Staying Sane In an Insane World

I made it half way through day two of Oprah's "Best Life" series on TV this week before storming off in a huff. The two-week series is supposed to be about health, but nothing about these shows feels nurturing to me. Case in point: being obsessed with the measurement of your waist and the amount of food that goes in your mouth is hardly a model of well-being, and yet, it's exactly what we are encouraged to do.

Oprah is not the only one missing the point. Nothing about this modern life is conducive to our health or our happiness. In fact, obsessing about weight is the least of our problems.

We work too much and exercise too little. And when we do exercise, it's in a gym, alone, with our earphones on. We grab packaged food on the go and eat it in front of our computers. We would rather watch television than have a conversation with our spouse, and we text message our friends instead of engaging with the person sitting next to us at the coffee shop. We rarely make eye contact.

It's a lonely, frantic, impersonal world out there. In fact, it's nothing short of insane.

Crazier still is that we think there is something wrong with us for not being able to fit into this reality. It's not just about weight loss. It extends to many other areas of our lives. Too often we are told we are crazy, or have "issues", or a mental disorder when there is nothing wrong with us. The problem is not individual. It is societal.

As a researcher, I have spent years talking to people with cancer, with clinical depression, with eating disorders, with learning disabilities, and now, with people who are grieving or are sick. I don't crunch numbers or perform fancy statistics in my research. Instead, I do qualitative studies, or, simply put, I ask people about their experiences and try to understand what they are going through from their own perspective.

When you actually listen to people instead of giving them a battery of tests, a diagnosis, and a bottle of pills, you begin to understand that no matter what the situation is, people's experiences make sense in the context of their own lives.

For example, the anorexic women I spoke to associated thinness with achievement and achievement with love. Most had learned at some point in their childhood to associate their self worth with achievement, and the highest achievement for them was losing weight. And so, dieting in the extreme was about feeling worthy and loved. Although ultimately self-destructive, their explanations were logical in the context of this culture that connects thinness with accomplishment.

My clinical depression study came to the same conclusion. When women talked about their depressions, they would talk about relationships. I heard about boyfriends and girlfriends, and mothers and fathers, and sisters and brothers, and friends and colleagues. No matter how many times I tried to steer the conversation back to "The Depression" they would talk to me instead about feeling lonely, disconnected, and isolated. Were they really clinically depressed? Yes, according to the diagnostic criteria, but on closer inspection, it was obvious that their environments were a huge part of the problem. They wanted to love and be loved and felt depressed because they couldn't do that.

Unfortunately, our society is more insane than ever these days. And we are all feeling its effects. The widespread anxiety and depression we are experiencing is in many ways natural and even adaptive to the kind of word we are living in. It's scary out there, and it's lonely.

This is not an easy problem to solve. It's less work to try to make individual people "sane" by forcing them to adapt to an insane world, then to try to change an insane world to adapt to sane people.

One solution I have been toying with recently is the return to community. One of the most consistent findings in the psychological literature is that social support is the best way to promote well being and prevent mental distress. Being socially connected is so good for your health that belonging to just one social group (if you previously belonged to none) cuts your risk of dying by almost half! There is even evidence that social relationships can buffer the effects of disease. People who are married, who have close family and friends, and who belong to social groups have less mental disorders, recover faster from disease, and live longer than those who don't.

It's one holistic way to address the problem. It may not be the best or only one, but what is clear, is that we need to stop adapting ourselves to the insanity around us.

I'd be curious to hear suggestions and solutions the readers have for tackling these issues.

Comments

[apple54]

I too made it part way through one of Oprah's shows last week and was once again confronted like the author that we (human beings and especially women) are again and again told to equate our happiness with our "improved" or "better" appearance. I totally agree with Dr. Granek's observations about this societal problem and I hope that more of us will take her sage words to heart, I know I will.

[springsings]

Have you read Eckhart Tolle's most recent book-The New Earth. I am struck by the conversation about an inherent insanity which blankets the light at the core of our society. This insanity manifests in anxiety, worry, shame, envy and an overall lack of self-worth and self-love. Sounds simple and rather self-help'ish.
In fact, I think it is incredibly crucial at this time of expanding warfare around the world.
In terms of Oprah-don't get me started.

[tofaggis]

You are right on the money! This is directly in line with the research that my colleagues and I are currently conducting. We are trying to show how relationships with others, belonging to groups, or even receiving support from social services can influence how people understand who they are and, in turn, influence their well-being when recovering from injury and illness. I am convinced that there are mental, physical, and spiritual health benefits to having social networks!

[Anne Dunev - Huffpost Blogger]

Dear Leeat;

Once again, you cut to the heart of the issue. And the heart IS the issue for us humans. No matter how much money we have, or don't have, how frenetic or boring our lifestyle, how well or little we are educated, whether we are male or female or some combination thereof--we live in our own emotional universes. Even if we say we don't, and claim to be objective and non-emotional--we have revealed our emotional state.

Our emotions give us the greatest joy, drive us to war with our neighbors, cause us to sacrifice life and resources to help others, and generally drive us crazy with the ups and downs, conflicts and obsessions. This does not make us certifiable, or manic-depressive. It simply makes us human.

Instead of medicating, we should be celebrating. And helping each other over the rough spots. As you pointed out, connection with each other, to be understood, valued and appreciated for our uniqueness, is fundamental to the human experience. Thank you for sharing your research.
Anne Dunev

[SixBillionPlus]

Hmm...sounds to me like everyone needs to read "World Made By Hand" by James Howard Kunstler.
Peak Oil will bring about the return to local community. The world won't be 'insane' any longer, it will be out of oil. It won't be overpopulated any more, it will go back to being at the mercy of the weather.
You are correct of course, America became insane when we elected Ronald Regan. It was 'Morning in America' and 'Government was the problem'. We turned our backs on Energy Independence, Spending limits, and paying your fair share. We entered a world where the free market would cure everything, even Alzheimer's. [you do see the connection right?]
I'm not sure about the rest of the world being crazy, the British got out of Iraq. Or if it may sound to you like I'm insane, well maybe I'm just trying to squeeze all my thoughts into a small enough space worthy of being read, or maybe I'm just in a bad environment ;-)

[Lovableloser]

Powerful post and comments -- HRN, you really shot to the heart of things when you said:

"life tends to feel meaningless if there is no one-- a friend, lover, parent, sibling-- to share it with. If there is no one to witness the amazement or desparation of our lives, our joys and troubles seem minimized somehow, perhaps less real or valid."

That really resonated with me -- I wrote it down as a reminder to call my friends and family who may be lonely or need some contact.

I also liked the comment by another poster: "When you are theo nly sane person in the asylum, the best way to cope is to pretent you are insane -- by acting normal!" LOL. I'm not sure what it means but it certainly displayed the insanity and confusion of our current cultural/social scene!

Have a good weekend, everybody!

[HRN]

I think lonliness is definitely a common thread in many of the ailmants plaguing our peers today... something sufferred at one point or another by every one I personally have ever encountered. I think basically life tends to feel meaningless if there is no one-- a friend, lover, parent, sibling-- to share it with. If there is no one to witness the amazement or desparation of our lives, our joys and troubles seem minimized somehow, perhaps less real or valid. Humans are social creatures that search for connection, and yes, often, for affirmation. We want to be accepted into the club of our peers, and when we feel we are unsuccesful at this, we feel unworthy somehow, and isolated, and depressed. I think there is definitely a need for a greater sense of community in the modern world-- and not just the internet community found on Facebook or comment boards, but a return to personal contact, tangible connections with good friends who will bring us back to the land of the living, who will see us, accept us, witness our lives, and help us heal our imagined insanity.

[MJSGK]

This post makes some fascinating linkages between weight, depression and our need for love and community. Other commentators have thought that part of Oprah's success is her life long weight battle as the audience identifies with her. So ultimately this wildly successful woman is still being judged by the size of her waist line. This post strikes a responsive chord in that it is the individual's struggle for love and acceptance that motivates much of our behaviors.

[pogo]

Well, you're right: society is insane in and of itself. However, society gets to define insanity, rather than the individual. If the individual declines to abide by whatever social norms are accepted by the society at large, then the individual is a 'deviant', or mentally ill if poor, eccentric if wealthy. I've never been able to figure out how, in a society that deems religion-socially accepted schizophrenia and OCD-and deference, which affords reverence and respect to the most manipulative and destructive individuals, to be normal, there can even be a rational attempt to define sanity.

[DownerCow]

When you are the only sane person in the asylum, the best way to cope is to pretend you are insane - by acting normal!