are we crazier than we used to be?

by Xanthippe 9 Replies latest jw friends

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  Xanthippe

  There seem to be so many TV programmes about horders whose houses are filled with rubbish that they can't throw out, peope with claustrophobia or other phobias, people with depression or anxiety illness. I am not being accusatory because I've had depression but I'm just wondering what on earth is society doing to us?

  Has there always been this level of mental health problems and they are just being given a label now and help is finally being offered? Or are we so much more stressed than we used to be? Yet most of us have enough to eat and a roof over our heads and often much more materially. Yet humans need more than material things don't they?

  I remember studying history and there was a quote which I can't find on google, maybe someone on here remembers it. It was when Europeans started settling in the Americas and a native American chief said something like, these white men have this strange look in their eyes as if they constantly want something, we don't know what they want, we think they are mad. Sorry I can't remember more than that but you get the gist.

  What do we want? Perhaps we don't have a clue. What do you think?
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  cobaltcupcake

  I doubt that there's actually more mental illness now than in times past. If you read novels written in the 18th and 19th centuries you find characters who were obviously mentally ill but were classified as "eccentric." Mentally ill people in the past were either tucked away in insane asylums or relegated to the attic in the family home. Nowadays, a lot of people who would have been institutionalized in the past are able to lead normal lives with the help of medication.
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  Simon

  And I think people have things that enable them more than in the past - mostly money!

  Years ago people were thrown into asylums and there was no social safety nets plus people were more often a cohesive family unit and not left alone.
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  Mum

  Simon is right about having more money enabling us to do things we couldn't have in the past. My grandmother had very little, her parents and grandparents even less. They had to make their own clothing, furniture, and to repair what broke instead of going out and buying another one. In the Western world, most people have enough money to buy unnecessary stuff, so they do.

  Another difference is that people in the past had to work very hard just to survive. There wasn't the luxury of time to go look for useless stuff. At the end of the day, they were too tired to think of anything but getting some sleep. Work is a great mental health medication. More people should try it.
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  thecrushed

  i can attest to the mental stabilizing affects of hard work. im too tired to worry about personal demons.
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  James Brown

  This is the information age. There are hundreds of tv channels and formats for people to communicate

  on a mass scale. Also there are a lot more people than there were back in the 60's almost twice

  as many, so it would stand to reason there would be twice as many crazies.

  In the USA they throw the crazies in the county jail as we dont have mental asylums for the general public.
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  thecrushed

  James Brown you have pointed out a painful reality in USA. We throw our crazy people in jail instead of giving them the very help that they desperately need. I think it is shameful to leave the mentally impaired on their own with no options. It is a shame on our culture when many of these disorders are treatable but only if you are well enough to have the sense to take them and have the money to avail yourself of it. It's a Catch 22 because these people usually can't keep a job in order to get insurance in the first place. I think many homeless ones today are in this situation and if only they got some needed help they could pull themselves out of that situation. :(
• 

  James Brown

  James Brown you have pointed out a painful reality in USA. We throw our crazy people in jail instead of giving them the very help that they desperately need. I think it is shameful to leave the mentally impaired on their own with no options. It is a shame on our culture when many of these disorders are treatable but only if you are well enough to have the sense to take them and have the money to avail yourself of it. It's a Catch 22 because these people usually can't keep a job in order to get insurance in the first place. I think many homeless ones today are in this situation and if only they got some needed help they could pull themselves out of that situation. :(

  It does seem to be a catch 22, because many are alcholics and substance abusers and are delusional.

  If they were all thrown into a mental hospitals which I dont think we have at this time. Then they and their

  defenders would be saying that they were being misstreated.

  It seems a lot of people that cant or wont work figure out how to get social security disability at some point.

  Then when their delusions get them in trouble with the law they end up in jail.

  It seems like most of them were sane enough to get into the army and then when they get out and have

  to work for a living they loose their sanity.

  Working does seem to drive some crazy.
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  Xanthippe

  Mentally ill people in the past were either tucked away in insane asylums or relegated to the attic in the family home. - Cobalt

  Yes Cobalt, Rochester's wife in Jane Eyre springs to mind.

  Simon we do have more money and it does bring happiness as long as there is not too much it seems from my observations. Yes people had more of a cohesive family unit than they do now although Freudian analysts think it is our families that drive us crazy!

  James Brown and the Crushed, interesting thoughts, don't you have psychiatric hospitals or wards in general hospitals in the US? I suppose you mean they are not available for people who are not insured. In the Uk it seems many homeless people do have mental health problems but it seems many were abused as children and had to flee their family homes and then became ill through harsh conditions on the streets.

  Mum, yes thanks for your thoughts, people have had to work so hard in the past for basic needs to be filled they were too exhausted to think of anything else.

  It made me think of the hierarchy of needs and if, when we becaome more financially secure, we start to need other things? Do we get unhappy because we feel a need inside us but without education perhaps we don't know how to fill that need? Of course advertisers are more than happy to 'help' us fill that need with things, more and more stuff.

  Maslow's original hierarchy of needs five-stage model includes:

  1. Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep.

  2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability.

  3. Belongingness and Love needs - work group, family, affection, relationships.

  4. Esteem needs - self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility.

  5. Self-Actualization needs - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.
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  talesin

  I think you are spot-on with Maslow. #5 is not being met for many people, and it's my feeling that the acquisition of 'junk' is the way they attempt to fill this need for self-fulfillment.

  We have (a) not enough physical labour and (b) too many toys, illusions (tv, video games) to take up our attention span, but it leaves a hole in one's psyche.

  I'm into divesting at the moment (as opposed to hoarding), but being unable to work and housebound for the past three years has been one of the most difficult experiences of my life. Feeling 'useless' is just horrid.

  xo

  tal