This essay is an exploration of environmental and political impacts on mental health in a culture of sensationalism and censorship.

I will be examining mammalian distress behaviours and the effects on brain function in populations in response to climate change and air quality and the food chain, in particular through the presentation of psychoses, dementias, and suicidal and homicidal tendencies.

In this essay I will be introducing several startling ideas which run contrary to accepted understanding of models of mental health, and will endeavor to state my case as well as I can despite the extremely complicated nature of the science behind these new ways of understanding mental issues. Citations will be provided in order to verify the claims made herein.

I would like to introduce you to a stunning fact; there is a direct and scientifically proven link between environmental factors, mental illness, and violence or suicide. [1] [2]

To understand this connection, you need to understand how cells in the human body function and how the acute stress response is linked to cellular respiration and electrolyte balance in a hostile environment, and realize that the human animal is lead around by extremely primitive life forms attempting to survive in an environment which is becoming increasingly hostile to life.

When someone’s seeming behaviour and mental state are dismissed as “mental health problems,” you reinforce the belief inherent to the system that certain lives, experiences are discreditable and their ideas useless, no matter how creative or well thought out they may be, and in the process, underlying physical distress is ignored and disregarded as a figment of a disordered mind.

Since cellular respiration is controlled by the mitochondria and dictates metabolism and waste product excretion, errors in the creation of cellular energy or in the removal of waste products can and does lead to cytotoxicity or the state of toxic chemicals, metabolic or otherwise, poisoning tissue; particularly of the organs or neurological system. [3][4] This toxic state has been linked to widespread physical inflammation and neurodegeneration. [5] [6][7]

So the behavioural manifestations of bio-cellular stress in a bipedal mammal with advanced cognitive function and increasing functional stressors in an increasingly  dismissed and demonized by the adminstrators of the system we live under, and because of social stigma, which only serves to create a larger class of people who have justifiable reasons to question or even be hostile to, Authority.

Dissidence, that is, making the choice to speak truth to power and risk punishment from the society, the tribe, or the State for it for it, is hardly something anyone would ordinarily chose to undergo without the need developing simply through a culture of coercive force and intimidation in order to silence new opinions or prevent the submission of new information to tribal council which might shift the structure of society giving Authority power; after all, wars are fought and men die because of differences in opinion or shifts in power every day. And the tribe doesn’t like to experience uncertainty either on an individual or public level. The tribe doesn’t think; it perceives and reacts, usually to the detriment of those it Others in order to maintain social cohesion. Anyone who threatens the safety of the group by challenging the position held by political authority runs the risk of simply being discredited as a mental health case. [8] [9]

The more stress an individual feels in response to the climate – not just political but literal; climate change itself is a prime motivator for mental health and social distress behaviour in the forms of neuropsychiatric features or illnesses and neuromuscular disorders, the more the human desire to seek out normalcy, because uncertainty, doubt, fear, panic, helplessness., etc, all cause physical changes to the structure of the brain and further inhibits its ability to respond appropriately to the degree of perceived and real stress the brain is experiencing in a given situation and therefore the more primitively the stress behaviours become in objective presentation. Different cultures throughout the world have different levels of acceptable conduct, and this and systemic bias, subjective opinion, world views basically, determine what is and is not mental illness. [10] [11]

A deeply concerning aspect of all this is that there is a proven link between air pollution and increased mortality in those diagnosed with mental illnesses, and the fact that the Trump administration in particular is cancelling environmental protection offices and policies while demonizing mental illness for gun violence threatens to create extremely dangerous social conditions if the science bears out. [12] [13] [14] [15]

 

Citations
[1] Association between Air Pollution and Suicide in South Korea: A Nationwide Study
[2] The impact of ambient air pollution on suicide mortality: a case-crossover study in Guangzhou, China
[3] Neurotoxicity of traffic-related air pollution
[4]Mitochondria Defects Linked To Social Behavior And Spatial Memory
[5] Psychosis as a manifestation of cerebral involvement in mitochondrial disorders
[6] Mitochondrial DNA sequence data reveals association of haplogroup U with psychosis in bipolar disorder
[7] Inflammation, mitochondria, and the inhibition of adult neurogenesis.

[8] From Gulags to Psychiatric Wards: How the abuse of psychiatry became a vital method of political repression in the former Soviet Union – Darren Bell

[9]Political Abuse of Psychiatry—An Historical Overview

[10] Batman Returns: How Culture Shapes Muddle into Madness

[11] The Americanization of Mental Illness

[12] Air Pollution linked to ‘extremely high mortality’ in people with mental disorders

[13] Air Pollution Causes Brain Changes Related to Autism and Schizophrenia

[14] 67 Environmental Rules on the Way Out Under Trump

[15] The Scientist – Climate Change and Violence