My purpose in starting this thread was not to attack those taking anti-depressants, but to open a discussion regarding mental health in America today.
I recently read "Tribe" by Sebastian Junger. While I didn't agree with Junger's premises completely, I found "Tribe" to be a great read and very thought provoking. The author describes the book as follows: "It's about why — for many people — war feels better than peace and hardship can turn out to be a great blessing and disasters are sometimes remembered more fondly than weddings or tropical vacations. Humans don't mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary."
Junger gives historical examples of why many people in tribal societies are happier than in modern societies, regardless of the fact that their lives are more difficult. He also discusses how natural disasters, acts of war, etc bring people together and can actually have a positive effect on people's moods (for example, overall rates of depression dropped in NYC following the 9/11 attacks). I think many of us lack a sense of purpose and feel we don't belong to anything meaningful. This may contribute to depression rates.
Another interesting thing about tribal/shamanistic cultures is that something like psychosis or schizophrenia would be seen completely differently than we see it. Their culture would consider them to have a special connection to the spirit world. They would be told that they were special and they would go under apprenticeship with another shaman to actually help the tribe. Today we shun these people, tell them something is wrong with them, and isolate them (or they isolate themselves due to stigma). Of course this can't be good for treatment. In our modern society there are certainly "accepted" mental illness and "unaccepted" mental illness.
That's not to say that people with mental illness should not be on meds, but i think the approach we take is misguided.
As Jiddu Krishnamurti said "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society"
"What those in the West view as mental illness, the Dagara people regard as “good news from the other world.” The person going through the crisis has been chosen as a medium for a message to the community that needs to be communicated from the spirit realm. “Mental disorder, behavioral disorder of all kinds, signal the fact that two obviously incompatible energies have merged into the same field,” says Dr. Somé. These disturbances result when the person does not get assistance in dealing with the presence of the energy from the spirit realm.
One of the things Dr. Somé encountered when he first came to the United States in 1980 for graduate study was how this country deals with mental illness. When a fellow student was sent to a mental institute due to “nervous depression,” Dr. Somé went to visit him.
I was so shocked. That was the first time I was brought face to face with what is done here to people exhibiting the same symptoms I’ve seen in my village.” What struck Dr. Somé was that the attention given to such symptoms was based on pathology, on the idea that the condition is something that needs to stop. This was in complete opposition to the way his culture views such a situation. As he looked around the stark ward at the patients, some in straitjackets, some zoned out on medications, others screaming, he observed to himself, “So this is how the healers who are attempting to be born are treated in this culture. What a loss! What a loss that a person who is finally being aligned with a power from the other world is just being wasted.”
With schizophrenia, there is a special “receptivity to a flow of images and information, which cannot be controlled,” stated Dr. Somé. “When this kind of rush occurs at a time that is not personally chosen, and particularly when it comes with images that are scary and contradictory, the person goes into a frenzy.”
What is required in this situation is first to separate the person’s energy from the extraneous foreign energies, by using shamanic practice (what is known as a “sweep”) to clear the latter out of the individual’s aura. With the clearing of their energy field, the person no longer picks up a flood of information and so no longer has a reason to be scared and disturbed, explains Dr. Somé.
Then it is possible to help the person align with the energy of the spirit being attempting to come through from the other world and give birth to the healer. The blockage of that emergence is what creates problems. “The energy of the healer is a high-voltage energy,” he observes. “When it is blocked, it just burns up the person. It’s like a short-circuit. Fuses are blowing. This is why it can be really scary, and I understand why this culture prefers to confine these people. Here they are yelling and screaming, and they’re put into a straitjacket. That’s a sad image.” Again, the shamanic approach is to work on aligning the energies so there is no blockage, “fuses” aren’t blowing, and the person can become the healer they are meant to be.""
https://www.jaysongaddis.com/the-shamanic-view-of-mental-illness/Here's another story of Shamans helping someone with schizophrenia:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/03/24/how-a-west-african-shaman-helped-my-schizophrenic-son-in-a-way-western-medicine-couldnt/?utm_term=.13a40a881cae