Poll of the Day > I feel like America has become a very mentally unhealthy country

(+) Yeah! (+)

Not even in terms of politics, but just our lifestyle choices and how we deal with everything.

Tons of drugs, shitty fast food. Isolation and anger constantly.

I think people need to cheer up a bit.

There's not much to cheer up about here except that we at least aren't one of the countries ravaged by dictatorship, war, instability, low resources, genocide... That helps.

A sick society naturally produces lots of sick people.

A physically unhealthy, politically unhealthy and financially unhealthy country feels like it would very naturally become a mentally unhealthy country.

I was watching a live stream of the minnesota state fair. I paid particularly close attention to the look on most people's faces as the streamer passed by. Id say at least half the people looked stressed, anxious and/or on edge. It's like if something just started popping off they wouldn't be shocked

I've been saying for years that fast food needs to be eliminated and the FDA/DEA is a joke.

Feeling isolated, being angry and living in fear are personal choices.

Its always felt like a mentally unhealthy country to me.

Flappers posted...

There's not much to cheer up about here except that we at least aren't one of the countries ravaged by dictatorship, war, instability, low resources, genocide... That helps.

Are you sure about that?

Glob posted...

Are you sure about that?

It's only half the country where the national guard is going to be deployed like a police force. /s

Everything is totally fine! /s

we_dey posted...

Tons of drugs, @%# fast food.

Might I point you to a decade called the 70's my good sir.

SunWuKung420 posted...

I've been saying for years that fast food needs to be eliminated

Lets start with 'high fructose corn syrup' and then work our way down. The minute you go after fast food as a whole, watch about three people hop up in the audience and start screaming about jobs being taken away.

Flappers posted...

There's not much to cheer up about here except that we at least aren't one of the countries ravaged by dictatorship, war, instability, low resources, genocide... That helps.

yet

Europe has way better government food standards than the US

I feel like people have too much freedom, no shame, no consequences, but still people get fed up, try to police each other and the problem gets worse.

Roachmeat posted...

Might I point you to a decade called the 70's my good sir

There are way more drugs now than then. The amount of legal drugs that do more harm than good is staggering and the population lines up to get their prescriptions like it's candy.

Roachmeat posted...

The minute you go after fast food as a whole, watch about three people hop up in the audience and start screaming about jobs being taken away.

That's fine. To be clear, when I say fast food, I'm including most frozen and processed foods sold at grocery stores as well.

America is a business, the citizens are the employees and they know the country is about to go bankrupt. How do you expect the people to feel?
You can't expect everyone to cherish everyday.

I agree with your initial statement, but I suspect we would very much disagree on the specifics. And on the causes.

Affordability of the most basic things including shelter, food, and health care is just not there.

So then when you look at psychological concepts like Maslow's hierarchy of needs its pretty easy to spot that more people are lacking the building blocks than ever.

Living wages, universal healthcare, thirty two hour work weeks, vacation time, etc would all drastically reduce stress and would allow doctors to more accurately diagnose disorders as well since the other factors would be less impactful or prevalent.

I could more readily buy the argument from the right that shootings are a mental health issue and not a gun issue if they wanted to take broad steps to address mental health in this country but instead it's more of an attack against those with mental health struggles.

pedro45 posted...

America is a business, the citizens are the employees and they know the country is about to go bankrupt. How do you expect the people to feel?
You can't expect everyone to cherish everyday.

I like this

BADoglick posted...

I could more readily buy the argument from the right that shootings are a mental health issue and not a gun issue if they wanted to take broad steps to address mental health in this country but instead it's more of an attack against those with mental health struggles.

We both know they aren't serious about this idea at all. They just want people to stop looking at the guns.

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

We both know they aren't serious about this idea at all. They just want people to stop looking at the guns.

I'm absolutely fine with opening up asylums again and getting people help.

BADoglick posted...

I could more readily buy the argument from the right that shootings are a mental health issue and not a gun issue

I can guarantee that it's a mental health issue.

Villanova University recently implemented a campus wide notification system for emergencies and there have already been 2 false alerts about an active shooter in one week. The fact that one or two people thinks it funny to scare people screams mental health problems.

Become?
20 years ago top Gear did an episode where they visited America and wrote on their car that NASCAR sucks and Hillary for president and were nearly killed at the first gas station they visited.
America has been mentally sick a long time.
https://youtu.be/pKcJ-0bAHB4?si=9fmWn0wCQX9zwnJk

So America is currently experiencing total systemic collapse, the disappearance of the middle class, the job market is fucked. The housing market is fucked. Basic necessities are becoming unaffordable. The government is corrupt to hell and back. Etc etc etc. and your only take away is that sometimes people eat McDonalds. Bravo. Not to mention fast food consumption is actually down, because of said price increases.

I don't live in America and no place is perfect. I'm happy but I am also extremely anxious due to I dislike crowds and social gatherings.

Midnight_Hammer posted...

I'm absolutely fine with opening up asylums again and getting people help.

The big problem with asylums was Reagan-era cuts mostly spurred by the public turning on the idea of them. Significantly fueled by the reaction to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest (which was ironically outdated even at the time it was released, since it was mainly written to criticize 50s-era practices that had mostly been phased out or addressed by the time the movie came out in the 70s and the reduction happened in the 80s). Basically, the popular perception was that asylums were corrupt and did more harm than good.

That being said, the mental health system as it currently exists is still in need of significant reform. Simply opening more mental hospitals wouldn't necessarily be a solution. We kind of need to rebuild the methodology for care facilities from the ground up, and make sure they're actually attempting to help patients effectively rather than simply drugging them and keeping them off the streets (and making it extremely difficult for inmates to be reevaluated).

You can't force treatment on someone. Then someone has the power to deem someone else as needing treatment.
You had husbands lobotomizing their wives.

Mental health needs to not be shamed and it needs to be more affordable. There's a lot of money to be made off the unstable though.

pedro45 posted...

You can't force treatment on someone. Then someone has the power to deem someone else as needing treatment.
You had husbands lobotomizing their wives.

Mental health needs to not be shamed and it needs to be more affordable. There's a lot of money to be made off the unstable though.

Need to find the cause of the mental health damage and stop it ahead of time.

I imagine school shootings being a rite of passage in America is probably contributing to this.

teddy241 posted...

I was watching a live stream of the minnesota state fair. I paid particularly close attention to the look on most people's faces as the streamer passed by. Id say at least half the people looked stressed, anxious and/or on edge. It's like if something just started popping off they wouldn't be shocked

They're probably afraid of getting shot. I don't go to things like fairs because I'm too worried about there being a shooter. Nowhere is safe. My mom went to a festival and had a hard time enjoying it because she just kept thinking "wow this would be the perfect place for a shooter". It got shot up two days later. Oddly, this isn't the first time she had a bad feeling that turned out to be true. We were going to see a movie one night but she had that feeling and we didn't go. That's how we avoided being in the Aurora theatre shooting. Hell, I've had a gun waved at me from someone driving in front of us. It can happen anywhere. Schools, concerts, churches, grocery stores... Remember when teenagers used to hang out at the mall all day? Now malls are practically deserted. There's just nowhere safe to have fun anymore. It's no wonder people here are so screen-addicted.

SunWuKung420 posted...

I've been saying for years that fast food needs to be eliminated and the FDA/DEA is a joke.

Feeling isolated, being angry and living in fear are personal choices.

This is a weird post because you identify one thing that's basically a systemic issue and then also tout the rugged individualism that is what's destroying America. I do agree fast food as it is now is a disaster for America. But like, if we had healthier fast food options that were affordable, I think people would eat them more. Hence not everything is a "choice", or at least that it would clearly be easier to make better choices if we had a society that was set up for them.

I don't "choose" to be isolated, it's just difficult not to be. There isn't a great culture or design around socialization in America. You learn implicitly to socialize in school, but after that you don't really get that same kind of regular access to people who are theoretically a demographic you can relate to easily. You might get it at work, but that's about it. And now you need a white collar job to be able to afford to live in many cases, and a lot of white collar jobs are remote so you actually just sit at home all day.

No wonder people are angry or living in fear when the powerful members of society not just don't want to do anything to improve situations like this, but will actively make it worse so that citizens will feel more desperate and submissive.

On a side note, I think the day-to-day fear that Flappers is talking about like if you go to any big public space you will be a shooting victim is irrational, but having some kind of existential, broad fear isn't unreasonable. We live in a country that has a longstanding history of perpetuating abuse of people, yet has the gall to act like the good guy who is the beacon of freedom and prosperity

SinisterSlay posted...

Need to find the cause of the mental health damage and stop it ahead of time.

Mental Health differ from person to person. Mine came from Physical, menta and verbal growin' up. It's complicated. You CAN manage, since I can.

I don't agree with forcin' people with anxiety into social situations, though.

pedro45 posted...

Mental health needs to not be shamed and it needs to be more affordable. There's a lot of money to be made off the unstable though.

There are loads of folk here who think all people who are different need to be shunned, which is sad.

Flappers posted...

Remember when teenagers used to hang out at the mall all day? Now malls are practically deserted. There's just nowhere safe to have fun anymore. It's no wonder people here are so screen-addicted.

Malls are deserted because they're outdated, not because of shootings

OhhhJa posted...

Malls are deserted because they're outdated, not because of shootings

This. Loads of public places are kinda deserted. We have a nice one with a good food court. I do feel people stress out more on things these days.

I feel like people in online games over the years have gotten increasingly more toxic until its just two teams hurling death threats at each other in something like marvel rivals

I still see teenagers at the mall pretty often, granted when I go to the mall I'm not there to "hang out", so I don't know if they're there all day. It can get pretty busy but I feel like it never gets crazy busy, like it was built with way more parking than it seems to need anymore.

I actually think about this pretty often when I go to any kind of store (mall or not). I feel like you never see places just packed anymore, and it's kind of sad. Amazon is lot of the reason to blame for it, but even physical retail sees a lot of online pickup orders now. That is one area I wish people would make the choice not to engage in, though I get it that some people might not find it fun to walk the aisles if they already know exactly what they want. It's even worse with fast food restaurants because they incentivize the apps with deals, and places like McDonald's (not that it was ever the peak of dining experiences) are making their dining rooms feel actively hostile.

All this removing and optimizing away the human experience of commerce is just contributes more to the feelings of dread and that you're only valued for how you can fill someone else's wallet. I could go on and on about the physical design of these spaces too, but I won't. I'm guilty of loving self-checkout though

NightMareBunny posted...

I feel like people in online games over the years have gotten increasingly more toxic until its just two teams hurling death threats at each other in something like marvel rivals

I seen people judge others over age and harass folk over mental health. It's pathetic.

Flappers posted...

They're probably afraid of getting shot. I don't go to things like fairs because I'm too worried about there being a shooter. Nowhere is safe. My mom went to a festival and had a hard time enjoying it because she just kept thinking "wow this would be the perfect place for a shooter". It got shot up two days later. Oddly, this isn't the first time she had a bad feeling that turned out to be true. We were going to see a movie one night but she had that feeling and we didn't go. That's how we avoided being in the Aurora theatre shooting. Hell, I've had a gun waved at me from someone driving in front of us. It can happen anywhere. Schools, concerts, churches, grocery stores... Remember when teenagers used to hang out at the mall all day? Now malls are practically deserted. There's just nowhere safe to have fun anymore. It's no wonder people here are so screen-addicted.

There are good areas. I'm in a city that is the opposite. The malls have teens, the late nights have college age people, and the festivals are poppin with life and laughter.
My area of work is...not appealing, but it's by the interstate and that seems to be a common ground for the underground nationwide.

I live in Philly and have never seen a gun I wasn't handling. I also don't feel scared to go outside, to a mall, to a concert by myself, riding the bus or going to the store. In fact, I'm more concerned for my safety in regards to drivers that don't pay attention for pedestrians.

America may be the first place that comes to mind but Britain has also become very mentally unhealthy too. There's no easy answer for this regression.

Armoured-Mewtwo posted...

America may be the first place that comes to mind but Britain has also become very mentally unhealthy too. There's no easy answer for this regression.

War, technically.
The best and brightest usually aren't on the front lines. So it ends up being a culling of the poor.

I know that's dark, but it's been that way through all of human history

SinisterSlay posted...

War, technically.

This may be the worst take on gamefaqs.

ooger posted...

This may be the worst take on gamefaqs.

Darkest take maybe but accurate.
We're the longest humanity has ever gone without war. An impressive achievement. We're only now learning how crazy that's making us.

SinisterSlay posted...

Darkest take maybe but accurate.
We're the longest humanity has ever gone without war. An impressive achievement. We're only now learning how crazy that's making us.

Wrong.

It's historically large wealth disparity that is "making us crazy".

ooger posted...

Wrong.

It's historically large wealth disparity that is "making us crazy".

Well you can be like Russia and literally empty prisons to make them into soldiers

SinisterSlay posted...

Well you can be like Russia and literally empty prisons to make them into soldiers

Well, the GOP is basically following Russia's whims soooooooooooooooooo

If SinisterSlay's career making bad GameFAQs posts doesn't pan out, I hear that ICE is hiring

SinisterSlay posted...

Darkest take maybe but accurate.
We're the longest humanity has ever gone without war. An impressive achievement. We're only now learning how crazy that's making us.

Wat.

bachewychomp posted...

If SinisterSlay's career making bad GameFAQs posts doesn't pan out, I hear that ICE is hiring

I'm a foreigner, they'd just arrest me

Fair enough, but you'd be surprised how many foreigners support ICE. Maybe don't go saying stuff about how society needs to cull lesser members to improve :)

bachewychomp posted...

Fair enough, but you'd be surprised how many foreigners support ICE. Maybe don't go saying stuff about how society needs to cull lesser members to improve :)

I also vote we cull the top.
Even out everyone in the middle.