Teen mental health in the 80s and 90s

[GladysGeorgina]

I work as a pastoral and safeguarding lead in a high school. I was at high school myself in the mid eighties and very early 90s.
I work with so many students who are struggling with their mental health. I also have personal experience with my teenage dc. The AMA thread last night from a school housemistress talked about the wave of mh issues within her school, particularly self harm.
I look back to my time in high school and I just wasn’t aware of peers experiencing mh issues. It just wasn’t something we talked about or knew anything about. I remember one girl who used to have what I now know to be probably panic attacks and she was collected from school when this happened.
I’m not naive enough to think teens at this time didn’t experience mh problems but what happened to these children? Were there really fewer issues like I remember? School refusal also wasn’t something I remember happening.
I guess what I’m asking is am I remembering correctly? Did anyone work in a high school at this time and can remember what teen mh was generally like? Did anyone experience mh issues during this period and what was it like for you?
I feel like I face such alot of significant need at school and it troubles me. Was the need just “hidden” in the 80s and 90s or have things really got so much worse for our young people? I’m not a journalist or reporter by the way. Genuinely trying to make some kind of sense of what I see every working day.

There will be a lot of replies to your post about ‘masking’ and ‘better diagnoses’ but I don’t think that accounts for the avalanche of MH issues and SEN diagnoses that have happened in the last 10 years.

Life was more conducive to mental health then. No social media, not too much introspection and being bombarded with ‘it’s ok not to be ok’, no social justice warriors, the focus of my life was whichever rat faced boy I fancied and whether I had enough Dream Matte Mousse to take me through the week.

I was at boarding school in the 80s. I can remember at least 2 cases of anorexia (which was the 'in' thing in those days). When I went up to university one girl on my course in my halls also dropped out due to anorexia and another later developed it when working.

I think things have got worse, due imo to social media & exam pressure. Also don't get me started on gender identity stuff.

When I went to college at 16 at the beginning of the 90s within a year several students had mental health crisis. Some of them tried to self-medicate with cannibis and/or alcohol. I only knew because acquaintences started acting strangely before they disappeared. Those who had been to school with them or traveled in with them, explained what had happened.

At school I wasn't aware of pupils with MH problems as pupils dropped out of school for various reasons.

I had huge mental health issues in my teens but there was no thought by anyone of addressing them in any way. My diaries of the era are full of suicidal thoughts.

I think life in general was much more community focused, lots more parents at home, children growing up in bubbles so to speak and most importantly no social media. I finished school about 11 years ago and there really wasn't anything like this. I remember when skins came out suddenly there was lots of weird behaviours but nothing on the scale like it is now. It was very interesting going through school with the slow introduction of internet on phones and just seeing how it created so many problems.

Like @TeenDivided I was at boarding school until the mid 80s. We had 5 boarders with anorexia. One spent time in a mental hospital and 1 was removed from school by her parents. I don't know what happened to the others.

In regards to other MH problems - people know up to 30 years older than me that it tended to appear when people were in their early 20s when that person was at university. They had a very clever sibling who had a breakdown and then was never the same.

I think it comes down to two words - social media.

I think families don't spend as much time together as they used to, for example we used to eat together more or huddle in one room because there was no central heating. There's to much choice now..lots of television channels, food, lifestyle choices and people feel overwhelmed. Also social media doesn't help.

Oddly enough, DH and I were chatting about this on the way to work today. We were both brought up to face a problem head on and deal with it, and sympathy was in very short supply. When training as a mental health first aider myself (as an adult), I was astonished to discover that "anxiety" was a thing. I've been anxious my whole life - I just thought that was normal. So some support growing up would have been great, but I've managed anyway. I fully appreciate that my anxiety is low level, and has generally not prevented me living my life. I know that there are many people who are not as lucky. I agree with a PP who mentioned social media - I think it is incredibly hard for kids growing up in the social media age. Much more pressure to be having "fun", living the good life, and looking gorgeous. Yet, hanging around in your pjs and being bored is a happy memory from my childhood! I do think there are better diagnoses now, which is helpful, but I also think that the prevalence of mental health advice and guidance can sometimes make people who would have cracked on with things more likely to ask for help. Equally, I'm a fan of asking for help when you need it, so there's no easy answer!

School refusal also wasn’t something I remember happening.
I guess what I’m asking is am I remembering correctly?

I know and have met adults who refused to go to school at secondary age who are now in their 30s and 40s.

In my own school if you did that they would chase you to try and get you educated somewhere else if you were under 16, however in other people's schools they left them to it.

I went to high school in the 80s and amongst 16 year olds the biggest concern was whether you had lost your virginity and not getting pregnant. I don’t remember anyone having mental health issues.

@Nevermindthesquirrels Your experience is really interesting. I feel like social media might well be at the root of alot of the changes in mh. What changes did you notice as social media grew whilst you were at school? I always think that when I was at high school if I’d had a crappy day I could go home and not see or speak to anyone at school until the next day. Our kids just don’t have that opportunity to mentally escape and switch off

Ha ha, same!!!

I started high school in 1979 and left in 1984, I had what I now realise was depression and social anxiety. I really struggled and occasionally thought about suicide. There was no talk about mental health in those days, it was pretty much taboo - well definitely in our house anyway. There was no pastoral care at school and no one noticed or cared. I think mental health issues were definitely around but either went unnoticed or were put down to bad behaviour. I know my mum’s version was that I was just a very difficult teenager.

I remember self harm being fairly common when I was at school in the 90s. Also goths, emos and their associated fascination with all things dark. I think it's possible we talk about it more now than we did then, and it therefore seems worse.

I had trichotillomania (hair pulling) from age 11 in 1993. I had bald patches the size of my hand. My parents (incidentally both teachers, and one had a degree in child psychotherapy) said it was for attention and that was the end of it. I still have it and the patches, though not as bad. Teachers noticed, other than pointing it out to me nothing was done.
There was two anorexic girls and one left to go to a hospital and didn't come back.

I had depression and anxiety and used to self harm. I had school phobia due to bullying and had to attend an adolescent mental health day unit. I was prescribed beta blockers for the anxiety. This was all during the 80s.

I was diagnosed with autism and ADHD in my 40s.

To those of you who experienced mh issues at school in the 80s with no help available - were you able to get support from anywhere? I really hope so.
I do worry that we talk too much about mh and young people want to label normal teenage emotions as a mental health disorder. However, I can’t bear to think of students (like some in the 80s) who really need help not having anyone to turn to in school. There must be a balance to be had but I’m not sure what it looks like.

I left Y11 in 2004.
There were definitely teenagers with MH issues then, perhaps not so much as now for sure. But also it was very hidden and hushed up, and I doubt many people would have recognised it was MH as opposed to a stroppy teenager.

Also, there was very little pastoral care at the school I went to. I remember one student who witnessed something horrible in the street and they were upset next day at school. They were told to pull themselves together and stop being dramatic!

I was at high school in the 90s. I was depressed, self harming and had a lot of suicidal thoughts. It was a selective, single sex school, and there were other girls with eating disorders, depression, probably others who self harmed. I don’t think there was the levels that you hear about these days though, but it’s hard to tell because I was self harming and maybe would have met the criteria for a diagnosis of depression in primary school, but presented very well at home and school and didn’t talk to an adult in school until nearly the end of year 11 when a friend told a teacher what I had told her and never spoke to my parents about it.

@GladysGeorgina When I started secondary school in 2004, there was very few kids with phones. It was common to go to someone's house who had a computer but no internet. The kids who did, had dial up and it was very restricted. This is also a pretty well off part of London so I'm assuming it was probably ahead by a margin.
I remember around y8 everyone suddenly had broadband and MySpace blew up. Kids were getting digital cameras and uploading lots of things onto there from park shenanigans etc. The kids that had phones with cameras would record things like fights and there was a big problem of naked pics and even sex acts being recorded and spread. This caused lots of bullying and one girl I remember ended up trying to take her own life as lots of people spread this video. Boys would pressure girls to do this so they could record it.
I guess the same issues existed, but the social media part just made them so much worse. I remember discovering some American kids MySpace and we were so shocked at the amount of presents they had for Xmas and the size of their house. I can't imagine going home now and just seeing constant beautiful and rich people on my feed. I think that's really messing with kids heads and is a big part of this MH problem ballooning to these proportions.
I do remember spending a lot more time just playing after school. Me and my friends would spend hours on her trampoline, making films on her camera or just reading magazines. I didn't have anywhere near as much homework as my sister now has (she's in y10) and my GCSEs were far easier so I could pick lots more subjects.

2007. The advent of the smartphone. If anyone has read, or reading The Murders that killed America by david B Lyons will understand where all this is heading. I'm half way through it so no spoilers!!

I think in the 90's for most of us when you were home the bullying/ pressure eased off. Now phones & SM mean it can be relentless for some poor kids.

Beauty standards were set by the coolest kids in the year who had similar access to rimmel and sun-in, so they were fairly achievable. Images probably weren't photoshopped to death in Just 17.

Every mistake you made was gossiped about for 3 days then someone else would do something stupid & they'd move on. Now it's photographed & whatapped and tiktok'd so everyone sees and comments.

That said, high school was survival of the fittest. There was very little support & no pastoral care that I knew of. I guess it made some of us more resilient with low level nastiness, as oppose to bullying, but the kids with real problems must have felt desperate at times.

But my god we laughed. I remember laughing so much at school.... I'm wouldn't relive my teen years for anything though!

They just disappeared - those with EDs, anxiety, mental illnesses, all just disappeared. Those with LDs didn't bother showing up. Girls would have babies because somebody older saw their vulnerability and they'd never step foot in education again until their first child was of school age, boys would get cash in hand jobs as builders or factory workers and cultivate substance abuse problems. The rest just struggled on trying to get through the days until they could leave school.

And others would end their lives.

Nobody saw anything, nobody did anything, nobody cared about anything.