Get - O - Life

It seems like in recent years, mental illness is becoming more and more common. Is it something in the water? Are we doing something wrong? 

 

On my support groups I have noticed that a lot of the spouses of mental patients end up being mental patients, because they break down under the stress of living with mental illness in the house.

 

A generation ago, the family would be in the same town, sometimes the same block, as most of the extended family and friends from grade school.

 

Even if the problem was a family secret (as mental illness might have been) the spouse and children would be supported, both emotionally and financially, by family nearby.

 

If children were being left in the care of an unstable mother, her mother or sister would check up on her frequently and often spend the day with her so the children wouldn't be neglected or abused.

 

There were a lot more ways for a man to make a living that could be worked around some mental illness. The patterns of activity in crop farming tend to mimic the patterns of activity of some forms of bipolar disorder.

 

Hybernating in the winter, like many with an annual bipolar cycle do, may be an adaptive behavior that would have worked in an agricultural society. Matched with the long hours of hard labor that would occur during planting season (spring mania) and harvest (fall mania) which would also be acceptable behavior.

 

 

Changes in expectations 

At one time children were allowed to play pretty much freely until they were at least 6 or 8 years old, at which point they may have started going to school no more than 4 hours of the day. during which time they were rarely required to sit still for any length of time.

 

Now we send 3 year old children to half day programs and 5 year old children are expected to work at a desk for up to an hour at a time.

 

Almost all children are required to be at school so early in the day that sleep deprivation is all but guaranteed no matter how early children are sent to bed--I'm sorry, but no child is actually going to fall asleep at 9:00pm every night.

 

Expecting children, who are naturally active, to sit still for hours at a time while they are suffering from sleep deprivation is a recipe for disaster. It doesn't surprise me that modern children are being diagnosed with ADHD, which may be just a failure to adapt to the unrealistic expectations of the modern school system.