Sickness epidemic
We're not fine. Just look at friends and family to realize it. Cases of stress, anxiety and depression have increased in recent years and mental health departments are saturated with patients. As if it were not enough, research has shown that for the first time we will live worse than our parents' generation. Where will the wonderful future be that they wished us? Where is continued progress?
Actually, the decline in mental health is not surprising. For example, given the incapacity of emancipation of young people, or the deterioration of living conditions, the hegemonic discourse imposes responsibility on each individual. That is why guilt is the most widespread feeling today. Conversely, the growth in the depressive rate, which has grown by 86.6% since 2017, is directly related to the widespread feeling of no future and the extension of self-help. As far as the former is concerned, the disastrous effects of the climate crisis, for example, may be a source of discomfort. But when it comes to self-help, it has to be said that it is a mindset that favours capitalism. Because it promotes the need to be productive at all times and defends that every event is in the hands of the individual. That is, “if you have back pain after eight hours sitting at work is because you don’t do sports or because at the time you didn’t make too much effort to have a better job.”
Given the incapacity of emancipation of young people, or the deterioration of living conditions, the hegemonic discourse imposes responsibility on each individual. Guilt is the most widespread feeling today.
Nor can we forget the damage caused by social networks, influencers and the time of coaching. I am aware that there are content that offers very interesting content, and that is why we should thank those that allow the democratisation of knowledge. However, many of them present us with many problems. On the one hand, the speed of continuous information increases the level of anxiety, as is the case of the increased diagnoses of Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD). Secondly, videos or posts displaying new products (clothing, makeup, travel…) promote the consumer society, i.e. they foster an unsustainable attitude and increase social inequalities. Thirdly, we must highlight the usual messages of coincidence with lean and muscular canons, in which, besides reducing our self-esteem, it is very difficult to enter, increasing the rate of diagnoses of eating disorders.
Faced with all this unease, capitalist society has a clear solution: pharmacology. That is, since the origin of the discomfort is located in the individual, it is decided to “cure” each individual through drugs. Therefore, in the face of widespread suffering, although the examples mentioned above point to a sociopolitical origin, it is decided to treat them individually. Therefore, it is only done to alleviate the discomfort, as the holes of a swollen with patches are covered.
First of all, it is time to politicise and collectively manage discomfort. Diseases with social roots can only be solved socially. So instead of trying to silence suffering with pills, we should consider it as an indicator of a dangerous and harmful context. That is, if we understand that discomfort is a resource we have to point out “those who are wrong”, the key to transforming the world will be closer than we think. And you, are you OK?
Olaia Salazar Urrutia, Philosophy Student
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