Mental health and unhappiness

I’m puzzled at the deluge of mental health issues that appear to be taking over an astonishing proportion of the Canadian population. Initially, I blamed it on the pervasive hold social media has on people. Who hasn’t seen couples sitting in a restaurant, each engrossed in their iphones, while ignoring each other. Or worse, seen families sitting for a meal, the parents with their nose in a smart phone and the children left to entertain themselves?

So, I thought, the lack of verbal social engagement is responsible for this epidemic of mental health issues everyone seems to be suffering from these days.

Then I realized, it’s been ages since I’ve heard of anyone being unhappy. Aha, I concluded, people no longer become unhappy, they now have mental health issues.

Think about it, when was the last you heard of someone being unhappy? That conclusion describes nicely the absence of personal responsibility people now take for their failings. If the world doesn’t unfold to their liking, it’s always someone else’s fault, heaven forbid that the result of their unhappiness, oops, I mean mental health issues, should be the result of their own unwise decisions.

You see, in the days when people were unhappy, they were expected to address their unhappiness themselves. If your job was making you unhappy, quit and found a new job, one that made you happy. If a personal relationship was making you unhappy, you would sever the relationship. If the weather was making you unhappy, you moved to a different climate.

But, if the result of your unhappiness is a mental health issue, someone else has to address it. You need to consult with a mental health professional to address and solve your problem.

It’s all part of the modern philosophy of life where you are never personally responsible for any of your life’s misfortunes. In the modern life, it is never your fault if you are unhappy, it’s always someone else’s fault and always someone else’s job to fix your life to relieve you of your unhappiness.

Sadly, the new broad definition of exactly what constitutes mental health does a disservice to those who suffer from what I would term “real mental health issues.” Perhaps those on the unhappiness end of the mental health spectrum would benefit from a bit of tough love like my mother dished out to me when I once complained to her of being unhappy. Her response was, “If you don’t get out from under my feet I’ll give you something to be unhappy about.”

That response, and many similar ones, played a part in raising nine children. Some of us were, at times, unhappy, but none of us suffered from mental health issues. I think she was on to something.

Barry Imhoff St. John’s