Museum of the Mind

There is actually a place in Rome called the Museum of the Mind, and although it’s what used to be a mental institution; today gives a tour of the mental illnesses that used to be treated at this hospital. One is supposed to learn and empathise with what is referred to as not a normal society of individuals. The ideology behind this museum is that if once you have crossed the doors and gone inside, you will not turn back. It’s referred to as stepping “InSide Out”. I have not visited this exhibition centre but only reading about it makes me think twice about whether I will be able to tolerate what I will see. A mental pathology can indeed be very overwhelming and often if you are exposed to it for long periods can make you question your own sanity.  Today one shouldn’t assume it solely a relationship between the patient and the caretaker / professional, but actually a third window needs to be opened. I am referring to the awareness in society about such ailments and the ability to empathise and include such patients in our society.

All these feelings made me wonder about the definition of “normal”. If you suffer any form of diagnosed mental pathology, you are placed in the not normal bracket. These patients have unfortunately been diagnosed with such disorders and have suffered them due to genetic disorders, mental injuries or malformations that have harmed their cognitive reasoning. They must live with it forever and the Museum tells us success as well as failure stories of such patients.

However, it is my belief that over time and due to many reasons, madness is out there and closer to us than ever before. The reasons can include the fizzy drink and junk food culture, pressures of a more narcissistic environment that we all belong to (the attention seeking selfie society) and also a better detection of research being done in this field by the many mental health clinicians. We are all in one way or another a little bit “crazy”. It is not necessarily a “crazy” that precisely needs medical treatment, because mostly our own levels of resilience are what help us to combat such episodes.

Old age used to be the explanation to natural degenerative process of the human brain and it has been accepted for years that old people suffer from such conditions. Sadly this is not the truth anymore. A study done on children in 1957 for the detection of anxiety disorders, compared to the children today showed considerably higher levels of anxiety than previous generations. Another study comparing university students in America from 1982 and 2006 also depicted students being more narcissistic in the latter cohorts. The positive side of these studies proves that what was considered as psychologically normal before has now got a mental illness label of some sort to it, which broadens the number of people who are affected by one disorder or another, albeit in a very subtle form. This helps to identify the root at an earlier stage and therefore prevent it getting worse and controlling it better.

However, doesn’t this also mean we have turned into a culture more open to detecting a mental illness within ourselves and less tolerant to seeing it in others? Our environment has made us more self involved and far more insecure than previous generations, this is giving rise to the bigger problem or I even choose to call it the disease of the 21^st century. The American Psychiatric Association even labelled selfie as a mental disorder, because really what it means is people refusing to grow up and seeking approval or a compliment everyday. If you quickly detect the main symptoms of any mental disorder such as anxiety or any type of depression, there are two adjectives that loudly speak out. 1) The need for attention.  2) Insecurity, which is satiated by approval from others. When one takes 20 selfies a day and posts them on any network, that person is 1) seeking attention and 2) fishing or a compliment to make themselves feel better. It is not harmful to take a selfie because I also agree an image speaks louder than words and a picture of me smiling is far more effective than me saying, “I’m happy” on my status. Let me give you some shocking data from 2013. 21 million pictures uploaded to Instagram received the hash tag label  #selfie and 51 million received #me. I’m just saying!

If you cannot classify this as a mental illness (an on-going love affair with yourself) then what can be scarier? We advocate that love for ourselves is important to have a happy and satisfied life, but in this obsession for self -love we are losing sight of others and the more real mental illnesses that truly are a concern for our society.

I want to finish off by briefly addressing a symptom that again we are suffering from more and more in this quest to seek perfection within ourselves. When was the last time you didn’t judge someone for the money they spend, their eating habits, for their appearance, for their material choices, for the music they listen to and the list is never ending. The truth is our obsession with judging others is simply a reflection of an unsatisfied life that we lead ourselves. I read a very interesting article on this subject and there was a list of harmful situations that can be a consequence of judgmental behavior. I would like to share this list and see if you can observe how some of these unpleasantries are signs of this ongoing personal love affair that I have mentioned earlier.

Taken from: http://zenhabits.net/judgy/

I am very ignorant of what the person is going through.

I don’t understand the situation.

I have unrealistic expectations of people.

I think I’m superior to other people.

I’m not grateful.

I’m being self-centered.

I’m not being curious, but instead I close off all learning.

I can’t really help the situation from a place of judgment.

Therefore, before looking into the museum of other people’s minds, perhaps it’s more important to seek into your own museum and begin to question your own normality up close!