Being Anxious or Sad Does Not Make You Mentally Ill
By Arthur C. Brooks for The Atlantic
If you have recently been told that you have a mental-health malady such as depression or anxiety, you are far from alone. The rates at which these diagnoses are being made have exploded over the past few years.
The coronavirus outbreak and its associated lockdowns isolated people, causing widespread increases in feelings of loneliness and distress, which still persist. But some studies have shown that the phenomenon began before the pandemic, so other reasons for it must exist as well. One commonly identified factor is excessive social-media use, which can substitute for in-person relationships, intensify social comparison, and elevate loneliness. Still another reason (which I have written about previously) is the increase in political polarization, which can lead people to hate one another—feelings of depression and anxiety are elevated in those who direct hatred toward out-groups.
But one other explanation is emerging for the huge increase in population-wide estimates of mental-health diagnoses: the tendency to see stress and sadness as evidence that something is broken inside you. For many who have them, of course, anxiety and depression are medical problems that absolutely require treatment. But other cases exist for which we may have inadvertently pathologized perfectly healthy emotions—leading many people to believe they are ill simply because they’re reacting normally to the challenges in their lives.
Here are three things to remember, especially in your lower moments.
1. We are all anxious and sad.
Decades ago, the researcher Christopher Boorse uncovered a seemingly strange fact: By the ordinary criteria for mental disorders, the population at large is no less disturbed than the population of clinical patients. In truth, this isn’t so strange when we recall that distress is a dial, not a switch, and no one’s dial is at zero. The first Noble Truth of Buddhism is, after all, dukkha—that everyone suffers and suffering is part of the world. But forgetting this is easy when you’re told that you have a specific mental condition, and when you feel isolated and alone in your pain.
You are not defective simply for feeling distress.
2. The goal is not to eradicate suffering.
It is normal and healthy to want relief from your suffering, but futile and dangerous to try to eradicate all of your pain. Think of it this way: When you have a headache, you want a Tylenol to take the edge off, but not narcotics strong enough to numb you completely. Emotional self-management—through meditation or prayer, or with the help of therapy—is like Tylenol, so that you can regain a bit more comfort and control.
3. Your happiness requires unhappiness.
The 20th-century self-improvement writer Norman Vincent Peale wrote a wildly best-selling book called The Power of Positive Thinking, in which he exhorted readers to start each day by reciting Psalm 118:24: “This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.” As a young man, I sometimes did this and gave thanks for the positive, happy things in my life as I did so. Today, I realize this was too narrow a reading of that verse. The psalmist is not saying “Be grateful for the fun stuff” but rather “Be grateful for all of it.” That means both the fun parts I want and the hard parts I need, so that I stay alert, mourn loss, learn, and grow.
Read the full article here.