What's "Wrong" With You?

Depression is a form of mental illness, one of many.  Probably it is the most common type of mental illness, for it often accompanies other manifestations of mental distress.

Like all forms of mental illness, it is widely misunderstood within the population at large.  It's common, therefore, for people to shy away from discussing mental health issues and to avoid those persons who suffer from mental problems.  I believe this is often because lack of understanding makes observers ill-at-east when around people with mental problems.

There's more to the story than that.  People with mental illnesses may behave in unexpected or even bizarre ways that give their friends and acquaintances good reason to avoid them.  Depressed people in particular are no fun to be around.

But the most serious consequence of public misunderstanding is the pejorative way in which the mentally ill are treated.  It's often assumed that there is something "wrong" with them, that they're not "normal" at the very least, that they are somehow morally wrong at worst.   Such treatment of the mentally ill is, however, not merely unfair; it is positively harmful.

It is true that there is something wrong with the mentally ill, but it is not a case of moral worth.  It is a case of physical ailment.  Mental illnesses are chiefly (but not entirely) connected to the brain.  The last time I looked, our brains were a part of our bodies.  That's key to a proper understanding of mental illnesses.

We would not say that there was something morally "wrong" with a person with a heart disease, or diabetes, or arthritic joints.  We would not judge a person with bronchitis or the flu as "bad."  There is, therefore, no reason to distinguish brain-centered illnesses from the diseases or other parts of our bodies in terms of the individual worth of the person who has them.  The fact that brain diseases behave differently, and perhaps more mysteriously, than other illnesses does not make those diseases less important, or less real, or those who happen to suffer from them less worthwhile.