Diagnosis "Human"
The fifth Diagnostic and Statistic Manual for diagnosing “mental disorders” is currently in progress, and if a layperson logs into the DSM-V website, there's a place for "suggestions", with five listed categories for suggestions. One of these is "suggestions for a new disorder to be added to the DSM."
When one considers that the DSM is pretty much the be-all-and-end-all Bible of psychiatric diagnoses, that invitation sounds very strange. Nobody gets to “suggest” other types of "diseases"; one has to discover a microbe or isolate a cluster of symptoms. This exposes the fluidity and subjectivity of what many people like to present as a solid, objective science. This invitation to create mental illnesses out of imagination, social stigmas, boredom, thin air or whatever else speaks volumes about our society and the nature of mental illness. While it’s true that some people perceive an alternate reality or experience a state of consciousness that is foreign to most, the problem is that society as a whole has chosen to recognize some of these differences as dangerous or broken rather than a unique experience of individual thought.
Most mental illnesses are seen as disorders because they prevent the person from functioning properly in the social world we have set up for ourselves. People have become so indoctrinated into this reality that they fail to realize almost all of the expectations placed on us are arbitrary and unnatural. If our society had an established place, purpose, or outlet for "mentally ill" behavior, it would become normal. If the majority of the population was bipolar, things would be set up to accommodate them, and those without bipolar "symptoms" would struggle to fit in and understand the world. Is failure to hold up to the expectations of other people really a disorder? What human being is so perfectly adjusted to this world that they may act as a benchmark for "normal"?
Why have we chosen to label certain thought patterns as disorders and not others? Anyone can write a checklist of traits and say "if these apply to you, you have X disorder," but that is meaningless. Homosexuality used to be considered a mental illness but has been removed from the DSM because today it is a more socially acceptable variation on thought patters regarding sex. Did it suddenly become healthier? Medical science does not decide that diseases are no longer such when technological advancements mean that they are not as disabling as they used to be, so why does psychiatry do so?
It is true that people labeled mentally ill may engage in behaviors that are destructive to themselves or others, but people too often assume that these choices stem only from the thought patterns; without considering that the choices may instead be a reaction to the frustration, anger and alienation that are a result of society's refusal to validate those thought patterns. In an interview on Madness Radio, Richard Unger points out that "recovery" rates for mental illness rose significantly in the 1970s and theorizes that it's because during that time, altered or extreme or alternate states of consciousness were more accepted and so the people experiencing them had the opportunity to work through, engage with, and share them.
Normal means only what we allow it to. There is no such thing as standardized, healthy behavior. Labels are arbitrary. When the DSM decides that certain combinations of thought traits constitute mental disorders, it uses a biased, unscientific, and damaging process to create a stigmatizing label and a false condemnation our very humanity. Failure to adhere to the standards put forth by a society-created world is only a disorder because the world does not value or understand the difference. When the global community realizes that "mentally ill" thoughts are simply a variation on human experience, then we will be able to create a society in which alternate consciousnesses are embraced, understood, and guided instead of medicated, punished and pathologized.