America has the highest rates of mental illness in the world, WHO says

[OllieGutierre]

It's interesting to see that Americans are suffering the most from mental diseases, on the other hand, the US is one of the most developed countries in the world.

[Moretorque]

If you are not depressed about what is going on there is something wrong with you, My father's grand father put 7 kids through college in the great depression and that generation could take care of themselves. They have and are arranging all the civilizations world wide to where they can just push a button and shut down your entire society and kill everybody or mostly everybody just like that. Only the fools cannot see what has happened and these are mostly the same people who breed alot with no care who cannot see we have over breed enough..

[MrMan]

One psychologist from Asia said that clinical psychologists and therapists was mostly a western phenomenon from individualistic societies. There are lots of people living in cities who have little to no social interaction. In his country, a large extended family might live in one house. They have lots of relatives right there giving them advice about their lives, whether they want it or not. But in western cities, some people have no one to talk to. So they go to therapists.

You have a lot of psychologists ready to diagnose people with mental problems. In much of the world, you do not have people going to psychologists so there are not many diagnoses.

I saw crazy people in Indonesia. A crazy person might be covered in dirt wild hair walking on the side of the road naked. In the US, someone with some more minor problem like depression or something not visibly obvious might be diagnosed that would be overlooked overseas.

But social isolation may actually lead to some mental illness. Maybe we eat a lot of hormones over here, but that sort of thing seems to be found worldwide these days. The US exports a lot of food and other countries use hormones, herbicides, etc. these days.

[MrMan]

One psychologist from Asia said that clinical psychologists and therapists was mostly a western phenomenon from individualistic societies. There are lots of people living in cities who have little to no social interaction. In his country, a large extended family might live in one house. They have lots of relatives right there giving them advice about their lives, whether they want it or not. But in western cities, some people have no one to talk to. So they go to therapists.

You have a lot of psychologists ready to diagnose people with mental problems. In much of the world, you do not have people going to psychologists so there are not many diagnoses.

I saw crazy people in Indonesia. A crazy person might be covered in dirt wild hair walking on the side of the road naked. In the US, someone with some more minor problem like depression or something not visibly obvious might be diagnosed that would be overlooked overseas.

But social isolation may actually lead to some mental illness. Maybe we eat a lot of hormones over here, but that sort of thing seems to be found worldwide these days. The US exports a lot of food and other countries use hormones, herbicides, etc. these days.

[Winston]

Dr. Todd Grande admits that half of people in America will develop mental illness in their life. But he suspects the true figure is 80 percent.



"This video attempts to answer the question: Is everyone mentally ill? This is an interesting question and is actually a question I received many times in many different forms. Another popular question is: How many people in the population have a mental disorder?

Research indicates that 25% people have a mental illness right at this moment, so really another way to look at that is at any given time 25% of population will qualify for a mental disorder as classified in the DSM. Other research that indicates that at some point during a person's lifetime there's a 50% chance that they will develop a mental disorder, although we have some longitudinal studies (these are studies that look at the same people over a long period of time) that show this number is closer to 85%. Even at that 85% estimate, we think this is underestimated as there are a lot of people that don't want to report mental illnesses."

[Winston]

Afterskool video on how an entire population can become mentally ill. So true. Yet most people assume that only misfits are mentally ill.

[HouseMD]

It's interesting to see that Americans are suffering the most from mental diseases, on the other hand, the US is one of the most developed countries in the world.

My theory is that modern society is incompatible with long-term happiness. We weren't made to sit at desks all day under false lights while we stare at screens mindlessly. Our brains are wired to deal with immediate stressors like threat of attack or hunger, not abstract stressors like bills, legal systems, etc. We adapted to tribes of hundreds where everyone knew everyone and social ties were close, but now live in societies of millions where each individual is often functionally alone. Our world is not conducive to our mental health or happiness, and the more developed and separated from the natural order a nation becomes, the more mentally ill its people will ultimately become as well.

The price of our comfort and convenience is our sanity. Ted Kaczynski is a good read on the subject, from what I hear, but I've never read his work myself. His means were terrible, but some of his ideas are actually pretty good. Unfortunately we live in a society that people must adapt to, rather than one which must adapt to its people, and that is good for no one in the end

[Shemp]

The price of our comfort and convenience is our sanity. Ted Kaczynski is a good read on the subject, from what I hear, but I've never read his work myself. His means were terrible, but some of his ideas are actually pretty good.

I read his manifesto. It's less clearly thought out than your own brief explanation. In particular, the fact that excess comfort leads to long-term unhappiness does NOT imply that we should send mail order bombs to a random selection of strangers who get on our nerves, but that was the conclusion Kaczynski wanted, so the reasoning in his manifesto had to be twisted to reach this conclusion.

My solution is to simply toss some hunter gatherer elements into my life to avoid the comfort trap. Live in cheap hotels and weekly apartments and move constantly instead of having a permanent home, for example. Buy food at the grocery each day and eat it immediately while sitting in the park, which implies one meal a day, which is healthy. You don't have to retired to live like this. You can have a job and live in weekly hotels. Or live in your car. Poor people do it in the USA all the time.

My anecdotal observation is that SOME homeless people in the USA are actually far happier than average middle class Americans. I'm thinking of those who scavenge in dumpsters like it was their job, get plenty of physical exercise, don't abuse drugs or alcohol, avoid the other homeless, have a smartphone and bank account for some modest disability pension, etc. They are basically living the hunter gatherer lifestyle in modern society.

[Winston]

I posted Ted Kaczynski's manifesto here:

viewtopic.php?f=32&t=25337

He has written several other pieces after that too. They are very intellectual and make sense. He is good at logical argumentation. Is it true the US government hired him for secret projects rather than let him sit in jail? I would imagine they would make use of his talents since he was a math genius.

Yes I agree. Living the hunter gatherer lifestyle feels more natural and makes you feel more alive. That's why the perpetual traveler's lifestyle makes you feel more alive and natural. Sometimes you gotta settle down and rest though.

When I slept in my car while driving around the Southwest USA, it felt good and natural. Waking up at 6am or 7am and hiking in national parks and forests and deserts was fun. I felt very alive, even if I felt often lonely while traveling alone. It still felt real somehow. Hard to explain. In contrast, when you are inside the house all the time except when you go buy food, it feels depressing after a while, like you are trapped.

About the homeless. I don't get something. Why do they stay in the city where they have to depend on money? Why don't they all move out to the country or woods and live in nature like Grizzly Adams?

[Shemp]

About the homeless. I don't get something. Why do they stay in the city where they have to depend on money? Why don't they all move out to the country or woods and live in nature like Grizzly Adams?

Same reason feral cats and stray dogs live in the city, and even wild animals like coyotes, bears, etc are attracted to the city. Cities are full of food. By contrast, nature is something of a food desert, especially for humans. Very hard to survive in nature without constant work. All the places that were long ago naturally abundant in food fir humand have become cities or else are very heavily populated. What remains is marginal land.

If you have a car or bicycle and some passive income, then possible to live in nature and visit the city every week or so to buy food, charge electronics, bathe, launder clothes, etc. This is how I used to live half the year, until covid forced me to stop moving around.

[jerryrigged]

About the homeless. I don't get something. Why do they stay in the city where they have to depend on money? Why don't they all move out to the country or woods and live in nature like Grizzly Adams?

Same reason feral cats and stray dogs live in the city, and even wild animals like coyotes, bears, etc are attracted to the city. Cities are full of food. By contrast, nature is something of a food desert, especially for humans. Very hard to survive in nature without constant work. All the places that were long ago naturally abundant in food fir humand have become cities or else are very heavily populated. What remains is marginal land.

If you have a car or bicycle and some passive income, then possible to live in nature and visit the city every week or so to buy food, charge electronics, bathe, launder clothes, etc. This is how I used to live half the year, until covid forced me to stop moving around.

If you know how to properly farm, hunt, and fish, you'll never starve in many places in rural America.

[jamesbond]

It's interesting to see that Americans are suffering the most from mental diseases, on the other hand, the US is one of the most developed countries in the world.

My theory is that modern society is incompatible with long-term happiness. We weren't made to sit at desks all day under false lights while we stare at screens mindlessly. Our brains are wired to deal with immediate stressors like threat of attack or hunger, not abstract stressors like bills, legal systems, etc. We adapted to tribes of hundreds where everyone knew everyone and social ties were close, but now live in societies of millions where each individual is often functionally alone. Our world is not conducive to our mental health or happiness, and the more developed and separated from the natural order a nation becomes, the more mentally ill its people will ultimately become as well.

That's true, sitting all day at a desk starring at a computer screen is not good for our bodies or our eyes. Studies have shown that sitting is the new smoking. Sitting for long periods of time is not good for our blood circulation.

[MrMan]

Here is a news article on it:

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countr ... -countries

The US is third on most of these problems. But these aren't mental health issues like being outright crazy-- mainly emotional and lifestyle issues.

I suspect a lot of it comes from the fact that there are so many voices on TV trying to destigmatize being mentally ill, depressed. Americans are willing to talk about it. We hear people on TV or read in other media suggesting we might have some of these emotional issues. Look at the survey I posted. Do you think the US really outranks Russia or South Korea for alcohol abuse? Maybe things have changed a lot in South Korea since the mid-1990's, but when I was there, it was like Friday or Saturday night in a college town on weeknights. I lived a couple of little 'tiny roads' in off a main road in a city there. I could come home at 10 PM on Friday night and there would be drunk men wondering around, peeing on the wall. One time, I heard a certain kind of mumble. One guy was talking to another. I'd heard someone else talk about hearing that same sound. There was a drunk dude squatting down in the dark, saying something to a guy waiting on him. Another English teacher i know had seen the same thing. In Kangnam in Seoul once, there was a drunk guy at the intersection of one of those streets roads where it met a big street who was so drunk he was taking a leak out in the open, not against a wall. Rarely do American college students get drunk enough to pee against walls. There was so much drunkenness in South Korea.

And Americans have the biggest problem with alcohol abuse? Americans are probably the most likely to admit some of these things. We may even have more hypochondriacs.

If we do have more of certain types of mental illnesses, I'd consider the fact that we are the drug innovation capital of the world. Our pharmaceutical companies churn out the wonder drugs, sell them to us first to recoup their investment. Much of the rest of the world picks up on the good ones when they turn generic. I would look into whether we use more of the drugs that have these mental health side effects.

There is also a lot of GMO food in the US.

The US also has the Americans with Disabilities Act. So employers have to go to trouble and expense to enable those with disabilities, including mental problems, to be able to do and to keep their jobs. So if you are diagnosed with fear of exit signs, the employer has to seat you away from the door with the exit sign. If you need a couple of hundred bucks for a handicapped desk, they may have to pony up the money. There isn't much incentive to hide mental problems, and not as much of a culture of not admitting it to oneself. There are people here who try to find some mental health issue they have. It's kind of like the kids on tiktok who listen to other kids who have a made-up gender and then think they have that themselves. There are drug ads on TV telling people to ask doctors about their health issues and ask about certain drugs.