Lost Generation

We, the baby boomers have done the damage…to society, to the earth…and our children have to pick up the pieces.

Young people today do indeed feel disillusioned by the world they’ve been brought into. Difficult to blame them really: family breakdown, depression, disrespect, greed, selfishness, environmental degradation are the norm. And yet we’re wealthier than we’ve ever been. There can be no doubt that humanity has taken a hugely wrong turn.

So it’s the adults’ responsibility to put their hands up, own the guilt and work on inspiring the younger generation to help them repair the damage NOW.

It’s no good relying on the bankers and the politicians to bring about a new world economic order at Davos 2010; their selfish, greedy interest is best served by the status quo. Bankers with their outrageous mansion-sized bonuses and politicians with their illegal “jail sentence” expenses, have shown their true colours over the last 12 months and we don’t trust them.

It’s up to us!

I’ve just come across the most amazing video on You Tube; you’ll find the link at the bottom of this blog. Do have a look: it’s simple, but very moving and lasts less than 2 minutes.

We’ve got to reverse everything

• Money doesn’t make us happy; happiness comes from within

• Family is so much more important than work, but look at the attention balance
• Divorce is now the norm for kids in primary school with all of the heartache it brings
• Everyone knows that climate change is real and yet could governments find any more reasons not to take action?
• The younger generation need inspiration, because they feel helpless and therefore apathetic and lethargic.

It’s up to us, to provide the inspiration: we…and they can change the world.

Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA

Label Mania!

According to an article in Mail Online, Psychologists are updating their bible, The Diagnostic And Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM, and apparently the new version, the fourth, is going to be 7 times larger than the original of 1952 and there’s a bit of a hoohah going on!

Well I’m not surprised! Do you hoard things and not throw them away? Well hoarding is being added to the DSM as a mental illness. That’s half of my friends and family heading for a padded cell for a start!

Do you get angry suddenly sometimes? Careful…you’d be admitting to a mental illness under the new Psychiatrist’s bible! And this new mental illness (anger!) has got a name: Intermittent Explosive Disorder!!

There’s another one: General Anxiety Disorder or GAD; how’s that any different to just plain and simple anxiety? Why does it need a special label?

One of the issues there’s a lot of reservation amongst Psychiatrists as to whether it should be included or not is binge eating disorder. How can they even think of not including that one? Binging or Compulsive Eating isn’t about food; it’s about the underlying negative emotions that cause people to use food as a coping mechanism.

Fortunately there is a sane voice out there: somebody who recognises the huge danger of giving doctors the power to pigeon-hole every single little item of eccentric and out of the ordinary human behaviour.

Apparently the logic in increasing the number of mental illnesses included in the DSM, is to catch early signs of mental disorders in children. Dr Michael First, Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University points out: “…there’s a huge potential for many unusual kids to fall under this umbrella and carry this label for the rest of their lives. The more disorders you put in the DSM, the more people get labels and the higher the risk that they will get inappropriate treatment.”

It’s interesting how the wind has changed over the last 10-15 years; some people have had a huge battle to get things like ADHD, Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia accepted as a legitimate illness, rather than being fobbed off with “yuppy flu”.

And now psychiatrists are going the opposite end of the scale and creating their own special syndrome: Labelmania