Humans cling to the illusion of control, to the notion that we are masters of our fates and captains of our souls, but when that veil of illusion tears, as it so often does, the results are often disastrous to our emotional and mental wellbeing.
I consider myself a suitable case for treatment: apart from anything else, my original family has a demonstrated genetic tendency towards marked mood disorder. I am not alone, of course: one in three of the general population has suffered, or will suffer, an episode of what used to be called nervous breakdown.
My sister and our first cousin suicided after years of undiagnosed suffering, undiagnosed largely because of family fear of stigma, which exists because 'normal' members of society are terrified of mental illness, and of its threat to order.
Yet mental illness has always been with us, as the ancient Greek tragedies prove. Hippocrates' theory of the four humours, particularly the part of it that attaches melancholia to an excess of black bile, has remained significant throughout the centuries, as has his view that what is needed in the human psyche is isonomia, a balance: none of the four humours should dominate.
Later a supernatural explanation was advanced: Christ cast out the demons from the afflicted. The demonic explanation of mental illness persisted for centuries, during which time the clergy were the equivalent of psychotherapists.
In Greek villages they still are. In the Peloponnesian village where I live difference of any sort is immediately suspect, and the false self is rigorously cultivated. Mental illness is regarded with fear and loathing, and most villagers, when not denying its existence, blame its incidence on the Evil Eye.
A relevant anecdote. A handsome young shepherd named Yianni was going about his business when he sustained a severe shock: another villager, an older man, had hanged himself from the branch of an olive tree. Yianni cut the body down, but never recovered from the experience.
I envisaged assistance from doctors, counsellors and anti-depressants, but Yianni's family thought otherwise. Church and priests were the answer. Unfortunately, this solution has not worked: Yianni's health, both physical and mental, is very precarious, and his marriage broke down long ago. The damage that stigma can do.
One weapon against stigma is knowledge. In 1963 nobody knew much. Mental health was a given, so people rarely asked what recipe/circumstance/magic wand was a guarantee of what is now viewed as a fragile