How not to go mad
I watch friends struggling with depression and other mental health issues. I’ve had a few fights of my own, although am starting to feel like I may be winning. I am increasingly convinced that the regular end of mental ill-health (depression, anxiety, crippled by self esteem issues etc) has far less to do with being ill as an individual, and far more to do with living in a sick society. Ideally we need to fix the society, but in the meantime, knowing may well help.
1) Exhaustion triggers mental illness. Lack of rest creates self-esteem issues. Being run ragged all the time with no respite makes people anxious, stressed and ill. Insufficient sleep makes people ill. This is the hectic modern lifestyle in action, ever longer work hours, ever more demands and a finite number of hours in the day. Modern work makes people ill.
2) Being burdened with responsibility but no power to act makes people ill. We have a blame culture, it is hard to own mistakes, whistleblowers are not well protected and we’re barraged with news about all that is wrong in the world, and there’s so little most of us can do as individuals.
3) Consumerism. We are constantly sold the idea that to be happy and socially accepted and to have status, we must buy more stuff. The stuff we have already is out of date and not good enough. This keeps us buying, which serves the economy, but it does not ever give us a sense of social security, status or success. The goalposts keep moving. We get depressed.
4) Lack of social contact. We evolved to live collectively and co-operatively. The absence of work-life balance, the rise of solitary, technology based entertainment and the pressures of money isolate us, and being isolated will make you miserable.
5) Lack of green spaces. There’s plenty of evidence that getting outside in green spaces, even for as little as five minutes a day, will improve your mental health. Time and money pressures don’t help us with this one, and access to pleasant green spaces can be a big issue, too. Fear of crime keeps people indoors and a culture that depends on the car far too much means we don’t walk and meet people.
There’s probably more, do add your thoughts in the comments. We live in crazy times. To seem well, functional and happy in face of all of this, I think you have to be quite a strange sort of creature. We need to stop being driven mad, and start getting mad about how we’re being required to live.
