Mental health is on everyone’s minds now, after an 18-year-old killed a class of 5th graders this week. What the bleep was he thinking?
Seems there is a great need for mental health professionals throughout
our society – our schools, our businesses and even our families.
A recent newspaper editorial noted the rise of increasing
serious mental health issues among college students and the lack of adequate
resources to help them. The article made
no attempt to explain why serious mental health issues are a problem or on the
rise.
I will try. I offer
my analysis and solution here.
College students are on the brink of adulthood. As children, they were under the care of
their parents, but now they will be facing the world on their own.
Our society has discouraged marriage and families for
decades. It’s relatively unimportant, as
women need to pursue professional careers.
Something like 80% of incarcerated individuals grew up without a father
in the home.
Whether you believe in God or evolution, both ended up with
a man and a woman creating new life, and by extension, these two people are
essential for the well-being of this child as it grows up.
A loving home instills a sense of safety and security into a
child. They always have a place to go.
Children are discouraged themselves from getting married and
having a family, or at least for a long time.
More important things to do first.
So they are avoiding some of the richest experiences of their lives –
living with someone who is committed to share their life til death and the joy
of having their own family. Maybe they
are too young to start a family of their own, but the whole idea of a committed
relationship seems out of the question for now, so they must do this alone.
Their sex education so far has taught them that there is no
such thing as normative sex, and sex has nothing to do with marriage and
family. Sex is essentially a form of
recreation, and one that can play havoc with a person’s emotions, though they
aren’t told that. It’s not seen as an
act of love but of pleasure. It is not
meant for a special committed someone, but something to do for enjoyment, like
going bowling only more intense. So
their sex lives don’t enrich their emotional health; it may even leave them
feeling empty.
So all of human history had gotten this wrong. Pretty much everything. But even more importantly, most likely
everything they heard at home was wrong.
Science teaches them that life is an accident of
nature. Human beings are nothing more
than animals that talk and wear clothes.
There is no intrinsic value to human life. We are mere specks in a vast, cold universe
that is oblivious to their presence. Your
parents could have killed you before you were born. You were lucky they didn’t.
Science also tells them that our whole world is on the brink
of destruction, caused by human activity, and it’s essentially too late to fix
it. We, human beings, have destroyed our
planet.
History tells them that they were born into an evil,
irredeemably flawed nation built on the backs of slavery and oppression. It is thoroughly corrupt and the system is
broken beyond repair. It needs to be entirely
reinvented.
Economics tells them we have a system run by the rich for
the rich, and you are easily exploited. The whole thing needs to be torn down and
replaced with a more equitable and inclusive economy. And that won’t be easy to do.
Sociology tells them that if you are white, you are
inherently racist and an oppressor. If
you are not white, you are a victim. The
cards are stacked against you. You must
be vigilant against racism in all its forms, because it is everywhere and you
are the target.
Religion is irrelevant.
It is merely the attempt of unenlightened primitive people in the past to
try to explain things that science now does for us. There is no ultimate meaning in life. There is no purpose to any of it. You live, you die, and that’s it. And the universe doesn’t care. About anything, including you.
Religion used to provide a basic moral framework for life,
giving us the rules by which we can live our lives. But there are no rules, only what you make
yourself and the society you live in.
There is no Higher Power to direct your life. Life is like standing before an open field
where you can go in any direction you want.
There is no right or wrong per se.
Just be who you are, whatever that means. There is no Higher Power to whom they can
seek help, and no Higher Power to whom they are accountable for their actions.
It’s only the last some generations now in all of human
history that tells its children that we don’t need God, there is no such thing,
we are on our own. This has never been
done before in human history. We think
we are smarter than everybody else who has gone before us.
And mental illness is now on the rise among those people who
have to sort through all this.
We have failed, are failing our children, by giving them a
life without structure, meaning, or support.
They are alone in a world that doesn’t care whether they live or die.
Obviously, many people have been able to navigate through
all this successfully. But they’re not
the ones we read about in the news because of the unspeakable horrors they have
committed.
Our society has lost its way. The worst part about this is that it thinks
it is so smart, smarter than all the generations that have gone before them,
not just on religion, but everything.
Our children don’t feel connected to life, to anything
bigger than they are.
There is far more to be said on this, but it will have to be
for another time.
