busyOne of them gave me a shout-out today for a comment I left. We're talking about how and why the treatment of mental complaints lags behind that of physical complaints, and it started with a previous discussion about whether and why drugs can be helpful.
Basically, I have noticed certain patterns in dealing with friends who have mental challenges, and that has built up a little basket of ideas on the topic. Sometimes when an opportunity arises, I set one of them out. One of these days I need to flesh these out and present them in full. You can see bits of several here: different solutions work for different people because there are many different causes of mental complaints, and there's a difference between mental illness and mental </i> injury, and we just don't have ways of perceiving exactly what needs to be fixed let alone the ability to reach in and repair it. So we ... muddle.
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Well...
August 10 2009, 22:16:25 UTC 11 years ago
I think not everyone, but the rate does seem to be alarmingly high, and rising -- even just counting by the skyrocketing prescriptions. Our society is not very healthy, sane, or secure right now in a lot of important ways. That causes some problems.
>>Our failure to adapt, to thrive, to establish a more rational and ethical society.<<
I believe this contributes to the problem. Frex, we've all but demolished the family, from an extended family to a nuclear family to singles and single parents. Statistics show that people are fragmenting into smaller and smaller social units. So, our support network is fraying; we have fewer people to celebrate our joys and help us over the rough spots, and studies show that lonely isolated people have higher risk factors for many physical and mental problems. That's just one of many stressors facing people today.
>> Also, the tendency to associate addiction or mental illness with vice, and the treatment as such.<<
That is certianly part of the problem. The army is currently discovering that when you stigmatize treatment, people don't get treated, and Bad Things Happen.