‘Mental illness’ is, arguably, just a form of reaction, rebellion, against systems of oppression.
Mental illness= a normal response to an abnormal society.
Dr. Gabor Maté
It therefore makes sense that people who are in minority ‘categories’, whether that be in terms of race, sexuality, gender, (dis)ability (anything that sees one being oppressed), are more likely to be diagnosed with a mental illness compared to their ‘normal’ (i.e., white, cishet, able-bodied) counterparts. Why? Because, people who go against the grain in their refusal to conform are seen as a threat to the idealised version of society that keeps capitalism upheld.
‘Better to just label them as mentally ill so as not to let their ideas gain traction’, as the two examples below highlight…
1) Queer women are much more likely to be diagnosed with BPD than straight women.
When BPD is characterised by impulsive behaviour, uncertainty about oneself, and relationship difficulties, the fact that queer people are disproportionately diagnosed with BPD compared to their heterosexual counterparts makes one question;
Is queerness being dismissed as ‘uncertainty’, a symptom of BPD, the age-old ‘it’s just a phase’ trope making a comeback?
(as though it ever left)…
When queer is ‘the cohesion of everything in conflict with the heterosexual capitalist world/a total rejection of the regime of the normal’, really it should come as no surprise that homosexuality was (/still is, in some countries) considered a mental illness. Perceived as being a ‘threat’ to the patriarchal, heteronormative society under which capitalism thrives, it’s why conversion therapy was (and again, still is, in some countries) used in a desperate attempt to ‘cure’ people from their homosexuality. Anything to uphold the system, however oppressive (seemingly, the more oppressive the better) that system is…
2) Black men are at least three times more likely to be diagnosed with severe mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, compared to white men.
(&, of those who are diagnosed, they [black men] are four times more likely to be sectioned and given medication over talking therapy than white men).
With the acknowledgement of such disparities comes the question, why?…
As in the whole nature VS nurture debate, the question that we should be asking is this:
Is the increased rate of mental illness diagnoses amongst marginalised groups as a result of such people genuinely being more likely to struggle with their mental health- due to societal/cultural factors, perhaps (e.g., discrimination/segregation/marginalisation), or is it due to preconceived ideas/stereotypes that we, including the health care professionals whom are responsible for diagnoses, have towards such people, (e.g., ‘same-sex attraction is a phase’, ‘black men are dangerous’), meaning that they are disproportionately diagnosed with mental health conditions which, in many cases, they might not even have.
Are they really a threat to themselves and/or others, or are they a threat to a capitalist utopia?…
Even more important to ask then, is not what causes mental ill health amongst the marginalised in society, but whether the ‘mental health condition’ is there at all…
‘It’s not about disproportionate diagnoses amongst marginalised groups, but misdiagnoses- this is what I am interested in uncovering the prominence of.’
How much of it is a genuine mental illness, VS how much of it is prejudice* towards the person being diagnosed?…
*’Prejudice’ which sees, whether directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, people who do not follow the ‘norms’ being reminded of their position- the fact that they sit firmly ‘outside of the box’- everywhere, in everything, all the time…
From the things that we are taught in school- PSHE lessons that fervently remind queer people that they are not ‘normal’, (via the teaching of sex education solely focused on heterosexual relations, and the importance of the nuclear family), to the things that we are taught in history, a curriculum which has historically (pardon the pun) excluded much of black history, it should come as no surprise that we are impacted by this sense of ‘othering’ in adulthood, with people being diagnosed with every mental health condition under the sun…
But, to pose the question again, how much of it is genuine?
How much of it is about helping them, the patient who is supposedly mentally ill, to recover, VS how much of it is about helping THEM, the leaders, to keep capitalism in place?…
How much of it is about ‘#profits over people’, the Tory way, whereby, through our corrupted thinking (owing to a heteronormative society which promotes the ideological image of the heterosexual, nuclear, homogamous family as the ‘be all and end all’), we, again, whether directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, judge people who do not align with that ideal, thus keeping the systematic cycle of oppression going?…
The good news though is that we are not ‘trapped’ in this cycle. Where everything is learnt, so too can everything be unlearnt.
The first step to unlearning is to acknowledge that the society within which we live is corrupt in the first place. Only then can we take steps to correct the corruptness, stop the discrimination, and let everyone just live their lives however they want to.
I am not ‘mentally ill’, I am mentally, physically, sick of living under systems of oppression…
For society to change, we each must individually commit to change, for no one is going to do it for us. When the authority figures, the government, the world leaders, benefit from everyone being on the ‘straight and narrow’, discrimination and segregation of people who rebel will not change whilst ever we give them the power to dictate our lives.
It’s bad enough that the government govern our lives, don’t let them govern your mind, too.
How ironic it is that the people whom are most likely to rebel from capitalism/to ‘forge their own way in life’ are disproportionately (mis)diagnosed as being mentally ill, yet it is these very people who are arguably the only sane ones amidst a society governed by money hungry, would-be-totalitarian sociopaths…
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