Quote:
Originally Posted by roadrunnerbeepbeep
I think that depression somehow escapes the bias, though. Maybe because PCPs prescribe for--no pdoc required--and of course it's so prevalent. Almost like, if you're not depressed, what's wrong with you?
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I have the feeling (I could well be wrong) that depression has received so much coverage in the media for such a long time that it is no longer perceived as "alien" by most normal Americans. Not to mention the fact that many people who are not
clinically depressed do feel "down" or "miserable" with some frequency. It's the other mental illness labels that strike most normal people as weird in some way, different, "other."
I do think this is all part of a very slowly changing picture with the direction of change being always towards greater comprehension and acceptance. Is that a Pollyanna view? I really don't think so. If you go back and trace the history of the treatment of mentally ill people over the past four hundred years you'll find, I believe, real improvements not only in treatment but in acceptance. I entirely agree that it's all too slow a process, really of no use to people suffering "now," whether "now" is today or a hundred or fifty years ago. But I do think it's happening and will continue to get better in the future.
Why? Because in this sense, not only for mental illness but for every condition that separates people from each other, we're constantly moving together, closing the gaps between us, becoming more and more aware of our similarities (which have been there for the whole life of our species). There was a time, not all that long ago in historical terms, when Western people like ourselves couldn't feel the slightest relation to Chinese or (East) Indian people. They simply felt too different.
As the Chinese and Indians begin their "embourgeoisement" (middleclassification) through the development of their economies, as they begin consuming more and more like you and me, they stop appearing so different from us. It's easier for us to understand that they're our brothers and sisters (which, in reality, they've always been). And as the human race slowly awakens to its solidarity, the mentally ill (and the otherwise disabled) are included. It's a general movement. And like general movements in general, there are laggards and avant-gardes, hold-overs from the past and fore-runners of the future.
People do say I'm crazy (you ever heard that?), but I really do believe that the human race has a very bright and fascinating future ahead of it. Want to challenge me on that? Go right ahead! Be my guest! Love it!
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We must love one another or die.
W.H. Auden
We must love one another AND die.
Ygrec23