Over the past decades, Americans have experienced a serious decline in mental health. Among college students, the share “affected by depression surged by 135%, and the share of students afflicted by any psychiatric illness doubled to more than 40%.” (Greenfield, WSJ, June 1, 2022). It’s easy to think of mental health as much like physical health. To an extent, it’s a good idea, but we may treat mental health as optional until a crisis comes along.
Good mental health is crucial. Stated simply, a person is mentally healthy who can think, feel, or act in a manner that allows functioning and coping with the normal events and interactions of life. In other words, when thinking, feelings, or behaviors give evidence of distress, impaired function, or irrationality, there is poor mental health.
It is not just college students, nor is it new since Covid. “The epidemic rates of mental illness (in 2007), among adults aged 18 to 54, (w)as 20%, mean(ing) that 1 in 5 American adults at any point in time are likely to be irrational.”
America’s mental health problem is not only serious, but it is also uncommon. Yes, other prosperous nations lag the U.S. by a bit, but “(i)n contrast, rates of functional mental illness in societies that are insecure, poor, inegalitarian or authoritarian are remarkably low. Low? For decades, the World Psychiatric Association has pondered the”perennial puzzle” of the relative immunity to such illnesses in Southeast Asian countries.” (WSJ…as are all quotes)
How can there be near immunity to mental health issues in the poor and oppressed parts of the world? We need to consider some reasons. Let’s start with three possibilities, all from Greenfield…the fourth is big as well.
Equality: “Equality inevitably makes self-definition a matter of one’s own choice, and the formation of personal identity—necessary for mental health—becomes a personal responsibility, a burden some people can’t shoulder. A relatively high rate of functional mental illness, expressing itself centrally in dissatisfaction with self and, therefore, social maladjustment, thus must be expected in democracies.”
Reference Points: The end of the Cold War “rendered individual identities in the West more confusing and dissatisfying. Having lost sight of what they, as a society, were against, millions of Westerners lost the sense of what they represented, rejecting common reference points, such as personal responsibility, which previously constituted the core of the self in the West.”
Identity “Virtues and vices came to be seen as characteristics of groups; significant social groupings were defined genetically. All personal discomfort was attributed to society, and the burden of responsibility was shifted off individual shoulders.” This means that we as individuals are powerless to escape our problems.
Here is another surprising take on the disparity of mental health issues: (U.S. has world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households | Pew Research Center)
4. Families: “For decades, the share of U.S. children living with a single parent has been rising, accompanied by a decline in marriage rates and a rise in births outside of marriage. A Pew Research Center study of 130 countries and territories shows that the U.S. has the world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households.”Almost a quarter of U.S. children under the age of 18 live with one parent and no other adults (23%), more than three times the share of children around the world who do so (7%). In comparison, 3% of children in China, 4% of children in Nigeria and 5% of children in India live in single-parent households. In neighboring Canada, the share is 15%.” This is sobering: America has three times the global rate of children in single-parent homes.
Bottom Line: America is characterized by few social norms, few role models or even fathers, and is characterized by nearly unlimited freedom to choose almost every aspect of life, amazingly accompanied by the affluence to carry out those choices. The result is not a Disneyland of joy and fulfillment but a fearsome descent into poor mental health.
This helps explain our depression, anxiety, overdoses, and suicides. It gives a clue as to why “(t)heir judgments would be erroneous and subjective, reflecting their psychological condition and not objective reality.” Instead, as many hot issues reveal, we are dead set on opening all the pathways to happiness for adults regardless of the impact on children, on others, or on our own mental health. And we think that we are fine without God, the one who gives us true choices and joys. We need to think of God as looking for us…and eager to help.
As Easter approaches, we can pin our hopes on the only new thing under the sun: The resurrection of Jesus. That event broke the bond of death and affirmed that we are, in fact, created in the image of God. We can build our lives and values on that foundation and find a way to thrive, focusing on deep gratitude rather than on our grievances.