Our fountain of mental health issues

May is Mental Health Awareness Month (nice gesture), but have you ever noticed how little is discussed about where all the mental health issues are coming from? What has changed to make a populace so mentally affected, depressed, suicidal, and sometimes homicidal? 

“What are we doing differently?” is a powerful diagnostic question, and for May, let’s ask ourselves, “What are the primary things that have changed in the past 25 years that could affect mental health?” 

Three primary things that come to my mind that have changed: 

1. An avid attempt to decrease peoples’ faith in God and increase their faith in government control (instead of teaching personal responsibility). Have you ever noticed that someone with a deep, grounded faith in God has less fear of the future? I’m of the belief that if a nation puts God first, it will spawn a government of the people and one that serves the people instead of the other way around. 

2. SSRI drugs: these are psychotropic drugs that help modify human behavior and thought processes. If a person gets on these SSRI drugs to help suppress emotions, what happens if the consciousness is suppressed… it’s an emotion as well? It may feel good to a person not to care, but how does it affect those who interact with this person? What happens if they suddenly get off the drug and their brain is on fire? 

We have a conscious mind that is supposed to bother us, depress us, and guide us to help us make things better for ourselves and the ones we care about, so should we be so easily getting on drugs to tell our brains to chemically alter itself not to care or to feel differently about these things?

What would happen if only psychiatrists were allowed to distribute psychotropic drugs? My guess is this would be an unacceptable amount of drug dealers for an industry that has been largely responsible for the real drug problem in America.

3. Last but not least, something that has changed on a massive scale is -social interaction through the Internet and the decreased interaction/loss of actual human connection. The Internet (especially mobile-social Internet connectivity) has given us broad and continuous connectivity. Still, it has caused us to become more disconnected from the ones who should matter the most and care the most about us. When this happens, it creates loneliness and depression, but there seems to be an entire mental health and psychotropic drug industry that is willing to help fill in the void…  

If we don’t address the root causes of mental health problems, the individual and societal costs are going to continue to grow like a cancer lump being fed a steady stream of pure sugar.