I was having a chat with a friend and fellow steemian @perceptualflaws on mental illness and the causes of depression. Oh btw you should check out his work. Guy makes the most well written and ascetically eye pleasing posts. Makes my posts look like walked in dog shit. But I digress. Our conversation reminded me of an issue I wanted to brush on.
The normalization of mental illness.
There's no doubt there has been a significant increase in mental illness in our society. But this is by no means is a natural phenomenon that is occurring.
"In any given year, 1 in 5 Canadians experiences a mental health or addiction problem."
"By the time Canadians reach 40 years of age, 1 in 2 have – or have had – a mental illness." - source
This is a direct result of our piss poor lifestyles taking their toll. Poisonous food, daily exposure to a countless amount of chemicals in our products, EMF (Electromagnetic frequency) radiation, exposure to toxic heavy metals cough cough chemtrails cough, the increased amount of electronic device usage. The list could go on.
Don't get me wrong, some of it is of no fault of those afflicted. The issue I have here is the complacency or acceptance of our current trend. In fact, it often becomes a pissing contest of who is more fucked in the head than the other.
So what's going on here? Is it that we are getting used to mental illness as just a part of our lives Or are we being pushed into that perception of normality . I'm talking about pushers like the Bell Canada's "Let's talk" campaign who every year encourages people to talk about their mental issues in the open. Offering to donate 0.05¢ 'to research' for every long distance call, text and social media post using the hashtag "BellLetsTalk"
Now to be perfectly honest, I don't think it's entirely bad to motivate people to discuss their mental problems (with others in private). Just because something has a deeper agenda attached to it, it doesn't mean it can't also have a positive impact as well. But let's be clear this is a very subtle way of manipulating the public perception.
It's like "Look how fucked up everyone is, just like you!" "You're just normal, the new normal"
No! Fuck no! It's not normal, it's not ok and fuck off bell! I'm not telling you about my mental issues! I want to fix the issues, clean people's diets and help them to recognize the things that are poisoning them daily.
Another point I'd like to make. Why are we trusting Bell with such private information? Don't think you're not getting tagged and profiled, every time you devulge personal information of a sensitive matter about yourself and slapping their hashtag on it?
It's a mistake to think that companies like Bell are motivated by anything other than money and power. That's all big corporations care about.
Oh! They just care soooo much! I feel so warm and fuzzy insides after watching that.
http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/health/bell-employees-stressed-by-sales-targets-1.4418876
If bell doesn't care about their own employees' mental health. What leads us to believe they care about Canadians mental health. They see us as nothing more than walking pockets of cash and this is clearly nothing more than a PR move that has gone on for far too long.
Reminds me a lot of the 'pink ribbon' breast cancer foundation. They claim to help to spread awareness, but it's not awareness, it's conditioning us to see cancer as 'normal'. If they wanted to help they wouldn' be aligning themselves with companies such as Pepsi and KFC and numerous other companies whos products are proliferators of cancer. If they cared about breast cancer victims, they would be speaking out against these companies.
"Researchers are already warning us that all of this binge-watching and Instagramming is making us unhappier. People who binge watch television are more likely to have anxiety and depression (though the former doesn’t necessarily cause the latter). Even the light from these devices' screens could be making it harder to sleep.
Maybe no one wants to talk about it because you make it seem so normal – even though we are spending increasing amounts of time on screens instead of exercising or connecting to people, pets and the environment in real life."
source
look what I'm trying to say here is that normalizing illness of any kind is not the way we need to go. By playing into these corporations bullshit PR stunts, we are only hurting ourselves. We shouldn't be asking who? But why! Why are we so sick? I know why and I think you probably know too.
If Bell really cared about the mental health of its customers and everyone else. Their campaign would be "Bell's Let's talk why"
Thanks for reading. Let's me know what your thoughts are and leave a comment below.
