Day #13 - Mental Health

This one is primarily to be covered in just a few days, on Day #16 - Pharmaceuticals, but never fear, you know I have more than enough ammunition for both days.

Our mental health in this country is reaching critical levels, according to those who say it is.  The stability of the average American, according to the mental health industry, is in serious doubt.  Stress is at more than record levels, for one.  Thank God we have tons of outlets to reduce it, or we'd more than likely be, the lot of us, in the middle of a massive stroke and heart attack epidemic.  Thanks to all of our phones, tablets, gaming consoles, laptops, desktops and more, we can just launch an Angry Bird, Crush a Candy, match veggies, throw virtual balls of paper at virtual garbage cans, toss Papa Pears at buckets, and Bejewel Jewels to alleviate it, or we'd be in pretty bad shape.  Of course, Candy Crush has been known to stress me out more than normal everyday issues sometimes.  I've already tossed and broken more mice this year than all my other years of owning computers combined.

Anyway!!  Some of these are the ones that tend to scare me:

1.  Depression.  Funny how this by itself is almost now an epidemic.  More people (about 9.5 percent) are diagnosed with what we'll call a "Mood disorder", every year.  Wow.  NOTE:  this baby promised to be the LEADING cause of mental disorders in the very near future.

2.  ADD/ADHD/ODD/ETC.  11% of children who are 4-17 years of age.  Again, I say, wow.  Used to be that "Kids will be Kids"...now, they have ADD.

3.  Bi-Polar Disorder - 2.6% of 25 and older.

4.  Chemical Imbalance - 10%, 6 yrs. of age and older.

5.  Altzheimers and Dementia - 1 in 3 seniors.  Every 67 seconds someone is diagnosed with these. 33%!!!

6.  Dysthymic - 1.5%

7.  Schizophrenia - 1.1%

8.  Anxiety Disorder - 18.8% over 18 yrs. old.

9.  Panic Disorder - 2.7% over 18

10.  PTSD - 3.5% over 18

11.  Generalized Anxiety Disorder - 3.1% over 18

12.  Social Phobia - 6.8 percent over 18

13.  OCD - 1.0%

14.  Agoraphobia - 0.8%

15.  Specific Phobias - 8.7%

16.  Eating Disorders - 4.8%

17.  Autism and Aspberger's....Undeterminable

18.  Anti-social personality disorders - 1.0 percent (I'd say this figure is widely debatable)

19.  Avoidant Personality Disorder - 5.2%

20.  Borderline Personality Disorder - 1.6% (I'm thinking they needed just "One more category" here so they could pin us down with a nice even round number of mental disorders...sheesh.)

Crazy huh?  No, no, I didn't mean you.  And there's even more of these.  I barely scratched the lottery ticket.

According to the experts, America, we as its citizens suffer at a rate of 26.2%, as far as diagnosed mental disorders, or 1 in 4.  What's wrong with this picture?  Hmmmmmmm..........

OK, let's look at the fact that Pharmaceutical companies practically own this country.  The American average of pills we take for....whatever!!...13 pills per person, PER DAY.  13!!  Count 'em. 1, 2, 3, 4,....13!!!!!!  Unfreekin'believable.  You're lucky to find 2 aspirin in my hands, America,  in a given month.  Seriously?  If it gets to the point where I have to take an arsenal of pills to keep going in this crummy thing called life in this crummy country?  I plan to jump off of the nearest killing spot I can find.  1....out of 4....no wonder we have police brutality problem!  1 out of 4 cops are CRAZY!!

And you know, I gotta say it.  The more people that you tell that they're nutso, the more are gonna believe it.  Oh, first, they'll take their pills.  Then they'll stop, and because of their dependency on these pills to be normal, and because doctors are telling them they'll be normal taking these pills...well, when they go off of these medications, that either might, more so, be the cause of a misdiagnosis, a mistake in dosage, or just plain "Pushin' the pill for the pharmaceutical companies?  Next thing ya  know, they're shooting up the local mall.  And we wonder what the hell happened.  "How could this happen...??"  Isn't it obvious America?

Crazy.  Crazy my keester!!  You're not crazy.  At least the better part of you diagnosed that way, anyway.  It's just another point of view!!!!!!  Another way of thinking.  There's nothing wrong with you!  40 years ago, there was very little mental diagnosis.  Funny how things change.  If you're diagnosed, and treated with a handful of pills, you can very much blame the pills you're taking, more than the way you used to be before your diagnosis, believe it.

Can't believe I made it!!  Halfway...Oh, but the best is yet to arrive.  Heck, I might have to do ANOTHER 26, because I keep thinking of more subjects every letter I pass.  Day 14 promises to be just as wunnerful.