If there’s one thing that society is facing, I think, it’s not just a mental health problem, but also a moral problem.
I’ve often noticed, especially in this area, that elected officials and administrators like to emphasize that we are in a mental health crisis when it comes to what communities are facing. This topic always appears as the culprit whenever there is a public forum discussing issues. But what does mental health encompass? When you throw the term around, its definition seems too broad to associate it with anything specific.
According to various medical sources, mental health refers to anything that affects our emotional, psychological and social well-being. Many factors can be associated, such as bipolar, depression, substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and over a hundred other types of mental illnesses.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one in five adults in the country live with a mental illness; one in five children aged 13 to 18 suffers from a mental illness; and one in 25 adults live with serious illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or major depression.
The causes of mental illness come from many situations characterized by a history of violence, financial problems, loneliness, substance abuse and physical health problems. But why are all these mental health problems on the rise, and why do people associate them with crime and disorder?
Basically, the general narrative across the country when it comes to crimes being committed is that a person has a mental health issue that sets them on a path to bad behavior. Sure, there may be a catalyst for action, but can we continually blame mental health?
The commonly proposed solution is to increase access to health care and therapy for people exhibiting poor behavior resulting from mental illness. For me, I believe that mental health is not the cause of most public offenses but rather a lack of morality. Too often we have offenders who commit crimes and try to justify them with a history lesson about why they committed it, which is a way to insert the sanity card. It is as if this notion is an incentive that will somehow absolve them from committing crimes without thinking of punishment but of justification.
My thoughts continue to revolve around morality and not unfortunate circumstances. We have proof that people who find themselves in the most dire situations, whether it’s a bad day, losing a job, financial problems, poverty, divorce , etc., can maintain a moral compass without committing crimes. Simply put, we have raised generations of citizens without good morals and allowed them to run amok.
When it comes to today’s minors, we allow them to be immersed in the world through television, music, and the Internet without proper guidance – being influenced by negative habits that do not align with our moral code . Positive influences should come from within the family unit, which has dissipated to allow external factors to shape our children. It’s no wonder that today’s children are causing problems in schools and that teachers are afraid to work because of the way their students treat them.
These outside influences have filled a void in the life of a child who is something of a rebellious activist; children who act out because they don’t know how to control their anxiety because no one has ever mentored them; children who don’t know who they are and who imitate their emotions in movies, shows, music and cartoons; and become impudent in the face of good advice from experienced elders.
If there’s one book you should read, it should be William Golding’s 1954 novel “Lord of the Flies.” The story is about a group of young boys stranded on an island and struggling to govern themselves, creating divisions arising from rational and emotional responses, as well as a distinction between morality and immorality. This premise can be applied to what our communities face, especially when dealing with young people without the adults in the village to supervise and guide them.
