| > No, stop that line of thinking. Please. Caution, Thought Police patrol this area. Please stop thinking. Freedom Of Thought is not allowed. I'll think whatever I like, thank you very much. I reserve the right to have opinions that differ from yours. I respect the idea that my opinions ought not impinge on your freedoms. I don't have to like a thing to see the sense in it. Yes, we shouldn't go around calling each other names, it might affect a person in a negative way. I certainly don't have a habit of going around labeling people ... well, actually, I guess I do: we all make internal judgments about people and things we experience. What I mean to say is I tend not to go around calling people words, because who knows how that might affect the other. Relating to that quote you provided from r/bipolar, what I really want to see is us crazies, I say 'us', because that quote fits me well too. I want to see us crazies "come out"! I'm crazy and I'm proud! We could have a bumper sticker too: I have Mental Health Issues and I vote. And anyway, to be well-adjusted to an insane society is no measure of health. In 2014, there were an estimated 43.6 million adults aged 18 or older in the United States with AMI (Any Mental Illness) in the past year. This number represented 18.1% of all U.S. adults.[1] One in five of the adult population of the US with AMI. Mental Illness is the new normal. I think there's more to this than "illness". In a similar way to how homosexuality used to be labelled an illness, I look forward to a future where we are no longer labelled "ill" but where society acknowledges that we have some pretty serious issues going on on this planet and our individual and collecting stress-coping mechanisms aren't coping. We are a sick society that has been doing a darn good job of wrecking the biosphere, and through profit-driven motives been working to isolate people so they'll buy more. How anyone can think that isn't going to affect our mental health is beyond me. I believe a lot of the lower-grade chronic mental illness people suffer is a symptom, like a blocked nose is a symptom of a cold virus, mental health issues are a symptom of failing stress-coping systems. And the stressors are real. Modern life is stressful, it's alienating, it's under slept, over worked, it's underpaid, it's in too much debt. We're overdue for a societal colonic. Nothing like a good shit to help clear the mind. 1. http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/any-men... |
That said, the propensity for those with mental illnesses to resort to drugs, false rationalizations and misinformation to assist in understanding their problems makes these issues very, very difficult and complex for everyone involved. For those with mental health issues, removing those soft and hard dependencies is incredibly difficult, since they're so easy to fall to, on top of their prior problems. You're simplifying an issue without realizing that mental health problems are often only the catalyst that's furthered by forced isolationism. For example, although my own mental health issues seem to have been around since birth, they were only pushed farther, possibly permanently, after being put on amphetamines to aid with the bipolar and its comorbid's symptoms.
And quit the bullshit about thought police. I'm just asking for an attempt at empathy with an attempt to not resort to the usual SJW rhetoric.