Mental Illness comes in 2 forms from my own experience. That which comes through the DNA.....& there is also situational MI that can start when some life situation happens (this was what started my MI issues). The situation that hit me caused anxiety to start with & then turned into major depression.....then a trauma along the way created PTSD issues on top of what had started me me at the age of 42 when my career ended by something out of my control.

I know that as the economy has become more depressed (which started after the situation that initially caused my depression), I could feel my depression & hopelessness become even greater.

I know for me that there are some things that have changed in my life that have helped me to deal with my hopelessness in a much greater way & also leaving the bad marriage that I had been in for 33 years also was a wonderful help. It didn't fix the problems, but being away from the source of the aggravation has really helped me see just how much that it has also been a great part of the depression even though I didn't realize it at the time.

I also see where the changes that have occurred in society over all the years that I have been alive have also created a more depressed feeling in people......for all the freedoms they have struggled to get.....the more unhappy many people seem to be.....& the more unhappy people have seem to become, the more MI has come to be a part of their lives. I don't think that it's just that it's being recognized more than it used to be & now it's Dx'ed......I have actually seen the increased number of those around me who are struggling with MI issues at many different levels. Even the kids in schools are struggling with so many more issues than we did growing up & it's reflected in how they are dealing with their lives.....& the lack of the family & the increase in the breakup of the family has definitely increased the stress & the issues that the kids are going through even though it might be better than living in a family that's fighting.....it's better still if the family were together & NOT fighting.....but that has changed also.

There are so many more stressors in EVERYONE's lives then when I was growing up.....you can see how it does effect people because most have never learned the skills to deal with the stress.

Stress is one of the key triggers for my anorexia & I'm sure if it effects me that way,,,,I'm NOT the only one. When I grew up, TV was just becoming a household item, computers, internet, & photoshop didn't exist either & the entertainment business was NOTHING like it is today & the processed foods they did have didn't have the preservatives that they have chemically created like they have today......& they didn't pile tons of sugar into everything......studies have been made as to what effect these things do have on the body.....& the results AREN'T good

They didn't believe that cigarette smoking caused cancer back in those days either but reality IS WHAT IT IS.

There have always been MI's throughout the history of the world.....but the increased number isn't just because they are now being diagnosed. There were increased number of suicides during the depression....it was because of the hopeless feeling those people had & when you increase the hopeless feeling that society surrounded them with.

The higher number of teenage suicides than ever before......something is causing that & it's not just because more are being diagnosed with MI's....it's because of the hopeless feeling that they are surrounded with in their own lives, the breakdown of the family unit, the economic environment that their whole surroundings is struggling with, & I believe the added level of sexuality that is being forced on them by their peers & by society in general where everything in the entertainment industry is pushing it......not only who am I but what am I. Pressure in school used to be just getting good grades.....the number of teen age pregnancies has grown & how do deal with that also can leave them with issues that haunt them long into later life & also can be a part in the issues behind ED's.

Yes, society has always had it's number of screw up's that messed up their kids & we are seeing the effects now with the increased amount of CSA that has occurred.

All these things that happen in the world around us create links to MI.....not just that which is inherited....& many things we don't even understand until much later in life when we start to struggle with things & can finally chain it back to the beginnings of where it came from in our lives.

There are many things that impact MI....& we are learning more & more things that are related to the links. The fact that different people's minds work differently can make the difference between whether someone ends up with PTSD or not from the same situation.....which makes it even harder to necessarily define that something always causes a MI....as each different person's resilience cam also make a difference along with the level of vulnerability that a person is in at the time something touches their life.

But it doesn't mean that it doesn't have an effect on the MI of some & not others & is a cause for some & not a cause for others....it's just the way the mind works especially when we are dealing with the situational issues that attribute to MI issues.