Mental Disorders Are Systemic Disorders Affecting the Brain

In any given year, approximately 1 billion people are diagnosed with a mental illness. In western countries such as the United States, the rates are higher. One in five will be diagnosed with a mental illness in any given year. One in two people will meet criteria for a mental illness at some point or another during their life. And the reality is that the same time that people's physical health is getting worse, their brains are impacted too. Again, the predominant paradigm is mental disorders are genetic. Once you get this label, there's no hope because now you are schizophrenic the rest of your life. You need a mood stabilizer or an antisycchotic. Don't you dare ever stop it because if you stop it, you're going to get sick, end up in the hospital, or end up dead. We need to think about mental disorders as systemic disorders that happen to be affecting the brain. At the same time that people have these mental disorders, they also have body disorders. They have liver problems, metabolic problems, they have immune system problems, gastrointestinal problems. But then they're written off. Oh, you're mentally ill and you're complaining about stomach pains. It must be psychossematic. This is told to millions and millions of people every day. The narrative needs to be there is something wrong with this person's brain or body or combination of the two that is causing dysfunction or dysregulation that can be fixed.