4 ms·

Theory: A large proportion of adult mental illness is caused by an environment mismatch between adulthood and childhood. Fairy tales with disturbing themes were

Theory: A large proportion of adult mental illness is caused by an environment mismatch between adulthood and childhood. Fairy tales with disturbing themes were a good way to safely introduce the real world to children. Insulating children from reality leads to them learning the wrong things about the world both on a conscious intellectual level and a very low level as in cortisol response to stress. You grow up and then have to live in a world that is completely alien compared to your childhood and your brain just doesn't work right because it wasn't trained to handle things while it was malleable enough to learn them.

readthenotes1 2y ago
Alternately, it's parents who confuse comfort and security with love and do their best to shield the children from consequences of the children's actions.
- moomoo11 2y ago
  Maybe those parents are also victims of fairytale indoctrination
pc86 2y ago
I would have expected most mental illness to be the result of a chemical imbalance and/or trauma (either physical or psychological). Also, this presupposes that by the time you are old enough to experience the world your brain isn't "malleable enough" to handle it which seems unlikely unless you're really sheltered from the vast majority of the world until your late 20s.
- rexpop 2y ago
  OP is describing a form of psychological trauma.
- colechristensen 2y ago
  >chemical imbalance One, this is a mostly unsupported phrase used by therapists which may be comforting to patients but isn't actually backed by neuroscience. The best that can be said is that drugs which affect the brain help some people with diagnosed mental illness. The chemical mechanisms for most mental illnesses are not known or barely hinted at. >Also, this presupposes that by the time you are old enough to experience the world your brain isn't "malleable enough" to handle it which seems unlikely unless you're really sheltered from the vast majority of the world until your late 20s. This seems to be parroting the "your brain doesn't finish developing until 25 (or whatever)" which has gone around quite a distance as a meme but has no scientific basis. There are many development windows for many different things, some known better than others. A 20 year old does not have the same language acquisition skills as a 3 year old. My eyes work a little funny because I was myopic at birth and some control systems didn't develop between birth and 6 months and that window is just permanently closed. Most things remain at least a little malleable and some much more than others but this does not mean that there aren't developmental periods at a young age which aren't very important. Two, many chemical feedback systems are trained in early life. The "chemical imbalance" could be exactly this, childhood experiences not matching adult ones and as a result brain chemistry responds poorly to adult stimuli.
  - airstrike 2y ago
    > The best that can be said is that drugs which affect the brain help some people with diagnosed mental illness emphasis on "some": https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/01/10/antidepressants-are-over-prescribed-but-genuinely-help-some-patients https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/01/10/antidepr...
tptacek 2y ago
If that were the case, you would expect the consequents of mental illness (most obviously suicide, but also violent crime) to have increased since 1900, around the time that sanitized fairy tales were popularized; and: they have not.
- epx 2y ago
  They have and a lot.
  - colechristensen 2y ago
    Source your data. For example, the lowest suicide rate in the US in over a century (and ever, as long as records were kept) happened in 2000.
    - llm_trw 2y ago
      https://jabberwocking.com/raw-data-us-suicide-rates-since-1900/ https://jabberwocking.com/raw-data-us-suicide-rates-since-19... And today the rate is higher than in 1900 and raising. Sounds like whatever we did in the 1950-1980 worked extremely well and what we've been doing since hasn't.
      - tptacek 2y ago
        That is, obviously, not a graph of suicide trending upwards as a result of an intervention that occurred at roughly 1900.
        llm_trw 2y ago
        And it is also not a chicken. What does that have to do with suicides increasing in the last 25 years after falling for 50.
        tptacek 2y ago
        I don't know, but it sure won't have anything to do with sanitizing fairy tales, which is what we're talking about here.
hobs 2y ago
For most children of history I dont believe this was a real problem, my father for instance was a farm hand herding goats and picking olives at 5 years old - there was no time for an idyllic childhood.
- colechristensen 2y ago
  "Childhood" is a fairly modern invention. >herding goats and picking olives at 5 years old - there was no time for an idyllic childhood I bet you could charge wealthy people $50,000 tuition to have their 5 year olds herd goats and pick olives if you had a good marketing team. You could lean heavily on calling it an idyllic childhood experience, make sure to overuse the word "rustic".
  - robohoe 2y ago
    "farmhouse chic"
MisterBastahrd 2y ago
The most common cause of death during the American Civil War was disease. Not bullets, not bayonet wounds, not cannon fire. Disease. Imagine being the guy who discovered that washing your hands and tools meant less maternal mortality immediately after childbirth and being shunned because people had real understanding of infections or microbiology. When you think about those fairy tales, you cannot do it properly without thinking about the context in which they were written. Children were face to face with mortality every day. Polio, measles, typhoid, cholera, dysentery, diarrhea, plagues, minor wounds that got infected, etc. Kids today live in a world where if you make it to adulthood, you have a very strong likelihood that you will survive until you are no longer able to be productive. Your mental illness "theory" makes absolutely zero sense, because virtually all mental illnesses outside of degenerative conditions present themselves during childhood. I've had ADHD since I was a child. I didn't get diagnosed until well into adulthood, because my family never sought treatment. I didn't get this "mental illness" because of a lack of proper fairy tales. I was born with it.
ajuc 2y ago
A lot of fairy tales are just there to scare children into obedience. Probably most of them.
- avereveard 2y ago
  It's not really obedience, they convey that fire burns without the need to have it proven by trial. Stereotypes keep children alive until higher cognition kicks in and that learn consequences Now I do agree some of the stereotypes are antiquated, biased, and need a 21st century refresh, but there's more there than obedience.
  - ajuc 2y ago
    It's not teaching "fire burns", it's teaching "whatever authority tells you - you should do, even if you really want to investigate for yourself, because you'll die". Which I call obedience. And yeah - it's useful for parents because when your kid runs towards a busy street you don't have time to explain the reasoning and persuade it to go back. You need it to listen to you immediately. So it has some value. But let's not sugercoat it in psychological theories. It's simply obedience.
techostritch 2y ago
So in this theory, people with rough childhoods have less mental illness and those with pleasant childhoods have greater mental illness?
- Iulioh 2y ago
  ...these are extremes and i bet someone with a "rough childhood" will have greater mental illness chances because...material conditions but it depends how you define it. But i think not begin totally sheltered from every evil of the world will probably lead to a more well adjusted adult
- smegsicle 2y ago
  if by rough childhood you mean being safely exposed to rough concepts under the supervision of caring and mentally stable parents, and by pleasant you mean anything else, then i think you got it
- RoyalHenOil 2y ago
  No, trauma is harmful. The whole idea here is to reduce the risk of trauma, not cause trauma. Think of it like this: Growing up in an excessively sanitized environment leaves children's immune systems weak and makes them susceptible to serious diseases later. The solution: Give children inoculations, let them play outside, etc., to exercise their immune systems in safe conditions. Not the solution: Give children serious diseases.
  - entropicdrifter 2y ago
    This, this and this. And just like how kids who spend too much time in sanitized indoor environments are more likely to develop allergies and other autoimmune disorders, kids who are kept psychologically sheltered to too large a degree are more likely to develop anxiety disorders as adults. When "getting everything perfect" is normal to you and not a refreshing exception, you feel like you're a screwup most of the time even when you haven't done anything wrong besides being too hard on yourself.
  - WorkerBee28474 2y ago
anthk 2y ago
Nah, pollution did far more against mental health. And drugs.

readthenotes1 2y ago

Alternately, it's parents who confuse comfort and security with love and do their best to shield the children from consequences of the children's actions.

moomoo11 2y ago
Maybe those parents are also victims of fairytale indoctrination

pc86 2y ago

I would have expected most mental illness to be the result of a chemical imbalance and/or trauma (either physical or psychological). Also, this presupposes that by the time you are old enough to experience the world your brain isn't "malleable enough" to handle it which seems unlikely unless you're really sheltered from the vast majority of the world until your late 20s.

rexpop 2y ago
OP is describing a form of psychological trauma.
colechristensen 2y ago
>chemical imbalance One, this is a mostly unsupported phrase used by therapists which may be comforting to patients but isn't actually backed by neuroscience. The best that can be said is that drugs which affect the brain help some people with diagnosed mental illness. The chemical mechanisms for most mental illnesses are not known or barely hinted at. >Also, this presupposes that by the time you are old enough to experience the world your brain isn't "malleable enough" to handle it which seems unlikely unless you're really sheltered from the vast majority of the world until your late 20s. This seems to be parroting the "your brain doesn't finish developing until 25 (or whatever)" which has gone around quite a distance as a meme but has no scientific basis. There are many development windows for many different things, some known better than others. A 20 year old does not have the same language acquisition skills as a 3 year old. My eyes work a little funny because I was myopic at birth and some control systems didn't develop between birth and 6 months and that window is just permanently closed. Most things remain at least a little malleable and some much more than others but this does not mean that there aren't developmental periods at a young age which aren't very important. Two, many chemical feedback systems are trained in early life. The "chemical imbalance" could be exactly this, childhood experiences not matching adult ones and as a result brain chemistry responds poorly to adult stimuli.
- airstrike 2y ago
  > The best that can be said is that drugs which affect the brain help some people with diagnosed mental illness emphasis on "some": https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/01/10/antidepressants-are-over-prescribed-but-genuinely-help-some-patients https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/01/10/antidepr...

tptacek 2y ago

If that were the case, you would expect the consequents of mental illness (most obviously suicide, but also violent crime) to have increased since 1900, around the time that sanitized fairy tales were popularized; and: they have not.

epx 2y ago
They have and a lot.
- colechristensen 2y ago
  Source your data. For example, the lowest suicide rate in the US in over a century (and ever, as long as records were kept) happened in 2000.
  - llm_trw 2y ago
    https://jabberwocking.com/raw-data-us-suicide-rates-since-1900/ https://jabberwocking.com/raw-data-us-suicide-rates-since-19... And today the rate is higher than in 1900 and raising. Sounds like whatever we did in the 1950-1980 worked extremely well and what we've been doing since hasn't.
    - tptacek 2y ago
      That is, obviously, not a graph of suicide trending upwards as a result of an intervention that occurred at roughly 1900.
      - llm_trw 2y ago
        And it is also not a chicken. What does that have to do with suicides increasing in the last 25 years after falling for 50.
        tptacek 2y ago
        I don't know, but it sure won't have anything to do with sanitizing fairy tales, which is what we're talking about here.

hobs 2y ago

For most children of history I dont believe this was a real problem, my father for instance was a farm hand herding goats and picking olives at 5 years old - there was no time for an idyllic childhood.

colechristensen 2y ago
"Childhood" is a fairly modern invention. >herding goats and picking olives at 5 years old - there was no time for an idyllic childhood I bet you could charge wealthy people $50,000 tuition to have their 5 year olds herd goats and pick olives if you had a good marketing team. You could lean heavily on calling it an idyllic childhood experience, make sure to overuse the word "rustic".
- robohoe 2y ago
  "farmhouse chic"

MisterBastahrd 2y ago

The most common cause of death during the American Civil War was disease. Not bullets, not bayonet wounds, not cannon fire. Disease. Imagine being the guy who discovered that washing your hands and tools meant less maternal mortality immediately after childbirth and being shunned because people had real understanding of infections or microbiology. When you think about those fairy tales, you cannot do it properly without thinking about the context in which they were written. Children were face to face with mortality every day. Polio, measles, typhoid, cholera, dysentery, diarrhea, plagues, minor wounds that got infected, etc. Kids today live in a world where if you make it to adulthood, you have a very strong likelihood that you will survive until you are no longer able to be productive. Your mental illness "theory" makes absolutely zero sense, because virtually all mental illnesses outside of degenerative conditions present themselves during childhood. I've had ADHD since I was a child. I didn't get diagnosed until well into adulthood, because my family never sought treatment. I didn't get this "mental illness" because of a lack of proper fairy tales. I was born with it.

ajuc 2y ago

A lot of fairy tales are just there to scare children into obedience. Probably most of them.

avereveard 2y ago
It's not really obedience, they convey that fire burns without the need to have it proven by trial. Stereotypes keep children alive until higher cognition kicks in and that learn consequences Now I do agree some of the stereotypes are antiquated, biased, and need a 21st century refresh, but there's more there than obedience.
- ajuc 2y ago
  It's not teaching "fire burns", it's teaching "whatever authority tells you - you should do, even if you really want to investigate for yourself, because you'll die". Which I call obedience. And yeah - it's useful for parents because when your kid runs towards a busy street you don't have time to explain the reasoning and persuade it to go back. You need it to listen to you immediately. So it has some value. But let's not sugercoat it in psychological theories. It's simply obedience.

techostritch 2y ago

So in this theory, people with rough childhoods have less mental illness and those with pleasant childhoods have greater mental illness?

Iulioh 2y ago
...these are extremes and i bet someone with a "rough childhood" will have greater mental illness chances because...material conditions but it depends how you define it. But i think not begin totally sheltered from every evil of the world will probably lead to a more well adjusted adult
smegsicle 2y ago
if by rough childhood you mean being safely exposed to rough concepts under the supervision of caring and mentally stable parents, and by pleasant you mean anything else, then i think you got it
RoyalHenOil 2y ago
No, trauma is harmful. The whole idea here is to reduce the risk of trauma, not cause trauma. Think of it like this: Growing up in an excessively sanitized environment leaves children's immune systems weak and makes them susceptible to serious diseases later. The solution: Give children inoculations, let them play outside, etc., to exercise their immune systems in safe conditions. Not the solution: Give children serious diseases.
- entropicdrifter 2y ago
  This, this and this. And just like how kids who spend too much time in sanitized indoor environments are more likely to develop allergies and other autoimmune disorders, kids who are kept psychologically sheltered to too large a degree are more likely to develop anxiety disorders as adults. When "getting everything perfect" is normal to you and not a refreshing exception, you feel like you're a screwup most of the time even when you haven't done anything wrong besides being too hard on yourself.
- WorkerBee28474 2y ago

anthk 2y ago

Nah, pollution did far more against mental health. And drugs.