Over a third of Europeans suffer from mental illness

I guess if you would really diagnose everybody in the world most people would fall under some kind of mental illness. You would have to be incredibly lucky in the world we live in to not have any kind of trouble in that regard.

reply to post by buni11687

I wonder what the cause of this is? I cant really think of anything.

Perhaps it has to do with the number of nations in Europe. Let me explain. For centuries Europeans have by and large only procreated with those in their nation or relatively small "tribal" group. (For example, there wouldn't be too many Greeks having kids with Norwegians.) Over time it would become like families only marrying one another and having kids.

I may be completely wrong but that's a thought that came to my mind immediately.

Most of those people probably have only mild depression or anxiety issues, not really serious mental health problems, but still categorized as such.

I agree that there are vast sums of money to be made from diagnosing huge segments of European populations (& other `markets`) as suffering from mental illnesses ......... however Europe`s ageing population demographic may also skew the results.

There is also the possibility that we are uncomfortable with conditions that still hold considerable social stigmas .

For someone who did suffer from one of these "illnesses", isn't it just offensive for it to be considered an illness? I mean, I'm quite an insomniac, maybe not to an extreme, but I live off of only a couple of hours of sleep a night and in no way do I believe I'm sick. Maybe it's because I accept it and don't think there's something wrong with me?

I just don't understand how you can equate someone being depressed as an illness. Yes, people get depressed, anxious, overly nervous, but medicating these people is doing more harm than good. Make a quick buck for big pharma and create a new disease to make people feel weak and helpless. It's BS.

When you medicate people for mental illnesses they think the drugs are their cure when I believe most mental illnesses can be overcome with patience, willingness to fight it, and support. Then these people wind up off the drugs somehow, "relapse" because they never actually changed their life to begin with besides being pumped full of chemicals, and start a new rotation of pills. Where did our willpower go?