Work pressures, multitasking, social media, news updates, multiplicities of entertainment sources — these all induce us to become lost in thoughts, frantic activities, gadgets, meaningless conversations. We are caught up in pursuits of all kinds that draw us on not because they are necessary or inspiring or uplifting, or because they enrich or add meaning to our lives, but simply because they obliterate the present.
~ Gabor Maté, “The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture”
If you are reading this article then you are part of the WEIRD population: Western Educated Industrial Rich Democratic. We constitute 12% of the world’s population yet 98% of behavioral science experiment subjects are from WEIRD populations.
Here’s the question that often goes through my mind when a new patient announces their diagnosis to me: Would this fellow human suffer from this horrible condition if they lived in a tribe of extended family members on a desert island? Or, could their symptoms be the result of the tacit pressures of highly competitive consumer-based late capitalism (mortgages, student loans, car loans, $8 coffees, $20 smoothies, $25 cocktails, $200 dinners and $400-$10,000 concert tickets)?
It is shocking to me how many patients not only know their diagnoses but identify with them.
My closets look like those of a serial killer — meticulously arranged by garment types, colors, and sizes — yet I would not say,“I am OCD.” I “have” OCD resulting from the hyper-vigilance developed as a defense mechanism following a traumatic car accident.
My symptoms are a normal reaction to having my body ripped apart, being dependent on physicians to put it back together, and never wanting to relinquish my independence again. Voila, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. For now. And it does come with an 840 credit score, so I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.
“I am a human being temporarily experiencing the symptoms that correlate with Western Civilization’s current definition of xxx” sounds more accurate to me than a patient saying, “I am… (insert affliction here).”
Maybe I’m romantic about 1960s hippies proclaiming the Age of Aquarius, but I doubt many of them walked around saying, “Sorry, man, I can’t make it to Woodstock — I’m depressed.”
The rates of young adult mental illness today are significantly higher than those of the 1960s; numerous studies report marked increases in anxiety and depression. Is this some rogue gene affecting our younger generations or could technology — mobile phones, social media, infinite apps — be altering their brains?
It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society
said Jiddu Krishnamurti.
And the problem with anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications is that although they are not putatively PHYSICALLY addictive, the feelings that they induce are often PSYCHOLOGICALLY addictive. Most are prescribed for short periods of time but years later the patients find it difficult or impossible to titrate off of them.
If people weren’t overwhelmed by the responsibilities of their jobs, relationships and keeping up with the Joneses, would they still have those symptoms for which they take those medications? And how does it benefit them to announce their diagnoses to others, save their new psychotherapist who can choose to agree or disagree with it?
It is easy to observe how the media causes us to constantly feel that we are lacking something, that we would be happy if we clawed our way into that inner circle of rich and beautiful people. The only problem with that deduction is that those rich and beautiful people aren’t happier than our sorry lot. They don’t have less problems; they just have different problems (like not being able to trust people out of fear that they will eventually ask for money).
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
~ Gore Vidal
You can’t control the zip code you were born in but you can control comparing yourself to people who happen to be raised in Bel Air, Greenwich and other wealthy cities where a university-donating alumnus can write a letter of recommendation to help you gain admission into an elite school.
I reckon that living on desert islands outside of our WEIRD population would enable people to somehow manage to avoid the cocktails of anti-depressants many of my young patients take that exacerbate their identification with their dis-ease (un-easiness with being overstimulated, overwhelmed, overworked and under-appreciated).
Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller were at a hedge fund manager’s house and Vonnegut informed Heller that their host had made more money that day than Heller would earn from “Catch-22” over his entire lifetime. Heller responded, “Yes, but I have something he will never have: Enough.”
Previously Published on Medium
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