A reader writes, in response to an earlier posting about family dynamics, about a friend who is "mentally ill" and thus refuses to find work, even in an economy where there is a "labor shortage" (soon to evaporate). His parents support him, pay his rent, and he lives off the largess of others. When pressed why he can't support himself, he claims mental illness. Is this true, or is he just lazy and found an easy "get out of jail free" card?
With regard to the latter, often this is literally the case - where people, when accused of horrific crimes (or even ordinary crimes) play the mental health card. They will claim they have "issues" or had a horrific childhood. Of course, many others had horrific childhoods, yet fail to shoot up an Elementary school. You wonder whether it is really true or just a clever defense strategy conjured up by their attorney. It is like how lawyers will try to put the victim on trial, to distract from the evil deeds of the defendant.
Now, don't get me wrong, there are crazy people in the world. The homeless guy who is unbathed and screaming at the pigeons is bona fide insane. He's hearing voices and having hallucinations. He should be institutionalized for his own safety and that of others. But we decided, decades ago, that letting him live on the street was more humane. Bad choice.
On the other hand, I know (or knew) of several people with fairly severe mental health problems that managed to be functional members of society, holding down jobs and paying their own way - or at least as much as they could afford to do. How come they don't use their condition as a crutch?
Where you lose patience is when people have easily solvable problems and posit these problems are because of their mental illness - which may be entirely imagined. They can't get a job because they are depressed. So they spend all day long in their parents' basement, playing video games and exchanging neo-Nazi memes with their new online friends. Are they really depressed, or merely having a good time at society's expense?
Or take hoarders. I know of a few who claim to have all these "problems" that make it impossible to clean up their room. While it may be a manifestation of OCD or whatever - and they may not recognize it as a problem, you tend to lose patience with them and their tales of woe-is-me. I mean, there are people with real problems in this world, and they are not one of them. These are often well-off people with money, houses, and cars - they are not the downtrodden of the Earth by a long shot.
I noted before that schizophrenia seems to set in around age 18, and I have a theory as to why. It is the age you have to transition from the world of high school, where getting an "A" on your book report meant you were doing well, to the world of work - where you have to justify your existence with dollar signs. All that crap they teach you in school is useful, but it really doesn't help you transition into the world of supporting yourself and eventually your own family.
And I saw this, up close and personal, with friends and family members, as they struggled with this transition. Sadly, college today is just four more years of high school, and graduates leave having aced tests and term papers - but having no real experience that an employer is looking for. In fact, college may be a negative in the job market, as so many colleges today are teaching young people to be disruptive and hate their employers. Do you really want to hire a young person who majored in agitation studies? I didn't think so.
I was saved by General Motors. At age 18, I was a salaried employee of GM and had a job and a employee ID badge - along with health insurance and even a retirement plan. While GM didn't work out for me in the long run, it set my mind straight and made me realize I could do things and did things, and what's more, had real work experience. It is a shame that more companies don't offer this type of thing to young people. But those opportunities do exist - you do have to seek them out, though.
But getting back to topic - or did I really digress? - we all like to play roles in life, and often these roles can be self-destructive even if they are comfortable. Troubled teens who are bullied in high school may adapt bizarre identities, such as the "goth" trend of several years (decades?) ago. Kids learn that if they act weird or maybe even crazy, the mean kids will leave them alone. It becomes a defense mechanism or a shield, much like the trench-coats worn by kids a generation later.
The problem with these manufactured identities is that they come with expectations. The "troubled teen" is expected to be troubled. So junior starts getting into minor scrapes with the law, because, hey, that's what troubled teens do. It may sound crazy (pardon the pun) but there is a nugget of truth to it. You take on the identity of a "stoner" you end up getting stoned. You want to be a high school "jock" you wear a letter jacket, go out for sports, and then torment the skinny gay kid that you secretly have a crush on. Yes, that actually happens - a lot. No one was fooled for a minute, Butch.
We like to think we are better than animals, we humans do. We think that somehow animalistic instincts are below us. In fact, we talk about people who lower themselves to the lowest level of society as being little more than animals - reduced to violence and petty thievery. But the reality is, of course, we are animals - just really smart ones, or so we think. As others have noted before, the veneer of civilization is awfully thin - you withhold air, water, or food from a person, they revert to animal instincts in a very short period of time. We are one missed meal away from anarchy.
But people will also do what they can get away with. And being sympathetic and supportive is a fine and wonderful thing, but as any person who has ever worked with a charity or with the homeless will tell you, once you go down that road, you can expect people to abuse you, unless you set clear and firm boundaries. The people running the homeless shelter have pretty strict rules, not because they are being "mean" but because their "clients" will do whatever the fuck they want to, if you let them.
A friend of mine volunteered at the local food kitchen. They serve lunches to the homeless - and anyone else who claims to be so. They do not require proof of homelessness - indeed how could you prove such a thing? Word got out, quickly, that they were giving away free lunches, and pretty soon, everyone in the neighborhood was lined up for a free lunch. Work trucks would show up, and entire work crews, still in their work clothes and high-vis vests, would get in line. Why bother paying for lunch, when it was free?
You would think that people would be grateful for a free lunch, but the "clients" would complain there was too much (or too little) mayonnaise on their sandwich and why don't they have a menu they could order from? I mean, you have to offer a bit of a selection for people, right?
My friend quit after a few months. The breaking point was Christmas when they handed out food boxes for the underprivileged. A group showed up in a Cadillac Escalade and hit the power tailgate and told my friend, "just put it in the back!" They would not stoop to getting out of the car. They drove around the block and demanded a second food box as the people in the back seat were a different family.
And yes, they complained about the contents of the free food box. No doubt they were tossing cans of food out the window later on. It's been known to happen.
Sometimes tough love is the best love. It is good to be empathetic and all, but setting boundaries and making rules is often a greater kindness. Children crave boundaries and get upset when they are allowed to do "whatever." And later on in life, when society sets boundaries, they will find it much harder. They will chafe at the harness and cry "unfair!" because suddenly there are rules enforced - or claim to be a victim of their upbringing or a mental illness. Parents thought they were doing children a kindness by letting them free-range, but in reality, they were being the most cruel.
And I say this from experience - having had to learn a lot of harsh lessons in life that I should have learned as a child. The lessons get more expensive, the further they are delayed. For some, it may mean loss of money. For others, it may be life in prison. Or life in a mental hospital. Either way, it is a shitty life.
Sadly, everyone today seems to have a crutch to lean on. People self-identify as ADHD or Asperger's or anxiety disorder, or gluten-intolerant or whatever. And society, being decent and kind, accommodates this, often to the inconvenience of everyone else. Airplane flights are delayed for hours, and connections are missed by hundreds of passengers, because one person has to have a meltdown over missing cocktail peanuts. Sitting next to them is the person with the service ferret, which they "need" because they have anxiety issues.
I've been flying in airplanes since the 1960's (but not lately, thank you!) and I don't recall ever seeing this sort of nonsense back in the day. Yes, it was a golden age back then. You showed up for a flight and just wandered aboard. Your friends could come on board with you to "see you off" like they used to do with ocean liners as well. Today, well, people are so crazy and unreasonable, that we have to go through metal detectors and have our bags x-rayed, and no one is allowed on the airplane without a ticket. And little boys are not allowed into the armored cockpit, to sit on the friendly captain's lap.
I have meandered a bit here, but I think there is a point somewhere. We are spending too much time, as a society and as individuals, claiming to be victims and damaged goods. We all have to deal with a lot of crap in life, and some have real issues to deal with - real traumas and real tragedies. Yet others claim trauma because their parents were "quirky" and yet others claim "social anxiety" as though the rest of us don't suffer from this on occasion or all the time.
It is all-too-easy to give yourself a pass in life, to treat yourself as an invalid and damaged goods - and then use this as an excuse to cop out on life and avoid responsibility or even basic life functions. Yea, depression is a bitch, but it isn't going to get better by laying in bed and feeling sorry for yourself.
It is funny, though - in the odd sense - to see someone who had used crazy as a crutch, finally break free from this cyclical pattern of victimhood and withdrawal. They are happy and "normal" for a while, and then they realize they forgot they were damaged goods, and then go back to their old ways. Maybe it is inevitable and the cycle cannot be broken, even with pharmaceuticals and "counseling." If so, I feel sorry for them, because it is a shitty way to live.
