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You’ve heard the phrase “looking back through rose-tinted glasses,” right? Chances are, your brain probably blocked out the temper tantrum you had at your sixth birthday party when your dad promised you a pony, and he failed to deliver. Instead, you remember the taste of the delicious chocolate cake and the smell of the freshly cut grass in your backyard when you went outside to play with your friends.

“We all make the same mistakes because we all have very similar brains,” said Shepperd. “Therefore, we all have retroactive and proactive interference … we’re all engaged in the confirmation bias … we all do these things because that’s the way the brain takes shortcuts and makes judgments in the face of uncertainty and incomplete information. Or not paying attention enough.” The Mandela Effect, while evidently not real, at least not in the way you’d think, offers some comfort in that people as a collective seem to interpret things in the same way. An individual experience of processing information and forming a memory is made into a completely united and different one that can be discussed with others.

According to Shepperd, the fact that many people have shared false memories simply means that a lot of people’s minds work in the same way. Who knew solace could be found in a glitch of the human consciousness?

The Inner Workings of Healing

Story and Photos by Sarah Correa-Dibar

You exploded on your mom for picking you up five minutes later than she promised. You create false narratives that your best friends hate you. You cry yourself to sleep because you turned in an assignment a minute past the deadline. Stress is negatively impacting your mind and your body.

Just as stress eats at you from your core, you heal from your core.

“Diving into your past and healing your wounds will help your future,” said Lorilee Binstock, a trauma survivor and founder of "A Trauma Survivor Thriver’s Podcast." “When I did MDMA therapy, it helped me go back to not only my own childhood but to my dad’s childhood as well.”

Binstock concluded that by figuring out the origins of your own feelings, you can go back generations and find out why they had the negative thoughts and inner demons they did.

The only way to reach the center of your soul is by digging with professional help. With therapy, also referred to as psychotherapy, you sit with a certified counselor to talk about new behaviors you have discovered about yourself, relationships you don’t feel comfortable with, traumatic experiences, fears, realizations and everything in between.

Including methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) psychotherapy, a drug-assisted psychotherapy that aids post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Binstock has experienced many forms of therapy and now interviews different kinds of therapists and trauma survivors on her podcast. She referenced the 2015 Pixar film “Inside Out” to explain any general therapeutic process and how it’s like healing your inner child.

“We usually talk to ourselves pretty negatively, but you would never say those bad things to a child,” said Binstock.

You sit down on a chair or a couch in front of your therapist. They ask you to introduce yourself and to tell them why you decided to come in.

But there are different levels of therapy. It works like this: You go to therapy, and you talk about any

stressful situation you encounter during your day. If your therapist notices a deeply rooted issue that keeps emerging with your stressors, you are sent to a psychologist.

Your psychologist is responsible for finding out if you have a mental health issue such as depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia or a personality disorder such as narcissism/narcissistic personality disorder. If none of these can be helped with intense conversational therapy, you are put in contact with a psychiatrist, who prescribes you with medication.

Here comes the hard truth: Therapy is unfortunately portrayed in a negative light. This stigma can be traced back to Generation X. Many suffering with mental health must deal with parents that were never taught that depression or anxiety are real issues. They think depression is “just a phase,” or tell you “you’re just really sad, you’ll get over it,” and that anxiety is "solved" with a squishy stress ball.

That is why they are wary of sending their children to any form of therapy. In turn, this affects those grappling with their mental health issues: people in college and post-college who can’t afford therapy and then deny it because they were tailored to avoid it.

The term “mental illness” gives the impression that the person suffering from it is dysfunctional or unfixable. There needs to be a transition from this assumption into discussing mental wellness or mental health freely in order to promote well-being and therapy.

You may have heard the phrase, “Treat yoself,” but that is usually associated with external treatment such as retail therapy (shopping to feel at ease), eating junk food, going on a solo date, taking a long bubble bath or watching an entire Netflix show in one sitting.

68 The Origins Issue But all these things will not cure the demons that haunt your mind. It’s like taking a vacation when you’re trying to avoid your responsibilities back at home — your responsibilities persist in the back of your mind.

This is not to say that a warm bath with a charcoal mask is bad for you, but it’s the same as putting a Band-Aid over a wound that’s profusely bleeding.

Finding a therapist in Gainesville is easy, and there are many ways to find one. The first step is to research your own health insurance and see what kind of therapy it provides. If it only offers therapy, take it. That is your first step to being heard and, even better, you will be given more sources you can reach out to. A redeeming factor about this lockdown situation is that even if your health insurance isn’t based in Florida, you can always hop on a Zoom call.

In addition, if you still have your old pediatrician’s number, you can always contact them and ask them to refer you to a therapist. No matter how old you get, your pediatrician will want you to be healthy.

If all else fails, there is always the American Psychological Association, a reliable online database that can find a therapist of any kind near you. All you have to do is put in your ZIP code and search for what you need in the results.

Your soul deserves to know itself. Go get your therapist.