“The current ruling ontology denies any possibility of a social causation of mental illness. The chemico-biologization of mental illness is of course strictly commensurate with its depoliticization. Considering mental illness an individual chemico-biological problem has enormous benefits for capitalism. First, it reinforces Capital’s drive towards atomistic individualization (you are sick because of your brain chemistry). Second, it provides an enormously lucrative market in which multinational pharmaceutical companies can peddle their pharmaceuticals (we can cure you with our SSRIs). It goes without saying that all mental illnesses are neurologically instantiated, but this says nothing about their causation. If it is true, for instance, that depression is constituted by low serotonin levels, what still needs to be explained is why particular individuals have low levels of serotonin. This requires a social and political explanation; and the task of repoliticizing mental illness is an urgent one if the left wants to challenge capitalist realism.”
~ Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?
I understand that not eveyone might share Mark’s view about capitalism and psychiatry but what most draws me to the quote above are two things. First, the question that Mark asks: why does an individual have a chemical imbalance? This is an important question that hasn’t been explored or understood enough. My previous post names some major factors contributing to mental illness and speaks to the broader importance of exploring these factors in helping a person with lived experience of mental illness on their recovery journey.
The second point is the acknowledgement that social, political, and global factors contribute to mental illness. An individual with lived experience of mental illness is often pathologized without a greater look at the causation of mental illness. Mark points out how this serves capitalism. This isn’t to say that it is wrong to take medications for one’s mental illness, but it also serves as a reminder that psychiatry isn’t without its huge biases because psychiatrists can benefit financially from pharmaceutical companies. I believe that staying well improves quality of life, but I also believe recovery is far broader than just taking medications. Medications have often been used as band aids for greater problems that aren’t addressed and can cause significant impact to one’s health. Also, a reminder that many people do not get fully well on medications, which I believe has to do with underlying causes not being addressed. Again, I am not recommending anyone go off medications. As a person on medications, I do not want to promote shame around taking them, or shame around supporting a system that profits from medical treatment of mental illness. If medications help your mental illness, then that is a gift.
I think it is important to know that, in today’s world, mental illness is not just an individual experience: it is also a response to what is going on in our our communites and the world. We may experience anxiety and/or depression because of our individual struggles but part of mental illness is a byproduct from things like being marginalized (for example, experiencing racism), current political climates, war (both for those living in it and those trying to stop it), poverty, global health, and environmental issues.
Those that are marginalized by race, gender and/or sexual orientation, or socioeconomic standing can experience more mental health symptoms as a reaction to intolerance and oppression. For example, according to a Mental Health Research Canada poll, there are higher mental health symptoms among the 2SLGBTQI+ community, with 28% of people in this population reporting suicidal thoughts in the past year (2023). The homophobia that this community faces contributes to higher mental health symptoms. It is not helping that the President of the United States dictates that there are only two genders, which is clearly not true. It’s this thinking and the policies created out of this thinking that create an unsafe environment for the 2SLGBTQI+ community.
There are also social factors that contribute to mental illness beyond being marginalized. Matt Haig, a writer and person with lived experience of anxiety, urges us in his book, Notes on a Nervous Planet, to “…look at how to protect ourselves in a world of potential panic. Because, whatever else we have going for ourselves, our minds are still vulnerable. Many mental health problems are quantifiably rising, and-if we believe our mental well-being is important-we need, quite desperately, to look at what might be behind these changes.” (2018, p. 12). He is speaking to exploring greater causation. He lists ways that our modern world negatively impacts our mental health: politics, work environments that are dehumanizing, aspects of social media, a distancing from person-to-person connection, and environmental crisis (2018, pg. 41-43).
Our planet is in trouble: from extreme seasons and fires to extinction of species, there are undeniable signs of the grievous damage done to the Earth. This is a very big source of anxiety to people. When I answered calls signing people up for counselling, I would hear people, especially those working in the environmental and scientific fields, expressing their distress at what is happening to the planet. I think all the repercussions of the damage we are doing to the natural world, our home, and all the resulting consequences, like natural disasters, and changing climates, results in both a deep survival fear, a profound grief, anger and shame. Even if we are committed to helping change the world, it is easy to feel helpless. But being distressed by what is happening in the world is a healthy response. The earth is our home and other species are our kin. This can contribute to anxiety and depression for some people, which should not be pathologized. However, if that depression and anxiety turns into a chronic state impacting your life functioning, I believe there needs to be a way to hold what is happening in the world and not give up hope.
Recently I read a book written about Jane Goodall, called The Book of Hope. Jane talked about four aspects of what gave her hope when she has seen such suffering and destruction of the natural world. She also said if we each think about what we can do each day for the planet and, if a million of us do these things, this can create change. So, let’s all focus on what we can do and be part of that million.
Humans also treat humans in ways I can’t even take in. I was recently reading a book, Fear, by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk. Like many Buddhists, he acknowledged that life brings suffering and that being present and cultivating compassion can be paths to peace. He said it’s quite possible to go mad (his words) from the suffering in the world. I could relate to this because in my mental health episodes, I was thinking a lot about the suffering in the world and believing it was happening to me and my loved ones. I was living the terror that I imagined other people experienced through illness, war, and other traumas. From a young age, I just couldn’t comprehend how humans treat other humans. Reading the Diary of Anne Frank I felt utterly devastated by what happened in the Holocaust. Often people in the world who experience great traumas, such as living through war, experience PTSD and other mental health symptoms as a result. Those who experience second hand through news and other media can also have their mental health affected. To be deeply sensitive and connected to the world means that you feel what is happening to others and the planet.
I was thinking of fear and the pandemic. How people felt so scared of so many things because lives were at jeapordy in a way that hadn’t been experienced in the western world for some time. There was a lot of fear around other impacts of the pandemic, such as loss of work, financial impact, isolation and division of relationships through difference opinions, especially around vaccination. I know my mental health was challenged and that I lived with a lot more anxiety than usual. There was a definate increase in mental health problems during and since then.
There are no easy fixes to the complexity of social, political, and global impacts on mental health because there are no easy answers to create large change. However, I think it feels better when we are contributing in ways to the betterment of humanity and the planet. And there are many, many ways to do this daily. I also think it is so important to be able to talk to people about how you feel. To have community that shares your beliefs and can provide support for what is challenging in our world can be a powerful way of keeping hope.
Creativity, I believe, can be an incredible personal or political tool for expression and healing. Here is a link to some art on the topic of climate change. It can be triggering to see but also shows the important role of creativity in helping the planet. Art Highlights Addressing Climate Change | The Artling Artzine
Here is a poem I found on climate change by Jay Parini. Its imagery is both beautiful and devastating.
Some Effects of Global Warming in Lackawanna County
The maples sweat now, out of season.
Buds pop eyes in wintry bushes
as the birds arrive, not having checked
the calendars or clocks. They scramble
in the frost for seeds, while underground
a sobbing starts in roots and tubers.
Ice cracks easily along the bank.
It slides in gullies where a bear, still groggy,
steps through coiled wire of the weeds.
Kids in T-shirts run to school, unaware
that summer is a long way off.
Their teachers flirt with off-the-wall assignments
drum their fingers on the sweaty desktops.
As for me, my heart leaps high— a deer escaping from the crosshairs,
skipping over barely frozen water
as the surface bends and splinters underfoot. ~Jay Parini
Clearly, creativity becomes voice for what we are feeling about what is happening in the world.
Okay, are you ready to dive into making art? 🎨
Therapeutic Arts Activity
To explore political, social, and global contributors to mental illness.
Instructions
Write a creative piece – either poem or prose – exploring political, social, and global impacts on your mental health.
Materials Needed
- Pen and journal and/or Computer
Once you’ve completed this activity, here are some questions as guidelines for your personal explorations:
1. What affects you most in the world right now?
2. How did this activity make you feel? Was the art making process cathartic? Did it help with any clarity of action or insight?
3. Are there concrete ways you can help the planet each day?
4. What strategies of self-care help to support you when you feel affected deeply by what is happening in the planet? Who are your supporters?
Writing and art making has always been an outlet for me to explore and express my feelings about the world.
This is a stanza from a poem I wrote called Nightshore Orca about the unhappiness and ending of an 8-year relationship, a series of dreams with Orcas which I feel connected to and want to protect, my mental health, and healing through writing.
This is an ode to your intuition.
In these sequenced dreams,
He swings us out over too deep waters.
You emerge with hungry jaws.
I am afraid of being eaten
But, in truth, I am already half gone.
And when I leave him
Pandora’s box breaks swiftly and suddenly.
You send me a pearl
When I think I can’t go on.
I let myself out of captivity and
Unlock the aquarium gates letting you all swim free.
I hear it as if you have spoken aloud
I must write my way to wellness.
I hope today’s post validated that many people feel their mental health is impacted by what is happening in the world. It’s not a weakness or a pathology to feel deeply. Thinking about how we can contribute to change is important. It is also important to weave resilience around our hearts with creativity and community.
❤️❤️❤️ With care and kindness, Meegan
In the spirit of creating a community of reflection and art making, your comments are welcome. If you choose to leave a comment, it is important to know I respect your privacy. Your information will not be given, lent, rented, or sold to anyone. However, when making a comment on the site, your IP address and browser user will be collected. Please see full Privacy details on my Privacy Policy Page Privacy Policy. If you are having a mental health emergency, please take care of yourself, and call 911 or take yourself to emergency at your closest hospital.
Sources:
Chicago Review of Books website. “10 Poems about Climate Change to Read Right Now. https://chireviewofbooks.com/2019/12/18/10-poems-about-climate-change-to-read-right-now/
Haig, Matt. (2018). Notes on a Nervous Planet. HarperCollins: Toronto, Canada.
Hanh, Thich. (2012). Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm. HarperCollins: New York, New York.
Mental Health Research Canada. “Key Facts of Mental Health.” https://www.mhrc.ca/key-facts-on-mental-health
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A very important post and so well stated Meegan!!
That we are immeasurably and deeply impacted by world happenings is critical to consider in order to understand our experience. ~ Ru
Thanks Ru. I think this is an area of growing concern for mental health. We need to find more ways to support ourselves and others in what feels like a perilous time.