Why can't we accept that mental illnesses are a natural reaction of the human body to the hell that is modern life?

submitted by yabbit from self.AskSaidIt

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[–]CleverFoolOfEarth 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (4 children)

Some of it is, but other ones, like Bipolar Disorder, cause manic spells that make you think you see Jesus and can fight cars. Those ones are real, I don't think that type of crazy is caused by too much modernity, we have records of stuff like it dating back long before the industrial age.

[–]yabbit[S] 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

most bpd is because of trauma it doesn't exist in hunter gatherer societies

[–]BootsAndBeards 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

...Do you think hunter gatherer societies didn't have trauma or something? Societies where most women bury half of their own children?

[–]Jackalope 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

They certainly had trauma, and often difficult lives, but is true that even modern hunter-gatherer societies do not suffer from mental illnesses at anything near the rate of industrialized people. Many anthropologists have repeatedly documented this phenomenon.

That being said, I am not advocating for primitivism, but modern life can be incompatible with many psychological needs we have developed over the hundreds of thousands of years of evolution while living in primitive societies

[–]jet199 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

Again, it's not because modern life doesn't fit with us or is difficult, it's because it's too easy.

If you live a precarious existence you simply don't have the option of being crazy, lethargic or breaking down. That would get you killed.

The same difference in the rates of mental illness exists between the rich and poor within the west. If the issue was the state of society then the poor would have the worst of it but they actually have better mental health than the wealthy.