Mental Health Series: How Mental Illnesses look like in Modern Society
In ancient times, Traditional Chinese Medicine diagnoses people with mental illnesses under the categories of 癫狂（maniac），怔忡（anxiety），抑郁（depression） , to name some of them. They are rather the extreme cases of mental illnesses and the presentations are rather clear cut and straightforward.
However in today’s society, mental illnesses have a change in their signs and symptoms as people today tend to use their intellect to hold everything in more and put on an artificial façade to make them seem normal on the outside. Yet It is because of this that one day this holding in break down and the person snap and let their emotions take control of them, even to the state of committing crimes and atrocities.
Yet we can already identify some signs of mental illnesses on the brew by observing the behavior patterns and tendencies that a person is adopting right now.
Here are some of them:
-darting eyes and inability to focus gaze
-avoidance of eye contact when interacting with people
-picking, pulling, scratching of skins of body parts to the extent of bleeding
-cancellation of plans last minute or unable to see through and complete a plan in mind
-constant need to seek validation from people
-tendencies to use physical material objects to satisfy the feelings of emptiness or boredom
-being overly nice and concern to the state of overextension of one’s energies
-drowning oneself with work and neglect of other aspects of life such as health and interpersonal relationships
Of course there are many more but I’ll write more about the analysis and discuss further with Traditional Chinese Medicine and ancient traditions in future posts.
Meanwhile, take care and be happy.