Why am I mentally ill?

This is a question many patients want answered just as someone with a
real illness might want the question answered.

People give different reasons. I've heard a lot of therapists tell
clients it's because of what their parents did to them. A psychiatrists
might say a genetic predisposition expressed through a series of
environmental factors (parents, upbringing, friends, life experiences,
stuff you consumed etc). A priest might have said because god was
punishing you.

They'd all forget to explain something. You're mentally ill because
society says so. Specifically psychiatry as a system judging different
types of people however their system isn't without relevance to a
malformed society where certain types of people do less well in life.

The answer to why a person is mentally ill needs reference to the
construct of mental illness. A better question is why am I like or who I
am. Why am I an individual? The answers would be more relevant because
the question asks about the individual rather than the construct. It is
not about perjoratisation but recognising that good and bad facets come
from the same place.

If Ernest Hemingway asked why he was depressed he'd get the same answer
as why he was a great writer from anyone who understands how human
beings become.

If a homosexual fifty years ago asked why they were mentally ill they
would get an incorrect answer. The reason they were mentally ill was
because the psychiatric system at the time decided you were mentally ill
and used science to say so when in fact it wasn't true.

You are who you are and what you are because of lots of factors.
Society, people and psychiatry place judgements upon you and why they
place those judgements is complex. To answer the question of why you're
mentally ill - you're not. You're a human being. How you came to be a
human being as you are is perhaps explained by the
spirituobiopsychosocial model of cause but before you wander into that
area of understanding you need to realise something. There are positives
and negatives to all people. If you seek to focus on the pathologisation
of your being then you forget that from the same place comes the good
stuff (which you might not be able to see but others do and if
psychiatry was a true science it would get on investigating
psychosanology as well as psychopathology).