America: Land of High-Functioning Nuts

The "studies" show that almost half of us Americans are suffering from myriad forms of mental illness.  Some influentials, ranging from Walter Olson of the Manhattan Institute to Christopher Lane of the NEW YORK SUN, have questions about that number.  For example, they bring up the matter of the wonderful market this presents for use of such medications as antidepressants, services such as psychotherapy and spas, and stress-buster literature, DVDs and seminars. 

But not everyone is attempting to rebut the perception that we Americans are essentially high-functioning nuts.  Some, such as Ph.D. psychologist John D. Gartner, view a certain degree of aberrant thinking and behavior as a unique American strength. That personality trait was the platform for building our [once] powerful economy. In his breakthrough book "The Hypomanic Edge: The link between a little craziness and a lot of success in America," Gartner chronicles our beginnings. 

Unlike homogeneous nations such as Spain and Germany, Gartner points out, the U.S. was created by a God's Plenty of immigrants.  Many of them, even the buttoned-down Puritans, came here because they were not good fits elsewhere. Alexander Hamilton, who is featured in one chapter of "The Hypomanic Link," had a problem with conventional decorum and even kept his superior George Washington cooling his heals. Those arriving later, such as my family, were restless types who didn't cotton to the economic, social, and legal constraints of Italy and Poland.  My grandfather resented the Russians pushing him around, including constricting him into the army. 

If well-adjusted is taken to define mental health - as it was when I was in high school taking all those MMPIs - then it's impossible for the descendants of all those First Gen Americans to not be off.  In fact, most of my relatives have had their encounters with the mental-health system.  But those, including me, who didn't take their dire diagnoses seriously, have been unusually successful.  We could constitute a separate chapter in Gartner's book. 

Unfortunately, and this is the sad part of the capitalist conspiracy to market nuttiness, not everyone can blow off the psychiatrists and psychologists.  They seek "help" for their "condition."  That makes them suckers for every mental-illness product and service which comes along, underachievers, and often certified malingers.  Some of the best and brightest are on SSI.

To enable the high-functioning nuts to live with their "disease," we might have a mental-illness public-relations initiative to boast about all the lunatics who made it big. I recommend t-shirts printed up with "Out of it, And proud of it."  Mental illness has nothing to do with anything.  If we stop consuming the ancillary products and services, there will be no profit in attempting to diagnose and assist us.  We can go back to productive nuttiness.