It’s been documented that mental health is a serious issue in the anarchist community - Anxious? Depressed? You might be suffering from capitalism. Ideas developed among anarchists focusing on class struggle may have application to the general solarpunk community as well.

Right now we have a top-to-down mental health system. You visit a professional, receive a diagnosis from them, and then have access to medication. This situation often arises when a person cannot function in their work environment, or when stress in the work environment or stress due to financial pressure causes the person to have mental health episodes at home. I do believe that a lot of disorders aren’t really disorders to start with, but that people become disordered as an expression of trauma caused to them because they present differently from the majority or don’t fit into the behavioural confinements of their community.

In a solarpunk future we would hopefully not expect people to work eight hours a day, and commute two hours, and have two partners do this just so they can afford food and shelter. We would not bully people or discriminate them, or deprive them of basic resources and force them to somehow cope. Kids would grow up in an environment where their natural needs are respected, they would not be locked up in a classroom all day, their parents wouldn’t be stressed out of their minds all day. Access to health care would take care of non-capitalism-derived problems early, before they fester into full disorders.

There will still be cases of people who cannot fully take care of themselves or even are a danger to others, and as of now I don’t know? I guess each community will have to come up with a solution that works for them - it’s very much a case-to-case thing and not something that can or should be decided from above.

It’s tricky. I’m bipolar, and I need my medication to thrive, so we’ll need ways to compound those kinds of medications that aren’t at odds with solarpunk. What that looks like, I don’t know. I’d need more knowledge on how aripiprazole is created and a definition of “solarpunk” enough to combine them…

But also, I used to have severe issues with social anxiety. I still have the underlying anxiety predisposition, but improving my surroundings and the people around me helped with the anxiety.

I think a more solarpunk society will benefit the general mental health of a lot of people, but there are still going to be mental illnesses that need medical intervention.

But I think it’s also important to note that Solarpunk isn’t handed down from any governing body. There’s no strict dictation of what is and isn’t solarpunk and what does and doesn’t fit. We have general consensus, but it comes from the ground up, and it comes from what we talk about and how we talk about it. In short: If you want to discuss how mental health will be handled in a solarpunk society, the ball is in your court. It’s up to mentally ill folks and our advocates to determine our futures here.

Final caveat: I think there are some people in the solarpunk community who overlap with the… “natural is better” community. The “anti-chemical” community, or the “the only antidepressant you need is trees” community. That’s a problem we as individuals should definitely address. But again, how? Up to you and us.

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