Thirty years ago, I was nineteen and mentally ill, but nobody said a word about mental illness and I was seriously afraid I'd end up locked away. Forty years ago, my neighbor across the street gave birth to a "mentally retarded" child. She didn't live at home. They were ashamed. She WAS put into a home. Thirty years ago, they never heard of autism except for the extreme type so many people with higher functioning autism wandered the streets, being "off", maybe being homeless and friendless and shunned. Autism itself was said to be caused by "refrigerator moms" and was considered a form of schizophrenia. When "The Three Faces of Eve" (the movie) came out, dissociative identity disorder was so unheard of that it shocked and morbidly fascinated the world. Now we know that disassociation of various types is common. Heck, in the 1960's women stayed with men who hit them because they thought it was their fault and were treated like it was their fault. Ditto for rape victims. Guess what? All of this misinformation is still around. The internet helps spread both correct and incorrect information.
Thirty years from now we will know about many other things that we don't now. As one who had a severe mood disorder when nobody believed you had one unless you were OBVIOUSLY manicky, I will tell you that there were plenty of mentally ill people who were just not acknowledged back in the day when we didn't know as much as we do now. And in the future, we will think of this as those "good ole back in the days." Yet we've only touched the surface regarding mental illness.
I think (back to the internet again plus cable news) we hear about more crime and shootings now. Also, the internet probably gives some unstable people ideas. There is always good news and bad news...the internet is an example of both.
I do not think things are worse now. I think that when families lived together, including extended relatives, they took care of their mentally ill, mentally delayed, autistic, and other disordered members. They had no choice. Nobody was keeping track of the numbers. And until recently, this was a "shame" to a family so people didn't discuss it very often.
