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jackshoegazerBased on DSM criteria, the government's survey indicates that mental illnesses afflict one-quarter of us every year and more than half of us during our lives, with anxiety and mood disorders the most common problems, followed by impulse control and substance use disorders. Citing several limitations of the survey, the researchers argue that the true rates are even higher. Evidently mental illness is the new normal.
This article discusses the fact that almost everyone, at one point or another, can be classified as 'mentally ill'. I've been saying this forever. The idea that there is a normality to the human experience and the expression thereof, is ridiculous. Somehow we're supposed to believe that every derivation from this mythical normal is a mental illness.
The author makes a good analogy to an old SNL sketch in which Steve Martin plays Theodoric of York, a medieval barber with a patient whose condition has not improved despite a bloodletting, a sheep's-urine-and-staghorn poultice, and a night buried in the marsh up to her neck. "Medicine is not an exact science," Theodoric tells the girl's mother, "but we are learning all the time. Why, just fifty years ago, they thought a disease like your daughter's was caused by demonic possession or witchcraft. But nowadays we know that Isabelle is suffering from an imbalance of bodily humors, perhaps caused by a toad or a small dwarf living in her stomach."
So perhaps one day, Steve can play a history teacher who explains that once, back in barbaric times, we thought everyone was a few marbles short, but it turns out that not everyone plays with marbles. Some people like hopscotch, Russian roulette and Scrabble.
This article discusses the fact that almost everyone, at one point or another, can be classified as 'mentally ill'. I've been saying this forever. The idea that there is a normality to the human experience and the expression thereof, is ridiculous. Somehow we're supposed to believe that every derivation from this mythical normal is a mental illness.
The author makes a good analogy to an old SNL sketch in which Steve Martin plays Theodoric of York, a medieval barber with a patient whose condition has not improved despite a bloodletting, a sheep's-urine-and-staghorn poultice, and a night buried in the marsh up to her neck. "Medicine is not an exact science," Theodoric tells the girl's mother, "but we are learning all the time. Why, just fifty years ago, they thought a disease like your daughter's was caused by demonic possession or witchcraft. But nowadays we know that Isabelle is suffering from an imbalance of bodily humors, perhaps caused by a toad or a small dwarf living in her stomach."
So perhaps one day, Steve can play a history teacher who explains that once, back in barbaric times, we thought everyone was a few marbles short, but it turns out that not everyone plays with marbles. Some people like hopscotch, Russian roulette and Scrabble.
