Nope, Not Even A Smudge

I challenge anybody to prove to me that any mental illness exists. I have never seen a mental illness in my life. I have seen people, and I have heard other people talk about behaviors as symptoms, but that’s not saying much. Have I seen people with mental illnesses? No. I’ve seen the people, but I’ve had much trouble making out their mental illnesses. When I can’t discern this mental illness, or that, as far as I’m concerned, it’s a figment of somebody’s imagination.

Viruses and bacteria can be accounted for under a microscope. Although there have been theories attributing mental illnesses to germs, those germs have never been found. All indications are no germ ever put anybody in the state hospital. Looking for mental illness in chromosomes has become even trickier, and equally dubious. Especially when you consider that we’re supposed to be dealing with a genetic predisposition. Given a predisposition then, somebody is saying maybe a good portion of people with these genes aren’t mentally ill. Okay, if a number of people with these genes don’t have a mental illness, these genes aren’t mental illness genes.

Let’s back up a little bit. I mentioned symptoms earlier. Some people think they have found a mental illness when they have found a person displaying a certain cluster of symptoms. These symptoms tend to be little more than behavioral patterns associated with certain emotional states. Persistent sadness is said to be depression. I think a better term for persistent sadness would be persistent sadness. People who don’t respond to the demand “get happy” are said to be depressed. I’m not the person to disapprove of sadness. You can be sad if you want to be sad. It’s NOT a disease.

I know, you can’t get over your negative feelings. You can’t choose happiness. Hello? We’ve just abandoned the hospital unit for the philosophy department. How do you know you can’t choose happiness? Have you ever tried? I’m a great believer in examining all the possibilities. If you haven’t examined all your possibilities don’t blame freedom of choice for the choices you neglected to take. I can’t just make myself happy. You can’t? How do you know? Perhaps all you need is a how to book on happiness. I think there’s a whole book industry built on that kind of thing. Do we need to talk to happiness experts? For your sake, not mine; it’s not all about me. Isn’t that what this mental illness business is really all about? Baby wants something, tend to baby. I’m not saying that something is a booby, but if the blouse fits, bare it.

Perhaps happiness is over rated. Perhaps it isn’t. Happiness isn’t on the table, mental illness is, and it still looks like an empty table. Ahha! So we’ve got an empty table. Then there is no mental illness. The thought police are out to pick people up for deviant behavior. Deviant behavior isn’t wasting a life on some ridiculously boring, futile, and stupid 9 to 5 gig. Sometimes you have better things to do with your life than slaving for the man all the time. Deviant behavior is way up there in the future waiting for the rest of civilization to catch up with it. You can call your deviant mentally ill, but that doesn’t give mental illness a tangible existence. It only makes your deviant an outlaw. Careful what you say, the thought police are zooming in. He or she could be you.