Mental Health or Social Health

[Danos99]

Hi Everyone,

Firstly I want to say how proud I am to be among you warriors. I have nothing but love and respect for all of you. Today I want to pose a question to you all and see how you all feel and respond to my take on mental health vs social health. See, one reoccuring factor that has me question today's categorisation of mental health is that it seems to be (in the majority of cases) individuals from minorities are more likely to suffer with such things due to SOCIAL FACTORS like bullying, discrimination and exclusion. And here's the thing... Doesn't that mean the society is sick? Why are we calling individuals sick when it's their society that made them suffer? My PTSD was put there by my rapists, that Aboriginals girls anxiety and poor self esteem was put there by ignorant peers, that gay man killed himself because his family abandoned him. Do you see what I'm saying? Why are we labelled as sick when it was our social environment that made us so? I find it reductive and it places ZERO blame or responsibility on offenders of human rights and the human condition. What do you guys think?

[therising]

Hi Danos99

You have such a powerful open minded wonderful perspective. It's a perspective I think a lot of sensitive people can relate to. When I say sensitive, what I mean is there are people who can easily sense the dysfunction, compared to insensitive people who insist there's no problem with the way society is.

When I hear stuff like 'What's wrong with this current generation? They're all a bunch of depressed and/or highly anxious snowflakes. They need to toughen up, as opposed to melting under pressure' this attitude seriously grinds my gears. An open minded person might ask 'What is one of the things that all young depressed and anxious people have in common in this country?'. The answer, 'Working with the Australian education system', which happens to be depressing to some degree and highly stressful at times. So, do we change the system? No. Kids are simply told to 'Work harder'. And while some may say 'I went through that system and survived', besides admitting they 'survived', they may be neglecting the fact this generation has the ability to better sense what's naturally depressing and stressful. This generation can feel the faults in the system, such as the imbalance involved in homework cutting into rest and play time, for example. Without poo pooing the whole of the Australian education system, I take my hat off to the amazing teachers out there who work so hard to make a positive difference within this system. They're usually the ones who apologise for being forced to hand out so much work. They know it's too much work and that it creates stress. By the way, I'm a mum to one who's just gone through the system and one who's in year 11 this year.

So many broken systems that threaten to break people. So many depressed and/or anxious people who are led to question themselves rather than being led to question the depressing and anxiety inducing systems they're dealing with.

In some ways, it's a relief to live in this era. While there are those who insist there is no need for change, this is a time where those who sense the need are beginning to make it happen in significant ways. With a generation who can feel what they can't tolerate, the next step is to stop tolerating that which creates dis-ease (unease). It's a time of upheaval and you can feel it.

For a generation where taking mind altering substances (alcohol included) has become the norm to some degree, would they feel such a desperate need to alter the mind if society was more evolved?