Warning: Toxic
By coincidence I stumbled upon a diary last night that addressed the same topic as a diary I had in process.
The diarist titled their piece something along the lines of `Treat the cause, not the symptoms' and went on to document the state of mental health in the US.
Well good citizen, this diary went into re-write mode to extend upon the theme started by Bacaker. That and, upon re-reading my original intro to the subject, I came away with the impression that I was saying most of your were on your way to the rubber room, which may be true, but it's not particularly polite to point such things out.
Anyway
My original diary took a different approach to this delicate subject (most people get kind of touchy when their sanity is called into question) yet the central theme was the same, how our modern social system is toxic to our collective mental health.
We are all taught a series of myths, simplifications if you will, about how the world works. As we age we learn things aren't as simple as the benign, cut and dried explanations taught to us in our youth.
We enter the `real world' all starry eye-ed only to find that things are much more complicated than the cut and dried explanations provided for us...
Because exceptions abound!
In fact, things get so complicated that most of us give up trying to follow the `logic' of why we need to make exceptions every time we turn around.
Simply put, if the rules constantly need to be bent to fit the desired outcome then nobody (except you) is playing by the rules...and a person's mind can only take so much of this before it explodes!
Could this be why one in every five adults has a diagnosable mental disorder?
Since one of the most basic measurements of mental illness is being `out of touch with reality', it's a safe bet that every member of the current administration (and most of Congress) should be under close supervision in a place where they won't present a danger to society or themselves...
Stress kills. There has been many diaries written on the subject of `outrage fatigue' and I posit that this is but one more symptom of the disease.
The mind is constantly striving to make sense of the world. When things don't make sense, the mind works harder to solve the problem because we've all been taught that our inability to understand is a personal problem.
Your poor mind either comes to the conclusion that you've been fed bullshit or...it shuts down.
It either accepts the bullshit at face value and stops trying to figure it out or, you go nuts.
Yes good citizen, a world that makes sense and operates in an easy to understand fashion is vital to your mental health.
The mind can only cope with so much bullshit because your mind is aware that you are no longer in control of your continued survival.
You may think you're the captain of your destiny but your brain knows better. The moment you're no longer useful to the man, you're toast.
There's no delicate way to phrase this. Your continued survival/prosperity is wholly reliant on the benevolence of the very people that painted you into this corner.
Survivalist's get a bad rap, most are painted as kooks but if you look hard at the reality of the situation, the shoe suddenly fits quite well on the opposite foot...
You're `wired' to survive. When your continued survival is constantly being threatened, it wears on you.
Humans don't tolerate uncertainty well. Between the twin vises of global labor arbitrage and the corporate political strip mining of our rights, the individual stress index is approaching levels of catastrophic proportions.
Have there been more stressful times? I'd say living during the Inquisition or either of the Black Plagues was likely worse, but not a whole lot worse...
It's cause and effect. Being forced to live with the decisions of others has a negative impact on your mental health.
Living under a system where others have total control over your ability to provide for you and your family makes this bad situation that much worse.
Where is your right to work? You don't have one. Government may provide relief agencies but it does not mandate that commerce provides you with suitable employment.
In as much as government was (supposedly) established to protect the members of society, you have to wonder why this is...
It's little conundrums like this that are driving people off the deep end.
If we fail to address these issues at their source, er, mental illness will be the least of our collective problems.
Society that makes sense, think about it.
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
