Mental Illness as a Product of the System
Preface.
Firstly, this is not a revolution post, the current system is the best we’ve come up with so far, and benefits people who have opportunity and understand it. I’m not calling for a complete reform, more of a dimensional attitude change. And I believe phones and technology are great tools to use as an extension of our conscious selves, for the most part.
I think that the system works for people willing to work hard and fight for what they want, there are however some aspects of it specifically education that discourages genuine inspiration and ingenuity. We should be building on people’s confidence not indirectly tearing it down.
Just like our billions of neurons give birth to our consciousness, the complex overlay of systems we have constructed in ‘Western’ society has given rise to a problem, that being mental illness. This could be the reason that you don’t feel so good about yourself, or scared and confused about your future. It is because our system prescribes mental illness to us when we eventually find out that not many people succeed at the game.
If the system were adjusted we would not have as many people as we do unnecessarily suffering. Let me get this clear that its no ones fault, there’s no individual or group to blame for the entire mechanism, some people are more fortunate than others and get more opportunities in life. Nevertheless it is a problem that definitely has a solution.
Childhood to University.
As a child, you’re told that you can do anything, be a superhero, an astronaut, whatever your heart desires, anything that makes you feel good about yourself because – “don’t ruin the kids dreams” right? So when is the stage where the system starts to hold you down, rather than building on your motivation and vocation? Somewhere during high school.
Once you get to high school you’re not allowed to do anything without asking permission. You have to wear a uniform to look like everyone else, showing you’re not unique just part of the crowd. It’s easy to see how the seeds of mental disorders are planted in the adolescent years. You get taught that the harsh reality is that you need a degree to get anywhere in life, which is untrue. Authority figures drum rules into you until you’re conditioned to do what you’re told.
Tests and assignments are distributed and you are graded on how well you perform at something you’re potentially not even interested in. Why did we decide this is the best way to go about things? And the end of high school asks you what do you want to do with the rest of your life, at the same time you have to ask permission to go to the bathroom?
Then, all of a sudden high school is over and once again you’re told you can make your life whatever you like! No wonder people are so anxious and confused after high school; the system has conditioned it into us. I am the perfect example, instead of asking what am I passionate about, teachers ask what was I good at and the two often only slightly intersect. Because I was good at maths and the sciences my teachers told me I should be an engineer.
Six-figure salary and plenty of jobs due to the mining boom where I lived would see me easily get a chemical engineering degree, which I believe played a role in my mental health. I was miserable, it was boring first of all, and secondly it was really complex. Only after I made the decision to defer for six months and do some soul searching on what I was passionate about I made my own choice to do psychology, and it led me to writing this write right now!
Of course people suffer form depression and anxiety. You’re depressed because the system had told them what to do up until now and conditioned out your child-like excitement about being what you dreamt of being. And you’re anxious because after it’s all over all of a sudden you are responsible for yourself again! Doing something you love will motivate you, Tap into your passions. Make the choice yourself; it has to come from you.
(Anti-)Social Media.
I’d like to start with a scenario. Imagine the government prescribed a drug to everyone that made him or her constantly distracted and introverted. Always looking down at the palms of their hands, restaurants filled with people but no one talking, running into each other, cars smashing into each other every day. This is madness right?
Substitute this theoretical drug for a mobile phone; it has all the same symptoms of introverted behaviour but the majority of people are distracted enough not to care. Why don’t we care that we’re not talking to each other anymore? We are highly social beings by nature, it literally only takes one week of solitary confinement for the brain to start to experience trauma that can be irreversible.
Social media has been the most detrimental factor in teen depression and anxiety rates since its mainstream adoption. Talking to someone via text or a messenger app is completely different to conversing. You are not talking to each other. You are thinking to each other. Notice it’s hard to say out loud exactly what you’re thinking? That’s because we use different neural pathways do to each task. We rely on the contact of physical conversation and interaction to regulate serotonin and dopamine levels in the brain associated with good mental health.
The internet is a hostile and merciless place. Someone is always offended by something, and people are allowed to barrage each other with what they think without any real consequence. This toxic environment is a breeding space for mental illness. People who don’t feel good about themselves project it onto others, who retaliate and the entire system resonates. We now live in an era where being popular outweighs being truthful as an indirect result of social media.
Say you are unhappy with where your life is right now; so you open social media and see the fabricated, glamorous lives of friends or celebrities, this in turn makes you unhappier, and envious of their life. It is not a winning game is it? You also can’t win because you’re not being productive or motivated towards your own goals because you’re constantly getting distracted! See how this is just a negative behavioural pattern?
What you should do.
So what are we going to do about all this? If I had advice for someone, and I do, that is unhappy with where they are, or scared about their future it would be this. Look up, get off your phone and think for yourself for a change, we don’t do enough of this anymore, we are distracted and overloaded with enough information from our phones every day. Once you start thinking you’ll realise that maybe you don’t want to follow a certain career path, and it was just because someone told you to do it. Don’t be a robot, empower and motivate yourself to do what’s important to you. If you don’t know, search until you find it. Then do it as much as is possible.
Break out of the system that has conditioned you, realise you’re free to think and pursue whatever you like. You aren’t held down, no one is holding you back go and fight for what you want. Use technology as an extension of yourself, don’t lose yourself in technology. We live in a post-truth era where now everything is a popularity contest. Don’t let it suck you in.
Follow @psych_inspire for daily wisdom.
From the ashes, you will rise.
Liam