I was wondering about the history of mental health or rather its categorization as such and not as madness, black magic, superstition etc. So I started doing a little digging and it took me down the rabbit hole centuries back. I don’t know how articulately I will be able to talk about the history of mental health and mental illness but I would like to take a stab at it. 

This post will talk about the present and also serve as a bit of an overview on mental illness. In the later post I will delve a little into the past and attempt to touch upon mental health mentioned in the Vedas, and its findings in Greece and other places. 

The Present

I’ll start with today since that is what I know most and best about. I was diagnosed with Bipolar II Disorder when I was 18; as anyone who has read our blog knows. How did that come about? It wasn’t overnight. It simmered for five years until one day, one trigger and boom I had a psychotic break. 

When I think back to my late teens now, I suspect that the excessive partying and socializing was probably a phase of my illness. Possibly a symptom because once the storm settled and the medication started to kick in, I started feeling more settled, quieter and less frantic. I don’t say that as a bad thing.

How did our family physician know it was some kind of mental illness when I had my psychotic break? Was it the symptoms? All I can recall is being curled up in a ball, trembling and crying uncontrollably. The doctor must have seen something else that made him reach the conclusion that this was some form of depression and that I needed immediate help.

I was hospitalized that day for the first time and stamped with the red letter. Fortunately, I wasn’t born early in the last century or anytime before that because who knows what would have been done to me. Sure, having a mental illness is hard and requires a lot of work everyday but my predecessors had it much worse. It is as recent as the late 1800s that mentally ill patients were humanized. 

Research, Therapy, Hospitals, Psychiatrists

Our doctor must have known it was a mental illness because by the time he went to medical school, psychiatry was a subject, even though there wasn’t as much clarity on the different types of mental illnesses. 

Today we have therapists, psychiatrists, medicines, advanced treatments like ketamine therapy, (which I currently take), entire clinics and hospitals dedicated to psychiatric treatment. There is a plethora of research going on globally around psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience as well as medical trials to understand this very complicated area of mental illness. 

Why then do we still have so many undiagnosed, untreated mentally ill people? Mental illness is a spectrum and a large one. On one hand there’s a person with anxiety and on the other maybe a serial killing psychopath. Many many diagnosed patients refuse to take medicines due to a number of reasons. They may include the stigma around taking medicines for mental health, losing the high or euphoria some feel during a manic phase, anxiety about side effects, fear of dependency on the medication or sometimes even access and affordability. 

Societal Pressure 

This is where society and history play a role. We will notice a psychopathic killer or even someone who is depressed but we will not notice or acknowledge someone with severe anxiety. Why is that? Surely mental illness is not a new thing. Time and culture have a lot to do with perception of behaviour. If it did not or does not fit into the perceived norms dictated by society at the time, it is considered inappropriate, ignored or one pretends that it doesn’t exist. In the past, of course, far worse things happened to people with mental illness, like caging or believing them to be witches and other cruel punishments. 

Today, most people are aware that there is such a thing as mental illness somewhere out there in the universe. However, when it comes to them or their close ones a lot of people don’t want to acknowledge or accept it. They give in to societal norms, like one of the favourite questions in our Indian culture, “What will people say?”

Disclaimer

If you are experiencing the symptoms mentioned above, please contact a mental health professional immediately. 

I am not a mental health professional. All blog posts are based on my subjective experiences and opinions.