I'm Not Okay and Neither Are You: Insights on Our Diagnostically Amok Society

By Walter Sanders Jr.

This work has been done to help in the appreciation of the new wave toward labeling or mental-health diagnosis. If you have gone to the provider for headaches but came away with a mental-health diagnosis, or even having experienced anxiety from the loss of an employment opportunity, only to discover you are bipolar? This is the book for you.

This is written with a half of an edge of humor with very serious undertones. The question in this book is, why? Why over diagnosis? Why the need for consistent and continuous medication? Is it due to pharmaceutical persuasion from overzealous marketing? What? I will examine some and more of these issues in this small piece that speaks to a very real importance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662400506

Book preview

Chapter One

Assertations

Social mores and value systems have evolved so extensively in the last sixty years as to effectively and, for all intentions, eradicate any and all semblance of classification where mental health is concerned (that is, in the mild or moderate domains, of course). For example, the gentle term neurosis as a descriptive element for those who were maybe odd, or troubled with their cognitive approaches, has long been abandoned, along with the psychiatric term hysteria, which was essentially the catch-all phase that covered a wide range of diagnosis, especially where the female gender was concerned. Now we have a hodgepodge of conditions, ailments, abnormalities and irregularities, and of course, disorders that don’t seem to exempt anyone. Now we finally live in a society where everyone is sick. The question simply is, how sick is too sick?

The diagnostic criteria for mental illness, as detailed in the Diagnostic Manual of Mental Health, determines that any number or variety of symptoms, over specific periods of time, that impede or prohibit an individual from functioning at full capacity in a family, environmental, or social system is indicative or symptomatic of a mental disorder. Additionally, an inability to procure and maintain basic physical needs, pursue desires, or adequately convey appropriate emotional response to situations represents symptoms of an even-graver diagnosis. We need, at this time, to take a look at a few developmental processes.

Science (and simple observation) has determined that man is, by nature, a gregarious creature. All vital survival information, not absorbed by the five—some say six—senses is amassed via the nurturing garnered with the experiences of human affiliations. The primary nurturing mechanism is the family, where fundamental learning takes place. Then there is the extended family and the direct environment—the community. Of course, institutions like schools and churches play a significant role in the development of learning, appropriate emotional display, moral constitution, and value formation. All these things are prerequisites for memory imprintation, which in turn determines preferences and finally behavior.

The simple explanation of stimulus and response as it pertains to conditioning helps to reinforce those behaviors that contribute to the fitness of the human organism. The old hand on the hot stove analogy works wonders for the power of clarity in the principles of conditioning and reinforcement. No PhD is required for this most-basic behavioral appreciation; common sense will do just fine.

Moving from the immediate danger of the hot stove (which could be life-threatening) to the intermediate dangers lurking in inappropriate behaviors (which could be socially threatening), we must first determine our pecking order in the primary family. After all, how we start out may very well determine how far we are going and how difficult our journey will be.

In other words, if we are the big brother, we must learn the responsibilities of the big brother and his role in the family. If we are the little brother, we must learn how to adequately take advantage of the big brother’s guilt and perceived responsibilities. The family is the first group by which our incentives, motivations, and behaviors are nurtured. After we gain comfort and knowledge of how to navigate through the personality maze of our primary family, we are ready for the next step, our environment, so we find another group in which to immerse ourselves and further hone our social