(ThyBlackMan.com) This article is not one to tell you some secret remedy to overcome your struggles with anxiety or depression. The harsh reality for most is they will succumb to their battle with the “blues.”
Unbeknownst to them, the society we have created is one that breeds mental illness. America’s struggle with mental illness is due to the structure of our society that is turning its citizens seemingly mad.
There are numerous reasons for mental illness — genetics, stressful environment, infections, brain damage, and substance abuse. However, the medical industry fails to acknowledge the greatest catalyst amongst Americans: our society.
Our fast-paced culture is one of a never-ending need for more, often a futile competition entrenched in selfishness and discontentment. Be honest — how many of you have a car, yet feel sad or even mad because you yearn for a more expensive automobile? This distorted 
thinking is a mental illness. The economic disparity between Americans constantly creates jealousy and a sense of inferiority amongst neighbors. You have a beautiful, safe apartment or house, but Joe up the street has a mansion.
Success is no longer acceptable – only extreme success is.
Our young are not spared from the draining stress of the bigger is better ideology governing our land. Anxiety and depression have affected children and teenagers at an alarming rate. This is due to the competitive nature of our society and the media’s and adults’ praise of extreme accomplishments. Athletics and academics coupled with the strain of teenage life has left too many teenagers utilizing suicide as an escape.
According to recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics, suicide is the second leading cause of death for American citizens age 10-24. This statistic crosses all racial and economic demographics. Our culture of bigger and better, idealizing the next media phenomenon has created an environment in which no one and nothing is ever good enough.
This psyche is evident in the people we praise. Kobe Bryant ‘The Black Mamba’ has acknowledged himself that he is a ‘psychopath’ whose hunger for success can never be quenched. Any psychologist would tell you after all of Kobe’s accolades and accomplishments, he still feels he had not accomplished much. What is enough, then?
In no way am I promoting slothfulness, laziness, or lack of ambition. We simply need to bring some balance in our unbalanced society.
While at the gym one day, I spoke to a gentleman who owns one of the few independent pharmacies in the area. He asked me what I think are the best-selling medications. I replied, “Hypertension, diabetes, and cholesterol.” He laughed and said, “Anxiety pills and sleeping medications.”
Americans are at the mercy of our corporate-run state that has created an inhumane environment for us to live in, coupled with the poisonous foods we are given to eat. Our fast-paced lives are destroying us physically and mentally at an alarming rate. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older, or 18% of the population. I believe this estimate is extremely low due to the disenfranchised people who are never acknowledged accurately when health information is collected. The increase in the attention given to anxiety is due to the profits gained from providing medication and its effects on White Americans.
A study released late last year by Princeton academics Anne Case and Angus Deaton who won the 2014 Nobel prize for Economics, revealed that the death rate for white Americans aged 45 to 54 has risen sharply since 1999 after declining for decades. The 20% increase from 1999 to 2013 represents about a half a million lives cut short.
The problem that many White Americans are facing is an inability to deal with stress due to generations of financial stability. Stress is debilitating to all human beings, though African Americans have been dealing with it so long, they have managed to cope with it better than their Caucasian brethren. Numerous White Americans are going through an immense change in lifestyle.. They are experiencing what life has been like for most African Americans for centuries and unfortunately many cannot handle the pressures of a horrible job market, inflation, no retirement, unaffordable tuition fees, high health care costs, and destruction of family due to lack of financial resources, drug addiction, and mental illness.
Americans must change their ways or we may have a society emotionally and spiritually crippled depending on medication to get through the day.
Hold on.
It appears that we are already there.
Staff Writer; Linton Hinds Jr.
Official website; http://Livity.info/
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