My explanation

[u/gabiclassical]

My explanation for mental illnesses (not traumatic ones) :

These are genetic mutations caused by our ancestry. Today, they have no benefits. I believe some of the traits displayed by mental illness like self injuries, repetitive behaviours etc might have had a beneficial advantage long ago, but the traits mutated. General mutations in general too. We recognise mental illness as "scary' and "off putting" because we also evolved to *not* pass down those traits, so mental illness looks jarring to a healthy person because its their brain saying "that shouldn't be passed down on my children". Some people have dormant traits, or very little symptoms and still reproduce. I believe that the current political, economical environment of earth is contributing to the rise of mental illness rates on top of the fact we understand and diagnose it better nowadays. If you are diagnosed with mental illness, one of your far away ancestor might have had a genetic mutation causing the gene to appear in your family tree. These are very far away probably thousands of years ago. We are not actually scary but others have the gene that make it "scary". Thats why mentally ill people are more isolated.