this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2024
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Lefty Memes
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An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
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I totally agree with your standpoint, but would like to add that in this whole thread no one has mentioned that many people do need help as individuals. While I have made many negative experiences with therapists only trying to get me functional again, analyzing mental health problems away isn't going to work either. I feel like focusing only on the structural problems in this context is ignoring the individuals fighting mental health problems. That's what also frustrated me with the antipsychiatric movement.
We should be able to discuss both the structural and individual levels, because both are essential to actually solving any problems.
Half of my mental health problems would be solved if the state and capitalism didn't require themselves to exist.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder? Majorly lessened if I don't need to worry about food or shelter being stripped away if someone in my family gets sick or we lose income.
ADHD? Managed if ADHD meds weren't locked on the governmental level with cocaine and heroin, and the companies actually made more of the life saving medicine they hold hostage.
Bipolar disorder and Autism have no pills to solve, only mask the problems until they bubble. Ask me what medications I've tried for Bipolar, and I'll tell you why they didn't work.
Ask me what therapy methods I've tried and explained to my therapist network "Therapy helps with some things, but it doesn't solve the major issues of stress, anexity, and depression" before they kicked me off for a profit margin hidden as "This person doesn't want help, because they are too caught up in the lives of themselves and their families."
Yes, there's medications that help people. But after some point, the problem is no longer with that person, its the environment. Sometimes its an abusive family member. Sometimes it a toxic workplace. Most of the time its a death cult called capitalism.
For sure, like I said I agree that it is a structural problem. But we won't abolish capitalism and get rid of its brainwashing anywhere soon. In an utopian future, I can imagine all kinds of better ways how neurodiversity and generally diversity could be better incorporated into society and where we wouldn't need psychiatric institutions etc. But we unfortunately do live under capitalism and people are clearly affected by it. So, for now we certainly need some sort of help for mental health problems. It is up for debate, how this should look and I don't particularly like the psychiatric complex. But people need help nonetheless. A person with mental health problems may try to analyze capitalism as the root cause of their problems, but this won't dismantle capitalism either. At best this a form of self-efficacy, at worst a way to try to avoid overcoming deeper individual struggles.
ETA: and yes, I totally understand where you are coming from with the neurodivergent angle. If you just don't fit in society and the capitalist system, you get sanctioned and bullied for it all the time. This certainly won't go away with therapy apart from maybe making you fit in a bit better at your own cost (or even worse, brainwashing you to repress your own expressions). Same goes for being otherwise divergent, like being trans.
agree with you here too. Individual problems exist and should be taken seriously as well. I took that as a given and thus didn't mention it and wanted to focus more on the side that gets neglected faaaar too often
Socialism will not solve all mental health issues, people will always have personal problems, familiar predispositions etc. etc.
However, a lot of conditions/triggers/main reason would be resolved
As you said, it's both structural/systemic and individual problems. We need both a change in economics and social structures, that empower the working people of this world, bring the economy into their ownership and democratise it and high quality non-dogmatig and unstigmatised free healthcare, social services and so on
I totally get why you highlighted the structural side of it. In discussions of mental health problems it usually gets dismissed or ignored. In capitalist fashion, many of these problems get blamed on the individuals :(