Good morning @Fredd50
Thank you for your post yesterday, it made me cry (in a good way).
I am finally in the headspace to answer you post. I am hoping for a better day today. I've been mindful of doing activities in the last few days to make me feel better.
You're right about young people, but not only young people. The disconnection from nature is a long standing issues for people. I am not old and grey, but I still grew up with grandparents who were self sustainable and I definitely knew where the eggs, milk and the meat came from that ended up on my table. And that almost everything of an animal is edible and should be eaten. I believe that the old way of life, where you learnt from your parents or grandparents most certainly beats youtube. Side comment: I don't use the internet to learn things like knitting, I rather ask, I am not sure if that's laziness, but it suits me.
The pressure you describe of the young has always been, both my grandfathers fought in the WW2 and my parents were born at the end of the war living within destruction and raised by traumatised parents. But when I look back at my parents and even my early adult years, where there was no internet, decisions were made in a small intimate circle and not for the world to judge. Nowadays a lot of people make all of their life public. And you are right, the commercial pressure, not only in our jobs, but filtered through in our lives, is pushing us to breaking point and leaving us no where to go, disconnected from the cycle of life.
I am actually not sure if we have past the point of no return. There are movements to get back to nature, become a vegan, live slow etc. but all these have gatekeepers and rules if you want to be a part of it. But I guess society has always been like that. I had to live the bling world of the internet. As a high achiever I found myself caught in the process of showing the bling and the pressures I had put on myself to hide my parts, eventually broke me down, very gently at first and then there was a huge crash and I haven't recovered even after years of help.
Your experience in your young years with a psychiatrist sounds horrible. I've gone through some awful therapists and psychiatrists, but the ones I have now listen and calling things symptoms is more to help me understand that my conditioning as a very young child throught to young adulthood had an imense impact on my brain's development and the weird and wonderful ways I interpret the world.
I can understand your view of labelling people and letting them pop pills, but I was told straight from Day 1, that medication would only assist and therapy was of essence. Accepting that I needed help has taken a long time (and still does). I wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for unhealthy coping skills and an excessive drive to perform in my younger years and in the past few years professional support. When I'm very unwell, my support team calls it 'keeping me alive'. That's their only goal then. Until I feel a little better. So if I can notice signs of 'keeping alive' time coming, I try to change things. So in some ways I can understand your view that it's bad when 'crying' is labeled 'depression', but on the other hand we cannot go back on all the years we've been fighting stigma. Mentally ill people need recognition and need to be protected.
One thing that really helps me is that some of my parts are accepting guidance from my professional team and that can help steer through dangerous times and also helps in therapy. Other parts are either ignorant or aggressive and when it's "their turn" little progress is possible. I know the part that is writing now, I understand I cannot call my other parts good or bad parts. But I am very tired after writing this. It literally feels like other parts pushing to get access to parts in my brain and my head gets tired and I close my eyes (which I've done since starting this paragraph), so I know it's time to go.
I hope you have a good weekend @Fredd50 and I will be back online when I can.
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