Nearly 40 percent of Europeans suffer mental illness
reuters.com
reuters.com
It's a very long explanation which I have in my head, but I don't have the mental energy to go through all of it. But parts of it would mention that any such studies that are backed up by "the director of the institute of clinical psychology and psychotherapy" are bound to be skewed on the side of "everybody is mentally ill", Michel Foucault explains it in his books better than I could ever do (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madness_and_Civilization).
Also, I find this emphasis on "everybody should be happy and economically productive" a little bit disconcerting. Being depressed is part of being alive, you cannot just be happy from the minute you were born all the way to your dying moments. Great works (if not the greatest) of literature and of arts in general have been created by depressed people. The feeling itself of eternal, blissfully ignorant happiness makes me more depressed.
As far as "being productive all the time at all costs", I won't go into it, it isn't worth it, I just blame it on the poorly misunderstood religion of Taylorism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Winslow_Taylor)
"Alcohol dependence" is the medical term for alcoholism. There are people who drink too much, want to drink less, see their lives and loved ones destroyed by their drinking, yet they can't stop drinking. Welcome to the world of addictions.
As a layman it's easy to understand someone is ill when they have bad fever or other visible, physical problems preventing them from living a normal life. It's not so easy when it's constant pain or headaches that you can't "prove". It's even less easy when it's a mental illness that you can't really even start to image unless you experience it yourself such as the anxiety attacks or the obsessive-compulsive disorder.
I agree the modern society and way of life makes the problem worse by being more mentally demanding, but I'm sure there's always been mental illness. It's something that people need outside understanding and help to cope with -- just like physical illness.
Science by Reuters. Yeap. What's next? C++11 lambdas explained by Shaquille O'Neal?
The term mental illness ought to be reserved for individuals who truly need hospitalized or at least serious treatment in order to cope at all. Nobody can keep everything together all the time but that's just normal. Depressions are normal, anxiety is normal, fear is normal, neurosis is normal, everything is normal unless it actually renders you completely inoperable so that you become a danger to yourself or others.
I personally know a 'depressed' individual who has been living off the government for 6 years now. Physically able, mentally capable but according to her psychologist too sad to work...
It may be that your friend isn't actually depressed and is just too lazy to work. But if she is in fact depressed, you're not doing her or anyone else any good by saying she should just "suck it up and get on with her life", because she can't, and being reminded of that is just going to make it worse. Depression feeds on itself. She may look fine to you, but you can't see if someone's depressed. We tend to hide what it's really like, this absolutely maddening feeling in our heads, the constant headaches, dizziness and mental and physical fatigue is not something you want to announce to the world. Nobody except my doctor knows about my depression.
I don't know about the statistics presented in the article, but I'm an example of the economic and social cost attributed to these illnesses. I've wasted a year of my life on depression, during which time I've been unable to work. Luckily, so far I've been able to live off my savings but if I'd been needing support from the state that cost would've doubled. I've never been the most social and outgoing person, but with the depression I became grumpy, uninterested, whiny and generally a little unpleasant to be around.
But let's play the game for a moment and assume it is true. We must then ask if it is a good idea to have Democracies given that nearly half the voting population is mentally ill.