Poor Mental Health – victimhood culture or the new 'bad back'?
According to NHS England, 25% of adults and 10% of children experience mental illness. These numbers have been increasing for decades with no sign of decreasing or flattening out.
We must ask the question - why is this happening?
Treating individuals without attempting to stop the conveyor belt of future patients does not stop the problem for it is endless. Ignoring prevention only guarantees a supply of customers who require medication, therapists, and medical intervention.
When was the last time we cured an illness? We do not cure any more for this does not generate long-term repeat customers for the businesses involved. The medical profession is a business. It is more profitable to create treatments involving expensive medicine that must be taken forever.
AIDS was never cured but it can be controlled if you can afford drugs for life. A vaccine used to entail one shot in the arm that would last for at least a decade, sometimes for life. The Covid vaccine needs a booster every 6 months and does even not stop you from catching the coronavirus. The incentives for producing illness-ending medicine do not exist – and this is the real sickness of modern medicine.
When I was a child there was still a little societal shame going around. It was aimed at men who did not have a job – it is hard to believe today that this was a social norm. Oh, how things have changed. Most of these men had a medical condition called a 'bad back' that stopped them from working. Unsurprisingly, it did not stop them from watching TV all day, going to the pub and bookies, or even doing some cash-in-hand work on the side. Bad backs were a complicated affliction. No one could determine one way or another if it was painful, painless, or make-believe. X-rays told the doctors nothing. This was so common that the term 'bad back' was regularly used in 1970s sitcoms as the butt of the joke.
Anxiety and depression are the modern versions of a 'bad back' for many people who seek an excuse not to do what they know they should. Two-thirds of people on disability benefits are there because of their mental health. If you want to live courtesy of the welfare state without being hassled to get a job, then developing a mental health issue is recommended and effective. Not everyone is trying to cheat the benefits system - some do think they have a mental health issue and a tiny minority actually do.
This is where it gets tricky for if you believe you have a mental health issue then surely you must have one? Yes and No. It is complicated for we are complex animals that are easily fooled and sometimes broken. Eight million adults in the UK are on antidepressants, two-thirds are women. These numbers are increasing year on year.
We have a paradox. Our lives continue to get better every year, yet we have more depression and anxiety. We have more money, more opportunities, and more comfort. We have so much affordable food available that we now have an obesity problem. What have we got to be fed up with?
I can only think of two plausible reasons why we are becoming more unhappy. The stress of the modern world and learned behaviour.
We know women are becoming more unhappy each decade - this has been recorded from the 1960s onwards. As they gain more responsibility and compete with men their happiness decreases. Feminism has convinced women that being a woman is not good enough and they must be more like men if they wish to be fulfilled. The more feminist policies are introduced, the more unhappiness women report – can you connect the dots?
Men are also not happy, they solve this problem by killing themselves. Men commit suicide at three times the rate of women. Three times! Imagine the outcry if this was the other way around. Some men are failing in our modern society for it has changed too fast and they cannot adapt. Many men were designed for an earlier age when they were providers and protectors. Men today are more likely to be unemployed, homeless, imprisoned, drug dependant, to die earlier, and to lose contact with their children. It is a man's world!
Both sexes are struggling with modernity and the dismantling of sex-based roles within society. We are lost, confused and have no clear guidance – for the rules change every day. Without tradition and social norms, we have a plethora of choices to make every minute of every day. Nothing can be taken for granted any longer. Life has become exhausting as we try to do what is best for us and our families in a game where the instructions have been thrown away as useless.
Hard times do not create poor mental health. Good times create weak people, weak people create their own poor mental health.
We spent the last half-century over protecting and pampering society, especially children, who grew into weak adults. The State interferes in people's lives too much, this takes away personal responsibility and fosters dependency. It becomes our parent. We do not have the opportunity to learn from our mistakes for we are not allowed to make them.
We have taught many people to be helpless for the State will make your choices and decisions. It will tell you what to think and do - for it does not trust you with your own life. Learned helplessness.
Anxiety and depression are the body's way of telling us that something is wrong and needs addressing. You feel anxiety when you stand on top of a ladder – your brain is telling you to be careful and asking if you need to be on it. You feel depressed because your baby has died – your brain is telling you to evaluate what has happened so you can stop your other children from the same fate. This is all natural and beneficial. Antidepressants stop internal questioning and learning.
Victimhood culture is alive and well in the UK. Nearly everyone wants to be a victim, not a real victim of course, but a trendy woke victim that generates admiration for being brave, courageous and inspirational. Remember when heroes actually had to have done something amazing? Douglas Bader was an RAF pilot in WWII who shot down approx. 30 enemy aircraft – oh, by the way, he had no legs!
The mentally unwell are now the new victims in our woke society and need as much sympathy as possible. When we reward people with attention and social status for having poor mental health, then we should not be surprised when more people develop poor mental health.
When people are treated with kid gloves for stating they have poor mental health, then do not be surprised when more people say the same.
When negative behaviour is excused because of poor mental health, then do not be surprised when more antisocial people report poor mental health.
When people receive free medication for not wanting to be responsible for their life, then do not be surprised when more people ask for antidepressants.
We have created weak individuals by being too nice, too kind and too compassionate. Tough love is the answer and is needed for it develops resilience, character, and self-sufficiency.
I will not discuss suicide in this article, I shall leave it for another time. But I have something to say on this topic that will not be popular – we should stop portraying people who end their own lives as victims for they are not.
To end, allow me to say that some people do have a genuinely diagnosed mental illness. I use to know one personally. But they are a tiny number and are being further damaged by the pretenders who use up resources.
Everything in your mind is controlled by you. I am not saying that taking control is easy, but you are ultimately in charge. Once you acknowledge this, life can get better.
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