Political Perspectives, Policies, Outcomes and Effects Relating to Mental Health Issues. {Please keep to topic}

I'd like to offer an explanation for less documentation on Biden derangement @chibam . Biden's just not that charismatic. Very much a place-holder president. Or a compromise candidate.

Having said that you'd think that some bias would come into play, depending on the institutions.

I think most "leftists" would also say the "left" is deranged about something. However we would argue a lot about what that derangement is.

You're broader question, I find truly interesting. Synthesis is pretty essential for me.

Your rant is my rant @AussieRecharger .

Our community funding models tend to only kick in after they fail. We blame the victims we create before we even create them.

Wherever you are on any social or economic spectrum, you'd have to agree*, it's incredibly wasteful.

*You must agree. YOU MUST.

I agree @tyme and @HenryX . These are important subjects we have to talk about in the greater context of advocacy. But, if we're gonna go there, we better 1. Play nice and 2. Stay on topic.

If we do those 2 things, we'll get heaps more sorted out. I'm here for this.

You're so right on so many levels @MDT . I'd even go further and say Mental Health is only one of the footballs being kicked around. I won't make an extensive list, but anyone who's vulnerable can be kicked around the political field.

You're observations are really circling the nature of antagonism itself. Humans are kind of hard-wired to focus on vulnerability and protection. It's, I guess, our weakness and our strength.

When humans play games, we want to win with a big safety margin. When computers play games they just want to win. They don't care by how much. As someone with anxiety related issues, that's really useful information to me. I think it also says a lot about our political process. Too much to expand upon, off the top of my head, really.

@HenryXI have to disclose, before I continue with this post, that I have a bit of a bias against the "let's focus on the positives instead of the negatives" attitude. My therapist used to push this attitude upon me aggressively throughout my treatment, and used it as an excuse to belittle the major inadequacies in my life, and to not give me any assistance. As you can probably guess, to say that it's not an approach I'm particularly fond of, would be putting it gently.

For that reason I'm probably going to have a skewed viewpoint regarding some elements of your post.

As I see it, focussing on "how good we have it" compared to other modern countries, or even our forebears, tends to distract us from measuring our quality-of-life in a fair and truly meaningful way. Namely: is our quality-of-life so good that our lives are worth sustaining? And: What sort of trajectory are we on, in terms of this quality-of-life?

The significance of that second question cannot be overstated.

IMHO, we are on an increasingly steep downward trajectory, and this is one of the major reasons why I hope I'm not long for this world. It would be differant if we were still living in a world/country where life was not worth prolonging; but I could see things significantly improving.

That was how things were when I was a teen becoming an adult. Life was crap, but I could clearly see that we had a vision for a good future. Gave me the incentive I needed to consentually "hang-in there". But now... whatever hope there may be will not come to fruition in my lifetime. We're just too far gone right now.

And the reasons behind that decline are due to the culture shift, which, to a significant degree has been either steered, or aided by the goings-on in our political arenas.

You mention that, for all it's faults, our political system has delivered us the societal structure we live in now. That we are somehow advantaged for the course it has take us upon. But, I truly wonder if we are? Do we really have anything of value? Has the great machine of our society lead us to a better place then where we were, say, 30 years ago? It's certainly not a decisive "yes", if it is even a "yes" at all.

I look at time capsules from bygone eras, such as Jane Austen novels (which I've never actually read, but I am somewhat familiar with their basic storylines), and I see a society that is calibrated with deliberate purpose to unite husbands and wives. All these scenes that take place at balls that are specifically designed to unite elligible bachelors with elligible spinsters, because there is a common understanding that people are not supposed to be single.

And even when we look around our modern world, we find ourselves sometimes encountering "antiquated" cultures that still practice arrange marriages. Once again, the machine that is society is calibrated to unite singles.

When I look at our modern, western society, I don't see a more advanced society where the pitfalls of the old way have been refined, to create a much superior matchmaking machine. I see a broken, useless machine that, instead of setting you up with a prospective partner when you are all alone, will instead lecture you that "you don't need love to be happy." I call B-S on that.

I'm not discounting the horrible shortfalls of "the old ways", when it comes to securing marriage. Those customs did (and do) create a great deal of suffering, I know. Generally, those mechanisms were tailored to serve the agendas of the parents of the marrying couple, not the bride and groom themselves.

But, are we truly any better off with our "progression"? Would we be losing anything if our society collapsed overnight? Is our society an asset at all, when it cannot demonstratably benefit us with our greatest needs?

And there are many other aspects of our society, too, that leave me genuinely wondering if we are any better for having our society; with all it's "advancements" - both technological and social.

There's no doubt that, with a few adjustments, the architecture we have could indeed be repurposed to be of great benefit to us. But as time goes on, it seems less and less likely that any of "the powers that be" will actually make such adjustments.

Consequently, I think we may be trapped in an unending cycle where we are frequently lectured to be "greatful for what we have" (i.e. our society), and that we all have some moral duty to serve the societal machine that serves us so well; when, in reality, we get nothing of actual benefit out of our society, and the loyalty & service we are coerced into delivering to it is nothing more then exploitation.

I may have strayed a little off topic with this one, but IMHO, it does all tie back in to politics, as political leadership plays a huge role in dictating how we got to where we are, and where we are going in the future.

Maybe politicians can't dictate the customs and norms of their encompassing society. But they can create government services that pick up the slack, where the society in it's natural state fails to be of benefit to it's citizens. If we want to live in a society that's actually worth living in, I think it falls to the politicians to make it so. (God help us! 😳)

@AussieRecharger, @Appleblossom , @StuF , @Emelia8 , @Clawde , @tyme , @Faith-and-Hope , @Former-Member , @Jacques , @Snowie , @Eden1919 , @Shaz51 , @RedHorse ,

@wellwellwellnez, @MDT , @chibam

I appreciate that you have each taken the time to offer your perspectives and support.

Thank you

Best Wishes

@HenryX

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE)

I think the video is comprehensive and presents good arguments. Besides politics, i think we have a long way to go in how we encourage parents to learn what makes a good outcome for their children. Tough love does not equal a tough child but many people come to that conclusion.

Hello @AussieRecharger

and

@Appleblossom , @StuF , @Emelia8 , @Clawde , @tyme , @Faith-and-Hope , @Mumi , @Jacques , @Snowie , @Eden1919 , @Shaz51 , @RedHorse , @wellwellwellnez, @Hams , @chibam

as well as other members visiting the thread

@AussieRecharger, thank you for checking out the video presentation by Dr. Colleen Bridger, MPH, PhD., regarding the research and impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences {that I mentioned in an earlier post}. And, for offering your thoughts and observations.

I think that you may be suggesting that there are different ways of addressing the existence and impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE). These may be at a personal and home, community and society/political levels.

On the one hand, the more “players” that are involved in determining the best methods of addressing the issues, the more intertwined and possibly confused the issues and possible methods of addressing them, may become. On the other hand, I believe that we have an obligation, at all levels, to consider and address these issues, among all others.

I definitely agree with you that,

“Tough love does not equal a tough child …...”.

Indeed such approaches, applied to individuals of some personality types, can have disastrous consequences for the child, family, community and, collectively, for society as a whole. Others may not respond in such extreme ways, but may still be adversely affected. Yes I also agree with your comment,

"I think we have a long way to go in how we encourage parents to learn what makes a good outcome for their children."

It is research and analysis of trends on the macro, or society level of scale, I think, that can offer us insights, such as presented by Dr. Bridger, and others. Such insights and observations are then, also brought to us at the individual and community level. And, through awareness of that information, we may be afforded the opportunity and reason for us to look, not only at the wider concepts and application of principles, but how we deal with issues in our own families and immediate community relationships. This information offers us methods that we can apply in each of those contexts.

With Best Wishes

@HenryX

@wellwellwellnez

I see your point, and I agree that (for better or worse), Biden doesn't have "as much presence" as Trump; he doesn't capture peoples' attention to the same extent, and therefore fails to provoke reactions to the same extent.

But, IMHO, the reaction to the overall political shift associated with the 2021 change in presidants, has been very provocative to society, especially American society.

So while I can see your point about why we don't have a "Biden Derangement" diagnosis, my point still stands that the severe distress people are experiancing today is, IMHO, easily comparable to the distress being experianced by the opposite side of politics during the Trump years.

So while "Biden Derangement" mightn't be the best label to apply to that distress, I think we do need the mental health system to formally acknowledge the widespread grief that is undeniably occurring, if it is to be regarded as a politically-neutral entity. Call it "Democrat Derangement", or "Woke Derangement", or whatever you will. But a politically-neutral mental health system simply cannot acknowledge a phenomenon of widespread political grief that falls upon one side of politics, then refuse to acknowledge a comparable wave of grief that strikes the opposite side of politics.