The beauty of "Mental Illness"
I've been pondering again...
Since Rachel told me about her experience with ADD medication I started thinking about how we become accustom to our ways of thought. When someone with naturally speeding thought patterns has their mind slowed to a single strand per moment in a suddenly quieted brain it is understandably disturbing.
This got me thinking more about the nature of our dysfunctions. There basically seems to be two types of mental problems... those who stem from something being over active and those who stem from something under active. I wondered why there seems to be more mental illness in the modern world... or is there? There are lots of aspects to consider. For one, is there really more? We hear about it a lot now, but we are only in modern times able to scientifically study things such as brain chemistry. In old times it'd be blamed on something supernatural. Think of how many ancient surgeries were designed to fix various hysterical conditions. One could believe it is simply something we are more aware of. There are other things too though. Maybe something in modern lifestyle is to blame. The way we live, the pollution, dietary habits, decline of the stable family unit, etc.
I started to consider the large amount of people I have known who HATED to be on medications. It's not just "side effects" as we think of them... nausea, head ache, etc. It's that the changes for the better also seem to leave us without the advantages of being who we are, and the flip side (beneficial part) of our dysfunction and though patterns. We may be less depressed, but also less creative. We may be more clear on the outside, but feel slow and dimmed on the inside. We may feel better, but feel it is fake.
I wondered if these things that are ill in us had their place in society at one time and are now simply outdated. For instance, with so much of mental illness being a hypersensitivity caused by chemistry imbalance. Granted, any organism that exists is prone to the defects of nature. This counts in physical or mental deformity, but in general nature knows what it's doing. Did these hypersensitivities have their use? Do they still?
ADD - most would assume we have a lack off attention, but largely it's the opposite. We are hypersensitive to stimulus, and thus have inability to focus on one at a time. We aren't able to tune things out that a normal mind filters. Anything from the way our shirt touches our skin to a little background noise that another person wouldn't even register can be a big obstacle to our ability to focus normally. This is often followed with (and associated with) hyperactivity.
Depression or bi-polar- could be said to be a hypersensitive condition. Feeling to much, experiencing depths that most don't. This generally is accompanied by a creative drive to express feelings, and a level of empathy unknown to those who do not suffer from this condition.
Anxiety - Hypersensitive fight or flight response. Often have a hyperactive imagination too, and create imaginary reasoning behind anxiety responses.
Schizophrenia - Chemically induced hypersensitive/hyperactive imagination. Imagination so strong that it becomes, to that individual,
a reality.
These are just a few examples, but consider how could each of these be
actually used in society?
How many artist’s creative abilities are driven by their ailments? In a tribal society how useful would a hypersensitive person be as a guard? Pair this with hyperactive (little need for sleep) and an "ADD" patient seems maybe ideal in some ways. How else could it be useful? A hunter maybe? With ADD adrenaline helps us focus. It takes something that gets adrenaline going to be primary enough to keep our main attention. Otherwise we are alert to any changes in our environment, prepared for anything, and again hyperactive in some cases... with more energy/drive for the chase.
Anxiety is similar in a way. Some people are jumpy, but in some cases (such as myself) I stay so paranoid and watchful of my surroundings that it's hard to surprise me. I'm so worried about my imaginary enemies that no one else has an opening to shock or surprise me. Science has already told us anxiety and fear of the dark are throw backs to our instincts where we had to worry more about predators.
How is Schizophrenia useful? We used to call them visionaries, artists, or Shamans. Perhaps this wasn't always the same thing, but consider it and it's function in primitive society. The ability to foresee things and enter worlds of possibility unimagined by the normal mind of man was considered of great importance. Someone had to devise the mythologies and worlds that drive our imaginations even to this day. These are the extreme of the extreme when it comes to being able to exceed reality in a given moment, and create reality from thought... or as we call it "magic," which was another prized function of the time.
Depression, again artists and perhaps caretakers? Empathics would make natural
nurses, gatherers, and what we now think of scientifically as therapists. There has always been a high correlation between this one (and other illnesses) with great artists who pushed our way of seeing the world to new limits. I think depressed people are also more sensitive to their environments, but in a more emotional way than the anxiety and ADD responses. They are more in tune with the needs of
others. Perhaps more sensitive to the emotional effects of things such as color, lighting, or music also… which further goes with the artist theory.
So, where does this leave us now? The value of art has been largely diminished, we no longer need to hunt or have guardians as we did, and we replaced magic/divination with science. Basically, despite the beauty and power of our minds we are considered obsolete and unuseful. Depression makes us unproductive in most fields, and we can't use it to our advantage as much anymore which leads to further depression and eventual apathy. Anxiety is crippling. In today’s world stimulus is everywhere so inability to tune it out at times is a great hindrance. Schizophrenia is only good for getting people put away, no one values unique perceptions of the world anymore. Reality is set in stone wealth is the measure of success. The unproductive citizens are put away where they do not impede the corporate/consumer agenda. My friends, we are unimportant to everyone but each other, but that’s ok with me.
Still, as long as there are others like me I can’t see what I am doing as worthless. In some ways I think we need all these things back in the world. Without them, I fear what sterile beings humanity would become.
Since Rachel told me about her experience with ADD medication I started thinking about how we become accustom to our ways of thought. When someone with naturally speeding thought patterns has their mind slowed to a single strand per moment in a suddenly quieted brain it is understandably disturbing.
This got me thinking more about the nature of our dysfunctions. There basically seems to be two types of mental problems... those who stem from something being over active and those who stem from something under active. I wondered why there seems to be more mental illness in the modern world... or is there? There are lots of aspects to consider. For one, is there really more? We hear about it a lot now, but we are only in modern times able to scientifically study things such as brain chemistry. In old times it'd be blamed on something supernatural. Think of how many ancient surgeries were designed to fix various hysterical conditions. One could believe it is simply something we are more aware of. There are other things too though. Maybe something in modern lifestyle is to blame. The way we live, the pollution, dietary habits, decline of the stable family unit, etc.
I started to consider the large amount of people I have known who HATED to be on medications. It's not just "side effects" as we think of them... nausea, head ache, etc. It's that the changes for the better also seem to leave us without the advantages of being who we are, and the flip side (beneficial part) of our dysfunction and though patterns. We may be less depressed, but also less creative. We may be more clear on the outside, but feel slow and dimmed on the inside. We may feel better, but feel it is fake.
I wondered if these things that are ill in us had their place in society at one time and are now simply outdated. For instance, with so much of mental illness being a hypersensitivity caused by chemistry imbalance. Granted, any organism that exists is prone to the defects of nature. This counts in physical or mental deformity, but in general nature knows what it's doing. Did these hypersensitivities have their use? Do they still?
ADD - most would assume we have a lack off attention, but largely it's the opposite. We are hypersensitive to stimulus, and thus have inability to focus on one at a time. We aren't able to tune things out that a normal mind filters. Anything from the way our shirt touches our skin to a little background noise that another person wouldn't even register can be a big obstacle to our ability to focus normally. This is often followed with (and associated with) hyperactivity.
Depression or bi-polar- could be said to be a hypersensitive condition. Feeling to much, experiencing depths that most don't. This generally is accompanied by a creative drive to express feelings, and a level of empathy unknown to those who do not suffer from this condition.
Anxiety - Hypersensitive fight or flight response. Often have a hyperactive imagination too, and create imaginary reasoning behind anxiety responses.
Schizophrenia - Chemically induced hypersensitive/hyperactive imagination. Imagination so strong that it becomes, to that individual,
a reality.
These are just a few examples, but consider how could each of these be
actually used in society?
How many artist’s creative abilities are driven by their ailments? In a tribal society how useful would a hypersensitive person be as a guard? Pair this with hyperactive (little need for sleep) and an "ADD" patient seems maybe ideal in some ways. How else could it be useful? A hunter maybe? With ADD adrenaline helps us focus. It takes something that gets adrenaline going to be primary enough to keep our main attention. Otherwise we are alert to any changes in our environment, prepared for anything, and again hyperactive in some cases... with more energy/drive for the chase.
Anxiety is similar in a way. Some people are jumpy, but in some cases (such as myself) I stay so paranoid and watchful of my surroundings that it's hard to surprise me. I'm so worried about my imaginary enemies that no one else has an opening to shock or surprise me. Science has already told us anxiety and fear of the dark are throw backs to our instincts where we had to worry more about predators.
How is Schizophrenia useful? We used to call them visionaries, artists, or Shamans. Perhaps this wasn't always the same thing, but consider it and it's function in primitive society. The ability to foresee things and enter worlds of possibility unimagined by the normal mind of man was considered of great importance. Someone had to devise the mythologies and worlds that drive our imaginations even to this day. These are the extreme of the extreme when it comes to being able to exceed reality in a given moment, and create reality from thought... or as we call it "magic," which was another prized function of the time.
Depression, again artists and perhaps caretakers? Empathics would make natural
nurses, gatherers, and what we now think of scientifically as therapists. There has always been a high correlation between this one (and other illnesses) with great artists who pushed our way of seeing the world to new limits. I think depressed people are also more sensitive to their environments, but in a more emotional way than the anxiety and ADD responses. They are more in tune with the needs of
others. Perhaps more sensitive to the emotional effects of things such as color, lighting, or music also… which further goes with the artist theory.
So, where does this leave us now? The value of art has been largely diminished, we no longer need to hunt or have guardians as we did, and we replaced magic/divination with science. Basically, despite the beauty and power of our minds we are considered obsolete and unuseful. Depression makes us unproductive in most fields, and we can't use it to our advantage as much anymore which leads to further depression and eventual apathy. Anxiety is crippling. In today’s world stimulus is everywhere so inability to tune it out at times is a great hindrance. Schizophrenia is only good for getting people put away, no one values unique perceptions of the world anymore. Reality is set in stone wealth is the measure of success. The unproductive citizens are put away where they do not impede the corporate/consumer agenda. My friends, we are unimportant to everyone but each other, but that’s ok with me.
Still, as long as there are others like me I can’t see what I am doing as worthless. In some ways I think we need all these things back in the world. Without them, I fear what sterile beings humanity would become.