If you go swimming in an area that is swarming with sharks, and please don't, but if you do,

and you develop a bunch of deep lacerations and missing body chunks, you probably won't be

very surprised. You'll probably think, well, yeah, I went where the sharks were. That's what sharks do.

You will know that the fault isn't in your swimming. It's what was around you.

If you take a barefoot walk in a big field with broken glass all over the place, and again,

don't, and you come away with cuts on your feet, it's not a big mystery how those got there.

It was the glass that was all over where you were walking.

The fault wasn't yours.

The fault wasn't in your footwork.

How about this one?

If you live in a society that discriminates against people based on race, ethnicity, gender, orientation, disability,

and you happen to be on the side of the

ledger that the system is designed to discriminate against, and you develop some mental health

issues as a result, maybe it's the system. Maybe the fault isn't in you. Or if you're anyone

living in a society built around having to defeat everyone

else, while everyone else tries to defeat you, think that might make you a little messed up in a way

that isn't your fault? It's depression mode. I'm John Moe. I'm glad you're here.

I've been thinking a lot lately about mental illness and how much of it is individual chemistry or genetic destiny, and how much is a rational response to the world we live in?

The whole, it's not you, it's this, I'm gesturing now to everything, idea.

How much is the world that we share, the world we don't share well or fairly,

to blame for what's going on with our brains.

Depression, anxiety, trauma response. Are these things happening because we view the world through distortion we call mental illness? Or are they happening because we see the world

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