Most everyone has been told that you should always think of others first and yourself second. To do otherwise is considered “selfish.” However, this is putting the cart before the horse, for what good can you possibly be to anyone if you don’t take care of yourself? It took me 30 years to realize this truth, and I saw much of my old self in Jung Da Eun.

The series focuses on mental health and the illnesses that many people suffer, and sadly, suffer in silence. Much of the world still has many stigmas and dogmatic beliefs in those who suffer from mental illnesses. Psychiatry is still a relatively new science, and like a fledgling science, it’s still trying to work out many of the kinks.

Jung Da Eun is a very capable nurse who’s transferred from Internal Medicine to the Mental Health ward. This is partly because she’s a nurse with a big heart. She loves caring for others. However, when a patient she is closest to ends his life in suicide, she blames herself for not doing more. This event is only a catalyst to something much deeper that has been festering within Jung Da Eun for years. She’s always been a pleaser, sacrificing her own desires and needs for someone else’s. While this may seem like a noble way to live, it isn’t. Sacrifice means to give up something to gain something else. The ultimate goal is to help yourself AND the other person!

I, myself, was a pleaser for years. How people perceived me, from parents to teachers to friends and people in relationships meant everything to me. This is a losing battle because you never find what you truly need outside of yourself. It’s an impossibility. Once I learned how to love and appreciate myself, and make that my priority, only then did I learn how to set boundaries, to take care of myself, and then be able to help others. Set your own feet first. You cannot give what you do not have.

As Jung Da Eun goes through deep depression, she starts off denying that there is anything wrong with her. Why? Because to admit that something is wrong would mean that everything she believes herself to be (her whole identity) would be a farce. Of course, this is the mental story she tells herself, even though it’s completely untrue. This is something that everyone does. We identify so much with the mental projections of who we believe ourselves to be, that we feel as though we’re lost without it. Of course, this is all a part of the delusion; the lies we tell ourselves.

Just as the body becomes ill with diseases, so too, does the mind. All disease (dis-ease) stems from the same core problem: lack of love for yourself. Unfortunately, much of psychiatry attempts to deal with the symptoms rather than the cause. The same can even be said of physical ailments as well.

The series does a wonderful job of pulling back the layers of mental illness and shining the spotlight of awareness on them. We see parents refusing to believe that something is wrong because they take it as a negative reflection on themselves. Children in the west believe that parents owe them everything. Parents in the east believe that children owe them everything. Both are wrong and equally abusive and unhealthy. What you end up having are spoiled children and overbearing parents. And yet, some parents have the courage to admit that they cannot help their children, and out of love, they find someone who can. Just as when your car breaks down, you don’t deny that there is something wrong or even that your level of “expertise” prevents you from fixing it. So, you find an expert; a mechanic.

We see some intriguing storylines involving the staff of nurses at the hospital. Dr. Song has a sister who suffers from schizophrenia, and the prejudice involved when she tries to move into an apartment building. Nurse Min suffers from extremely low self-esteem, largely due to her mother’s abuse. It takes a tremendous amount of persistence from Dr. Hwang to start viewing herself differently and to also take a stand and end the cycle of abuse from her mother. Remember, if you remove either the abuser or the person being abused from the equation, abuse can no longer exist.

Another component of the show is finding and doing what you love. Most people don’t realize how vastly important this is, and why it’s also a necessary one when demonstrating how much you love yourself. So many people are told what they can do or what they can’t do, largely by those who have no clue themselves. It’s the blind leading the blind. Never let anyone tell you what you can or can’t do. Ignore and refrain from listening to anyone who attempts to meddle with your life. After all, it’s YOUR life, and whenever you give your power away, you cannot blame the other person for why your own dreams didn’t work out.

This series was on par to some degree with “It’s Okay to Not Be Okay” which in some ways, was a better show as it seemed to delve much deeper into the psyche of people. However, that doesn’t make this show any less powerful or compelling as we see that a mental breakdown can literally happen to anyone at any point in time. The key, however, is to recognize that most events are nothing more than catalysts for revealing something that has been festering within. Again, this is why loving and taking care of yourself MUST be your number one priority! Only then will you be far more likely to recognize when something is off within yourself, and you will be in a far better position to deal with those events when they occur.

Bo Young Park continues to be one of my favorite actresses. She is a master of tapping into any emotion or feeling that the role requires, and she really does give us a complex character who may be glowing on the outside but is quietly suffering within. We also feel her despair as she finds herself a patient, and why hitting rock bottom is always a blessing. There’s only one way left to go: up!

This an important series to watch, not only for people to hopefully begin to prioritize themselves but also to recognize that most people with mental illnesses are not a threat to others, any more than someone with cancer or some physical disease. While the world has a long way to go, this series demonstrates that a daily dose of sunshine provides us with hope.