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Crisis, as the Chinese philosophy teaches us, equals opportunity. “Every bad has an inherent good.” “Every problem or negative experience carries with it a gift.”–we are told in the Conversations With Self book (I highly recommend you read it).
The Covid crisis presents us with many challenges but also with the opportunity to revise our way of life and the beliefs system we built it on.
The confinement mandate has forced everyone to do what most refused: to face themselves. Their inner and outer worlds. Social distancing and lockdown stopped the outings amongst friends. Now, whether you like it or not, want it or not, you have to face your music. Your kids, your spouse or partner, your housemates, your parents…
Perhaps the best example of how faulty our way of living was is in the increase of the so-called mental health cases.
But what does mental health actually mean? This recent buzzword. And is it even healthy to keep talking about it?
The answer is complex. It has a prima facia informative benefit. And this is the selling point of those trying to convince you that they fight for your rights and your wellbeing. It has, however, a huge negative impact on your psyche of which no one is talking about, and I will show you how.
Let’s first use ‘critical thinking’ – another buzzword overused by the establishment.
What is the premise here? Whose ‘mental health’ are we talking about? The human’s? What is a human? Is it a billions of years random mutation who suddenly had stopped mutating for the sake of taking up science to learn how he got here?
Is it the human – I mean you – a bag of bones, blood and organs with a random expiry date?
And in which part of this body are you more likely to be found?
Are you to be found in equal parts in your heart, kidneys, bladder, gut? If so, why aren’t all your organs’ health advocated with the same ferocity as it is ‘mental health’? Where does the ‘mental’ come from, anyway?
The mind? If so, what is that? What is the mind? Is it the brain, as the medical science insists? Then we should call it ‘brain health’ and make room to make laws to protect all other organs equally:
“Gut Health Act” – “Whosoever shall cause another a twist of the entrails or a bad gut feeling, through a look, an innuendo, a bad joke or their mere presence, shall be liable to a fine of up to £10000 and removal from services if the transgression continues.”
“Eye & Nose Act” – “Whosoever shall cause another an intense fear, displeasure, nausea or feelings of disgust through their public appearance, shall be punishable by £10000. This offence will be used as evidence in court when establishing the cumulative sentence for transgressions against the total of the human being, including the Gut Health Act, the Brain Health Act, etc…”
If you haven’t laughed so far at the ridiculousness of the whole social structure and how you are cut into pieces by science, perhaps now’s a good time. It will help your mental health.
Perhaps critical thinking is only used as an empty expression. Like the efforts made to impress strangers on Facebook without meaning to uphold the image portrayed. Because when we use it – the critical thinking, that is – the whole social structure looks like madness.
To talk about “mental health”, especially about mental health treatment, you must know what you are talking about.
Whose mental health – as we have seen earlier? Bag of bones and organs or something more than that?
If the human is the bag of bones and organs resulting from random mutations, we have some serious matters to address. Urgently! For instance, what are we doing with queens and kings, and more importantly, with religion and God who, apparently, put them there?
If we are a mere random mutation, how can we justify calling religious studies “scientific”? How do we justify the riches accumulated by various religions in the name of a God unrecognised by science without beginning a fraud investigation at scale?
In this setting, how can we talk about mental health treatment without sounding more disturbed than the ones needing it?
You have on the one side God, spirits, demons, angels, entities, and worlds escaping the human’s understanding. For that, you have the Church, the priests, the Pope to help humans defend against such entities. You have priests trained in exorcisms. Training to become a priest is a respectable ‘job’ in the religious sciences.
If you feel lost, suddenly aroused or depressed, addicted or afflicted, if you see things out of this world, hear voices, feel nocturnal visitations, experience high pangs of anxiety, and so on – depending on the branch of science you go to, your diagnosis and treatment will vary.
If you go to the priests, they’ll check to see if you are possessed. If you go to the doctors, they’ll prescribe psychotropic medication to treat “your mental illness”.
How could the two most important institutions in our society live with such a divide? If you dare to challenge the medical establishment, you are a charlatan. If you see or hear things (demons, angels, dead people, other entities) or merely believe in their existence, you are diagnosed as mentally ill, but if the priest or the Pope see or hear them, they are just doing their job.
Why do we allow these double standards?
Is the Pope a charlatan for preaching the existence of an entity (God) dismissed by one side of science? Is the Church of England full of charlatans for taking people’s money for marriages, baptisms, and funerals in the name of an inexistent Creator in the eyes of the erudite?
Ultimately, if it is “a scientifically proven fact” that the human is a mere random mutation, what are we still doing with the Queen? Is she a charlatan?
How could one be sane in such a dived world?
Until we have this public discourse to settle the matter about this massive elephant in the room, we can never claim to know anything about the true nature and functioning of the human, let alone its ‘mental health.
You cannot call yourself a scientist, a serious doctor by putting people on meds at their first signs of seeing or hearing outside the conventional spectrum, and go to church to get married, have your kids educated in religious schools, go to prayer, etc. You cannot!
You cannot have laws protecting your rights to practice religion and have science dismissing your spiritual experiences, treating you as mentally ill for having them. Because this divide is the first messing with people’s minds, to begin with. Not unless you publicly admit to being the saviour of the problem you-yourselves created.
And what about equality and diversity rights? Under the Equality Act 2010, your religion and beliefs are “protected characteristics”. Anyone impinging on those rights is in breach of this Act and the Human Rights Act 1998, art. 9 & 14.
Who is to say that your anxiety, depression, panic attacks, erratic or addictive behaviours are not caused by unseen forces, whether man-made (like secret projects testing on people as it happened many times in human history) or not? Being then treated as ‘mentally ill’ before being given the opportunity to declare your beliefs on the matter is a clear violation of your rights.
Any GP, psychiatrist, or other mental health practitioner diagnosing and treating people disclosing unusual phenomena such as hearing voices, having spiritual experiences, as ‘mentally ill’, are, in the light the legal provisions and the above arguments – potential harassment and discrimination cases.
But that’s the problem! You have to be aware of the existence of other forces; you have to be clear about your spiritual or religious beliefs, and then you have to have the courage to discuss them with those supposed to offer support without the fear of being penalised and medicated up to your eyeballs.
We have such a long way to go…
End of Part 1.
© Gratiela Rosu 2021
