Why is mental illness increasing?

Thanks for posting this article pachyderm. The whole thread is an interesting read. I do think that the medicalization of the varieties of human experience is a major issue. It also true that our daily lives are a lot more complicated than used to be the case. As well, loneliness has become a pervasive experience for many people. This is a huge factor in making people more stressed, unhappy and indeed unwell than used to be the case. If you live in a large population centre with no family nearby and you aren't religious so have that going for you, and you don't work, plus you are sometimes difficult because you are unwell, it feels like a giant sinkhole. I'm happy to read some people here have found a way to build meaningful connections with other people.

See Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness by Christopher Lane. It now has a DSM entry as "Social Anxiety Disorder" and Paxil is shilled for it.

It's not just the DSM, either -- drug ads to psychiatrists push this too. See "Do These Drug Ads Offend You?" at The Huffington Post. (The ad in the broken "Hauteur" link is here and the one in the broken "Boiling Rain" link is here. Gotta love their headline: "Ryan is adamant his Scottish descendants tease, taunt and torture him from above. He claims they send boiling "Scottish" rain lashing down to burn his skin.")

And yes, even love can be defined as a mental illness: My favorite example was a 1970's ad for Serentil featuring a Royal Doulton figurine of a woman holding a book and rapt in daydreams. The lead copy read, "There is a brooding quality to this figure. She seems aloof, cut off from reality ... possibly schizophrenic in demeanor." In tiny print at the bottom? "Actual title: Romance." (Alas, I can't find a specimen of the ad, but the figurine is here.)

I don't think it's shyness which is now a sickness, but rather that this trait is likely to cause anxiety and depression these days, due to changing social dynamics.
Psychiatry from my knowledge declares "ill" whatever is uncommon.
For example, narcissism was once a personality disorder, and with the rising of this trait, psychiatry has changed narcissism into a personality trait.

I've responded to this thread several times, but every time I come I think of something new.

Another reason why I see a rise in mental illness is not because more people are mentally ill, but because more people think they can just call someone else mentally ill. There was a conversation about this in another thread. How many people think they are educated enough to call someone mentally ill.

Realistically, only a licensed mental health professional can deem a person mentally ill. Very few people are licensed in this field. But many people have taken it upon themselves to call each other schizophrenic and delusional only because others don't perceive the world as they do.

Some people give advice from their own personal experience. Someone told me I may have depression, yet he is someone who is also struggling with mental illnesses. Yes, I don't like it when someone attempts to diagnose me. I was too defensive, I should have asked him whether he's a doctor.

I didn't hear much about people calling someone on having whatever mental illness, but I know people lightly use the term "depression", and I've known people who'd tell me "then you should see a therapist", but it was usually when they'd reach their limits on how much they are able or want to help.

Thanks for sharing! I found this paragraph in particular incredibly amazing:

"According to Ilardi, the answer lies in the dynamics of our culture and how our roles as humans have changed over generations. Speaking more in terms of Americans, we have turned our backs on the “hunter-gatherer” tendencies that humanity was based on. Mentioned many times throughout The Depression Cure is the modern-day hunter-gatherer band known as the Kaluli people of the New Guinea highlands, where “clinical depression is almost completely nonexistent.” Their culture still works as a cohesive unit of purpose, for survival. They obtain their physical activity through hunting and gathering, are constantly exposed to the outdoors and the elements, abide by a strict diet based on seasonal availability, and are never alone due to their constant involvement with their community. The Kaluli people lived the steps of Ilardi’s TLC program, and because of that lifestyle, depression was rarely an issue."

I know the solution: gardening. Community gardening. Imagine if we moved away from our current competitive, corporate driven capitalist society by growing our own food, becoming more localized and tending to each other's needs rather than competing against each other for shallow gains. Gardening has been said to greatly help cure depression. Working with nature, exercising outdoors, breathing fresh air. In fact, not only would this help us all, but it's becoming important to do so because of climate change. In so many ways, environmentally, socially, economically, politically, our current society is collapsing. It's becoming more and more apparent day by day. Our job is to figure out how to live differently. Indigenous cultures have it right. Maybe we would be better by following their example.

You're right. I constantly forget that sometimes the person on the other end reaches a breaking point and might tell us, "You're depressed, you should see a therapist."

Honestly, I've been the person telling my friends this. I would constantly be advising friends what to do to get out of their depression. My advice would work. They would be happy ... for a week. Then my friends would find another way to dive into a depressive episode. As a result, I've had to sadly give up on them because they were making me depressed along with them.

Gardening can be very healthy. My flower garden is a great way to get exercise and to get very creative. It's also a good way to get exposure to sunlight. My mother-in-law has her own vegetable garden and she grows everything in her back yard.