Indicator Species

We need a new conversation in this country about the cause of mental health problems. The rate at which Americans are being diagnosed with psychiatric disorders and taking psychiatric medications has skyrocketed into crisis, and the simplistic notion that biology determines behavior is quietly altering our conceptions of humanity.

To be sure, digging up the roots of what gets called mental illness is an epic journey without many clear answers. It is impossible to separate individuals from their surroundings, so it is impossible to discern exactly which experiences and interactions lead to emotional and mental extremes.

However, one thing is clear: as long as the culture around us is broken, individuals will break, a process that is proportional and growing. Certainly, if we eliminated abuse, war, greed, racism, sexism, broken families, ecocide, monotonous wage labor and egoism, we would see a massive reduction in what gets called mental illness. But these bigger picture problems are overwhelming and require an enormous responsibility from all of us to fundamentally change, so instead they are often cast into the background in favor of blaming an individual’s brain or genes.

Thus, we are ‘Depressed’ not because the world is being destroyed while we sell our hours to mindless routines, but because our brains are too weak to handle it. We are ‘ADHD’ not because our culture slams us with an average of 3000 media messages a day, but because our brains are too weak to handle it. We are ‘Borderline’ not because we were beaten and neglected by our parents, but because our brains are too weak to handle it. We are ‘Schizophrenic’ and ‘Bipolar’ not because we were traumatized or overwhelmed by the madness of our society, but because our brains are too weak to handle it.

Instead of taking a ruthless moral inventory of our culture, families, societies, economics, religions, education systems, and pointing the finger outwards, we do it of and to ourselves, and now of and to our biology. Choosing to drink alcohol is a disease. Shopping compulsively is a disorder. An inability to solve math equations is criteria for a medical diagnosis. Everyone is mentally ill – that is, every individual except the sum of our parts.

Along this line of thinking, I have come to perceive most people labeled with major mental illness as an “indicator species.” This term is borrowed from the environmental movement, which applies it to those species who are acting abnormally or dying because of climate change. Many people labeled with mental illness are also indicating on an individual level much more collective problems. Through their innate sensitivities, they are penetrated by the dysfunctions of our culture until they inhabit them.

Thus, instead of separating traumatized people into categories of abnormal psychology, we should be listening to their stories as reflections of ourselves. We can then begin a dialogue that roots out mental health problems from their sources and addresses them holistically. This process would entail envisioning what healthy families, healthy communities, and healthy cultures look like, then framing the suffering of people who are most afflicted as an indication of whether or not those ideals are being met.

Of course, diagnosing traumatized people with brain diseases, controlling them with medication and soulless therapies, then warehousing them into mini-institutions is the easier option. In today’s America, where truths of hardship are often buried beneath the promise of consumerism and capital, most people prefer not to face the complexities of rape, violence, and community breakdown. It’s called denial, and it works – as long as the people who are oppressed remain voiceless.

But people labeled with psychiatric diagnoses are organizing and rising. We are finding our voices and making harmonies outside the dominant tune. Some of us are no longer willing to submit to other people’s explanations of our existence, yet we are also taking personal responsibility to live well. In a decade, many of the millions of children who are now forced to take powerful medications will join us, and there will be an outcry too loud to ignore.

In the meantime, let us start a new conversation in this country about mental health that weaves people who break down into the interconnected fabric of American life. And please, ask us to define our experiences and needs, not the ‘experts’ on us.