental health.

If there is some social conflict or complexity that is contributing to your mental illness, you have a close friend who is not part of that conflict.

If you talked to a friend, they would respond compassionately.

If you talked to a friend, they would understand what you're trying to tell them.

Empathetic active listening is all the help you need. You don't need any special insight or expertise.

You have a friend who has the capacity to support you on an ongoing basis, and is willing to do so.

They are able to play that role in your life without compromising other aspects of the friendship you both enjoy.

Your friend will not disclose the sensitive things you've told them without your permission, in a way that is hurtful to you.

I guess some people do not have a wealth of friends who are good candidates for helping them with serious mental health problems. But there are other alternatives, right?

Calling a crisis line is neither dangerous nor a complete waste of time. They are staffed by competent, caring volunteers who will not call the cops on you.

Support groups? (A suitable support group exists near you, it is competently run, and you do not shudder at the very idea of attending one.)

You could talk to a religious leader. (You are religious. Your religion has leaders, such as pastors or rabbis. You, personally, have a religious leader you could talk to. They would have something kind and enlightening to say if you did. Your religion is not a cause of your mental health problems and religious advice is not going to worsen them.)

Yoga? (Yoga is financially, logistically, and physically accessible to you. Yoga will not be triggering or otherwise detrimental. You have a condition that yoga plausibly might address.)

Self-help books? (Someone has written a self-help book for problems like yours. You are not too depressed/whatever to read books. You can meaningfully address your problems without involving another person in the project of your recovery.)

Meditation? (Meditation is harmless. You have a problem meditation could help with. Learning how to meditate is straightforward. You do not need an experienced guide to learn how to meditate effectively and safely.)

Psychedelics? (You know how to buy drugs. You can afford drugs. You don't have a condition that would make psychedelics especially risky. Going on an acid trip to try to fix your mental health with a weak support system and no special preparations is a good idea.)

The last thing I want to do by writing this post is discourage anyone from seeking the help that's available to them. I'm pretty bullish on some of these options, in the right circumstances. I've personally gotten a lot of mileage out of self-help books, online discussion groups, and meditation for certain issues, and bupropion helped me kick a horrid anhedonic depressive episode. If you have friends who can support you, let them. Yoga unironically works wonders for some people. Explore all of your options and try everything that sounds feasible and promising - but do your own research; people routinely downplay and underestimate the risks of mental health interventions.

I'm writing this because I'm sick of hearing these admonishments to "get help" from people who seem to have no idea how difficult and fruitless that can be. It isn't always. Some people really do just need a little push to "get help", and then they find what they need fairly quickly. It's lovely when that happens, but most people are not so lucky. However common those lucky outcomes are - agonizing waits and protracted battles are not rare.

All of us, including me, would love to believe that we have effective, accessible tools to alleviate the profound suffering that "mental illness" entails. It's depressing as hell to think of someone doing their damnedest to seek help for years, and consistently failing to get it for reasons intertwined with their need for that help. It's bleak as fuck to imagine someone receiving the best that our mental healthcare system and the wellness-industrial complex has to offer and continuing to suffer. It's so much more comfortable to believe that they just haven't tried yet, or they haven't tried hard enough, or maybe they don't know what's good for them and if we forced them, if we could just give this person a high enough dose of the abundant Help we have to offer, we could ease their pain and the pain they may be causing for others. It just doesn't work that way.