American society has a high rate of mental illness because, due to some horrible choices in how to build our society and economy, our society is literally break

American society has a high rate of mental illness because, due to some horrible choices in how to build our society and economy, our society is literally breaking down, and because our lifestyles are very unhealthy. In that regard, I'm not talking about high fructose corn syrup or preservatives-- which are mild as far as unhealthy things go-- so much as long commutes, withered social networks, a geography of alienation, and a work culture that expects even average Americans to make sacrifices for work that only make sense for the most ambitious 2-5 percent. The meager social safety net and lack of universal healthcare also creates an environment where crippling mental illness are more common, due to the feedback loops that turn a mild "rough patch" into a full-scale nervous breakdown (once the job is lost, health insurance lapses, medical bills pile up, et cetera). Our problem with mental illness in this country is because we're an unhealthy society, and we're so unhealthy as a society that throwing drugs and money at the problem won't substantially help, but that doesn't mean that the drugs are causing the problem. There is a difference between clinical depression (pathology) and misery, which is often a result of bad circumstances, and even in a bad situation there's no benefit or justification being depressed per se, but that distinction is mainly clinical. A lot of people are miserable for circumstantial reasons, and no amount of medication can fix that (without damaging the person's mind). If you give an appropriate dose of an antidepressant to a person who is in the sort of horrible circumstances that are common for the US poor, you might stop the panic attacks and crippling depressions, but you still have a person who's likely to be miserable. We do, of course, overdiagnose mental illness in the US. I know an eccentric but essentially normal person who was committed as a prank (Manhattan rich kids are the sort of sick fucks who would find this funny) and ended up in a mental hospital for 3 weeks (which is illegal, because you can only be held for 72 hours, and that only if you're in a state that represents direct danger to yourself or others). He was placed on all sorts of inappropriate medications, lost his job, and had more mental problems after the ordeal than before it. This sort of thing has more to do with our culture than with the drugs themselves.