We are not smart rats

Did you know that approximately 20% (yes 1 in 5) people in Australia (similar figures apply to other Western countries) have a ‘mental health’ problem? This problem ranges from finding difficulty in sleeping to suicide and padded cell, straight jacket type stuff. This is an amazing statistic and leads one to ask the question, “Who or what is normal?”

I do not pretend to know the answer to this question but I can offer some suggestions as to why I think the figure is so high. To me one of the major factors causing this ‘mental health’ problem is the almost universal requirement for people to ‘conform’. To ‘conform’ to the wishes and commands of ‘them’, of someone else, the group, the firm or to suit the demands of socially perceived reality whether this suits the individual concerned, or not..

While we are young our parents require us to ‘conform’ to their values and their rules, which is fair enough, because we are still learning about life (though children do rebel!!). Then there is religion. We must conform to the dogma otherwise we are excommunicated or considered an apostate and shunned by others in the congregation – this applies to Christian, Muslim, Jew or whatever. People can always change religions I suppose, this is a choice, but doing so is difficult and stressful. Most are born into a religious belief so they had no choice about it at all.

Possibly the most insidious requirement to ‘conform’ is when peer pressure is involved. This pressure is usually associated with young people, still to reach maturity and unsure of their place in the world but it can and does apply to any age group. Peer pressure also takes the form of “keeping up with the Jones’” – they have a new car I must have a new car; they have a new kitchen fit out, we must have a new kitchen fit out; ‘Daaarling I simply can’t wear this dress again!’ etc.

When we start working or change jobs we are required to absorb the ‘culture’ of the firm or be considered ‘strange’ and not part of the team or one of the boys or one of the girls. There are always certain dos and don’ts in any grouping of people which is necessary for safety, for security and to maintain a certain degree of unity but this is often carried to extremes.

What I am suggesting is not a refusal to obey the law of the land – that would be a recipe for chaos but rather recognition of the needfulness for each person to grow and develop as a unique human being, within the law. More often than not it is expectations or obligations that are the problem. For instance parents expecting their son to continue working on the farm he will inherit; the perceived obligation of the a child to continue working in the same line of business or profession as the father; parents expecting their children to get high grades at school and attend university – something the parents may not have been able to do.

Forcing someone to conform, to fill a role they are not emotionally suited to or which offends their integrity, their sense of morality or their values is stressful and causes problems – worry, depression, reliance on alcohol or other substance abuse to ‘dull the pain’.

The reason behind my writing this is a news article a few weeks ago about the extraordinarily high suicide rate in Japan. More than 30,000 people kill themselves every year in Japan, giving the country one of the world's highest suicide rates.
Some 24 out of every 100,000 Japanese people killed themselves in 2006, higher than the global average of 16, according to the World Health Organisation.

One of the reasons given for this high rate is the Japanese society's strong pressure to conform. (Extracted from: AAP article by Tokyo correspondent 07/01/2009).

We are not just a bunch of smart rats in a laboratory that can be conditioned into or out of various types of behaviour to suit whoever is considered the leader of the group, the firm or society; we are thinking, feeling human beings, trying to be just that – human beings - not human doers. We live to express ourselves creatively and to grow and develop each in our own unique way. Anything which is a barrier to this creativity, growth and this development will certainly cause stress and this may affect the mental health of those caught up in the requirement to conform in ways that are uncomfortable for them and not necessarily of their own choosing.