The Thing About The Mental Disorders Discussion

I sat and tried to read over this article piece, stopped, and just stood there pondering.

First, this poll/study drills down into mostly white folks....not Hispanic or black.

Second, it does divide up folks into young and old.....conservative and liberal.  I have to trust that they asked enough questions to put people on the right listing.

What the numbers mostly say lead to three 'facts' (may be totally true....maybe only half-true):

1.  Young white liberals have a 46-percent chance of having some kind of mental condition.  They don't really spill the beans on what this might be (I might ask more questions what you mean by a mental condition).

2.  Young white female liberals....have a 56-percent chance of having a mental disorder.  Again, they just don't tell you the type of disorder.  They don't ask if they are heavily medicated, boozed-up half the time, or just hanging around whacked-out friends.

3.  Young white conservatives only have a 21-percent of some mental condition.  So you wander into some group like this....probably a church group or bowling 'gang', and feel pretty safe that they weren't nutcases.  

In the late 1970s....after I had wandered off the farm and gone to the Air Force....I had already been inoculated on crazy folks (being from Alabama, you probably bumped into at least one clearly crazed person every week).  So it didn't really bother me with the crazies that I met in the Air Force.  

As the years rolled by, I came to note that there were more and more of these mental disorder folks that you'd bump into. 

In the past six months, I bumped into an American with the bridge-crossing disorder.  For her, no problem in crossing a bridge that was forty-feet from the ground or stream.  But then you come to German bridges that are 300 ft from the ground?  NO....she has to design trips in some fashion where she would never cross such a bridge.  Yeah, it's a mental disorder but not likely to be one that you'd rank as critical.

I've also bumped into a German gal who has the 'wind on the neck' disorder.  This means she can't possibly sit in a out-door restaurant/cafe because the potential wind to hit her neck would create a perceived health problem (she has to always sit indoors).  

Now I should say this about the two women....they are both liberals.  It probably wouldn't take you more than 15 minutes of conversation to have the 'hints' laid out and you just sit and grin....avoiding conversation as much as possible.  They are nice people....just on the fringe of life, and having to deal with significant mental disorders.

So I don't doubt this number business.  My question....has this always been around and we've just become more open to people having mental issues/disorders?