Scoop of the Day: There’s no such thing as mental illness

  Firstly, no-one can fully define mental illness. It’s a rather broad term for anything or anyone who does not fit the norm of society. There’s a great difference between people(s), and quantifying these differences borders on the insane. A quaint line separates what we’d call sane from the insane. This line is defined by the society and age one find oneself in, sadly.

  Insanity is a sign of the era or age or generation we are in. What’s insane yesterday is rule tomorrow. What was sane yesterday is atrocious today. Take a good ol’ witch hunt… Today, highly frowned upon, a short time back, encouraged by the Church. Perhaps, tomorrow, the same Church will condemn our modern ways of dealing with mental illness, but for now, we are where we are.

  Society is forever changing and shifting, changing and shifting; it’s one of the only truly living things on our planet. Society is sadly very ill, especially with our newly invented global communication systems. Cultures meet, clash and dissolve, leaving only semblances of belief systems. We do not believe the same thing as our fathers and grandfathers, but our grandfathers and their fathers and their fathers probably believed more or less the same thing. You see, a mere two hundred years ago the average man knew the same thing as his neighbours, not able to make contact with anyone outside his immediate surroundings.

  Today, one can communicate with anyone else on the planet. Society is suffering because of this, and yet it is the only way forward. We live in an age where time moves exponentially, so hopefully we’ll reach conclusions faster than our predecessors.

  We put those who lives and believes on the fringes in ‘care centres’ instead of facing our societal woes. If society was healthy, we would have no need of asylums. There would be a place for everyone and anyone on this globe, no matter their mental state. Hearing voices and seeing sights just a few years ago and still today in some cultures were highly revered. These people may have been traditional healers, sages or sangomas.

  Even for people who may not have the highest mental capabilities (those less intelligent or living with intellectual disability) will have their green patch of life. Our society today, shun them and parents rather choose to have them institutionalized. We, as society, do not utilize their special skills and pay no heed to their individual needs. Furthermore, they are atrociously misused. The incidence of violence, rape and emotional trauma is much higher in this population.

  If we, as society, understood the needs of the individual and catered to their needs, they would cater to ours. Our society would flourish if we only accepted everyone’s differences, instead of shunning our own reality.