Discussion How much are depression and other mental illnesses linked to modern society?

[Forever Sleep]

I've just read an interesting post including a poem by a suicidal Ancient Egyptian:

Ancient Egyptian text debating suicide (ca. 1900 BC)

Dialogue of a man with his soul: "To whom can I speak today? (One's) fellows are evil; The friends of today do not love. To whom can I speak today? Hearts are rapacious: Every man seizes his fellow's goods. (To whom can I speak today?) The gentle man has perished, (But) the violent...

sanctioned-suicide.net

Do you suppose he was suffering from depression? How would depression differ hundreds of years ago to how it looks now? Would it be the same? How similar is depression to something like a virus you catch or a hereditary illness you develop? In the majority of cases, is there a trigger in the person's living situation?

Do you suppose depression and mental illness is more prevalent in the modern age? Do you think certain developments have triggered certain illnesses?

With the constant bombardment of media, busy lifestyles, fast paced and short videos, it doesn't really surprise me that our attention spans are f*cked. Did ADHD even exist hundreds of years ago do you suppose?

Even in my lifetime, we had children in the class that were described as 'special needs'. They required more help with English and Maths. But, I don't remember children being overly disruptive, hyper- beyond an excited level or violent. All three of which do seem more prevalent now- according to teachers I've known.

What do you suppose is causing it? I think we were more afraid of authority generally when I was young. Not everyone of course, there were still one or two rebels but, the majority of us would comply. Can lifestyle shifts create more triggers for mental illness do you suppose?

Of course, it's not like it didn't exist before. Considering people were bundled off to asylums for all sorts of reasons. Maybe we just have more terms for things now.

I think also there is a reverse shift of (some) people even wanting diagnoses. Maybe to garner sympathy or respect that despite their afflictions, they succeeded. Or, maybe as (legitimate) excuses as to why they didn't.

 

[Hvergelmir]

Did ADHD even exist hundreds of years ago do you suppose?

Yes, but I don't think that there was much reason to acknowledge it.

Not that long ago, if you could pull potatoes from the ground, and feed cattle, you could be a productive member of society. The requirements and the competition have changed drastically.
As society gets more refined, I think more people will need help to adapt. Those people must be labeled, in order for help to be distributed.

I hope for some kind of cultural shift or new industry, but I'm not sure what that would look like.

In my country, the state helps companies that can offer jobs to people who are unable to get a normal job. I'm unsure about the detailed, but I've seen them do bike maintenance, tending to animals, and some recycling work, that probably wouldn't be profitable under normal circumstances.

 

[itsgone2]

Not that long ago, if you could pull potatoes from the ground, and feed cattle, you could be a productive member of society. The requirements and the competition have changed drastically.
As society gets more refined, I think more people will need help to adapt. Those people must be labeled, in order for help to be distributed.

Yeah the world has become increasingly complex. And now automation and ai and global cheap labor are competing against everyone. Mergers keep burning me. It's getting hopeless in many industries. Small communities living off the land seems so much better in hindsight.

 

[scarystrawberry]

I know that mental illnesses like schizophrenia are more likely to manifest in different ways depending on the culture you live in. And I doubt eating disorders in the 1600s were represented the same as they are now. Culture, time, and place definitely impact how mental illness manifests itself and how much it will inhibit your daily life. So I think it still existed, but how it presented itself was probably very different.

 

[heywey]

I think mental illness is a direct result of modern society, or rather the name we've given to the symptoms of our innate incompatibilities with it. Take ADHD -- for most of human history, a child being energetic and active, unable to sit in place for eight hours a day, was healthy and positive. Yet those same behaviors that made someone well-suited to labor and subsistence living are considered errant in the heavily socialized and higher-function-oriented world of today.

The more directly negative mental illnesses -- depression and so on -- are generally the same, only the link to the underlying predispositions being violated is more opaque. Which isn't to say there aren't those who would be depressed regardless of environment, at any point in history, but I do think it's a minority; it's not like the sharp rise in mental illness over the past few decades just happened spontaneously. I do believe though that the traits that lead to the majority of depression (et al) diagnoses today tended to manifest in far less damaging ways in the past. Less damaging to oneself, at least.