Winston Churchill -
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happenend.
It is important to understand that mental illness is not an illness in the traditional medical sense. It simply means a person is not feeling good emotionally in other words they are unhappy. There are many expressesions that describe these feelings but they have nothing to do with any medical problems. For example: being brokenhearted doesn't mean someones heart is cracked.
Bob Phillips makes the following point:
People can be well in the physical and medical sense and still be unhappy in the emotional sense.
A problem that has arised is that prevailing medical and psychological models are treating certain moods for example anxiety and depression as an illness. Others have actually taken it further by calling the following illnesses:
- crime
- poverty
- anorexia nervosa
- bulimia
- alcoholism
- pathalogical gambling
- kleptomania
- agoraphobia
- narcissism
- tobacco disorder
- OCD
- and many more
But someone needs to take responsibility. These problems are real and they do exist but we are not helping anyone if we classify unacceptable behaviour as an illness because they are actually excercising behaviour that irritate themselves as well as annoys others.
Obviously everyone has experienced some form of suffering and misery at some point in time but they cannot be classified as diseases or illnesses. Once we start calling unpleasentness, suffering, pain and criminal behaviour as diseases we rob ourselves of integrity and honesty. Furthermore, when we categorize hurtful individual actions as illnesses one undermines individual responsibility and accountability and by taking these away we destroy any hope of change.
According to Bob Phillips:
To call wickendess or strange behaviour an illness creates an excuse for the behaviour to continue. "I'm not responsible; my illness makes me act this way." "If only the disease would go away, I wouldn't act the way I do." "If I didn't have this illness, I wouldn't be the failure I am."
This has lead to blame shifting becoming a way of life for many people.
It must be made clear that by accepting responsibility it doesn't mean your life will become a rose garden or that you will be happy all the time. Things won't simply run smoothly and you won't escape the problems that many others face. But remember, the struggles of life makes us stronger and helps us mature.
We all admire people who have endured tough times and that have emerged victorious and we want their strength of character but the problem is that we want to gain it without any pain. We don't want to go through the fire of adveristy.
The moment one does away with the myth of mental illness you immediately gain hope because you realise that you are responsible for most of your predicaments and that you play a part in the process. The moment you realise this you can start making positive changes in your life. You can learn how to face your problems and difficulties and you can become a veteran of life who faces struggles with courage and a positive spirit.
M. Scott Peck -
This tendencny to avoid problemas and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness.
So the question is - how does one deal with the so-called mental illnesses? How do we cure diseases of mental dysfunction? Currently the most common approaches are:
* drugs
* electric shock
* surgery
* therapy sessions
* committing people to mental hospitals.
When looking at drugs we know that they are good for infections as well as true sicknesses but they don't cure negative thinking processes. They only numb, slow down and dull thinking and once you stop taking them the difficulties of your life is still there. They don't eliminate stress, improve self-image or heal broken hearts and relationships. They don't teach one life-coping skills and they don't take away the hurt and loss from your life.
It is important to realise that anxiety and depression aren't diseases or illnesses they are thinking processes. The truth is drugs can influence these processes but they can't change them.
There are obviously true brain diseases, birth defects as well as chemical imbalances but these medical conditions don't affect the general population on a large scale but only a minority. This means that the vast majority of people that suffer from depression, anxiety and other problems and difficulties aren't medical ill. In fact they are troubled and aren't feeling good emotionally, not diseased or sick.
It is unhealthy for individuals and society in general to think or believe that they are victims who have no control over their lives or behaviour because it robs the individual of his/her integrity and self-respect, creating a patient-and-doctor relationship resulting in dependency and introversion.
For mental, emotional and spiritual growth to take place it is important to face your problems instead of running away from them. This growth is the result of struggles, pain as well as courage and it requires the excercise of one's will and to have the determination not to give up. The battles that we have faced and the conflicts in our lives shapes our spirit and character.
The moment we accept responsibility for our actions and attitudes we can grow towards maturity, leading to us gaining self-respect and starting to adjust to the pain common to all people. Through this we become healthier because we have taken ownership.
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