Why do you think so many people have anxiety these days?

[TitaniasAss]

Or do you think it's just become more recognised? When I was young I remember my mum describing a neighbour as 'living on her nerves' which I think probably meant that this woman suffered from anxiety.

I don't suffer myself, I do get anxious about the things most people get anxious about eg driving test, exams etc but I don't think that's unusual. I work in a secondary school and we have so many children with SEMH and anxiety issues that it makes me worry for their future.

I used to work in a primary setting a few years ago and I can remember an 8 year old telling me that they were having a panic attack because of their anxiety. It was awful to me that a child that young even knew what a panic attack was.

I absolutely do believe that, for teens, social media plays a huge part. Why so many adults?

It wasn"t talked about, sometimes you heard the expression she lives on her nerves or she's a bundle of nerves. Didn't seem to be said of men. But life is very complicated these days IMHO.

imho, perfectionism & bureaucracy & a policy for everything.
"We can always do better" itis.
We always strive to improve
Safety is our first priority.

Basically a lot of people absorb the info that NOTHiNG they do is every good enough & nothing is ever done to a good enough standard.

Also, the modern huge aversion to risk. Like all risk is bad. So people never learn to live with risk or manage it or accept it. They actually believe that they are bad people if they don't worry and try to minimise all risk.

I was unwell as a teenager, and was prescribed anti-depressants and sleeping tablets. I know now that what I was feeling was anxiety. I had a medical condition that went undiagnosed from 12 to 15 years of age, myasthenia gravis. I think I was put in the 'teenage girl with mental health problems' box. And my physical symptoms were ignored. I have ulcerative colitis now as well, where one auto-immune condition goes more are sure to follow. Like Mary and her lamb. I've been on anti-depressants most of my adult life and the last few years have been particularly hard.

But to go back to the anxiety thing - I know now that the feeling I had as a teenager was anxiety, but I couldn't seem to articulate that, and no doctor ever asked me if I could explain what I was feeling. Even though I saw a child psychologist for a bit, he just sat on the couch and talked at me. It took me years to be able to understand and articulate that most of my life I've been anxious.

I work in a part of the schools service which provides support to children with SEBN. And we have a lot of kids with anxiety. There are so many, the numbers have increased hugely since Covid. And I hate to say this, but I will. I think the words anxiety/anxious are bandied around too much. I know what that deep, searing feeling of fear is, it's debilitating and paralysing. And makes life almost impossible at times. I cannot believe that everyone who says they have anxiety really does, and I hate to say that. I'd agree with other posters - 25% never talked about in the past and so undiagnosed, and 75% so-and-so down the road has it so I must have as well.

I've edited to say I'm not sure I've explained myself very well. I'm fairly sure my anxiety has been caused by a lifetime of physical ill health starting with epilepsy when I was 5. It's not diagnosed anxiety. But that's not the same as being anxious before an exam!

Or they ‘got on with it’ and passed their anxiety/poor mental health down through the generations due to poor self awareness, limited coping skills and the stiff upper lip ‘keep on keeping on’ mentality. It has created a massive vicious cycle which I believe is one of many reasons why so many people are struggling now. There is a difference between resilience and burying/suppressing feelings.

Emotional resilience and regulation begins at home, it is learnt via attachment and early years experiences. If a parent has an avoidant/dismissive attachment style and attitude towards their emotions, this will negatively impact the child who learns to not show their feelings, pretend they’re fine, minimise their emotions. It is so unhealthy and sad to see so much of this mentality in this thread.

Well said, I agree.

I didn't know I had anxiety until I went to see my doctor, I couldn't draw a deep breath and as I was getting over a heavy cold I thought it was a chest infection.
I was sent for a chest x ray which came back clear, I was tested for asthma and again I was given the all clear.

The doctors then decided it must be anxiety, so I was put on a course of Citalopram which amazingly worked!
I would have never thought of myself as being anxious, but apparently shortness of breath is a symptom of it.

Because it's talked about so much, that it's become trendy. Same as self-harm, non-binary, autism, ADHD etc. Seems no one can just be 'normal' and boring anymore.

+1 - concerns me massively that parents use it for their 5-10 year old children...No, they are just being children getting used to the world...No surprise that when these smothered children then hit the real world, they really struggle.

Do you see the problem in wanting us to take your anxiety seriously as you cheerfully dismiss 75% of other people's?

I do a lot of health histories because I'm a midwife. I realised the other day that when I get to the mental health question, I can often (usually?) predict who is going to say yes to anxiety, just from their age/background/profession and being in a room with them for 15 min! Or more accurately, I often know who isn't going to say yes to the question! And I myself have low level anxiety and a child with anxiety, so I'm not discounting that it's real.

But there is something in our culture that is contributing to it.

I think it’s always been there. People used to just be described as highly strung, neurotic or ‘bad with their nerves’ and they just didn’t really speak about it.

Thousand times this!

so your anxiety was very real but other people are just not resilient enough or jumping on some sort of trend!?

Well there are 8 million more people in the UK than there were in 1980 when I was a kid.

People everywhere, cars everywhere, people are more crowded in and less tolerant.

I was always a bit neurotic but was taught to suppress all my feelings like a good British citizen when young, whereas nowadays we know how to talk about our feelings

There's a mixture.

DD2 has anxiety, diagnosed by the GP aged about 10. However when she talks about it, I recognise a lot that I felt similarly when I was that age. Dm used to say I was "highly strung".

Being diagnosed is a blessing and a curse.
Sometimes there were things I got physically sick with, and just had to push through even though I felt dreadful, and would find it really hard to unwind afterwards, and it wasn't helpful for me to do for various reasons.

But I also see with dd that she at times, especially when younger, thought that saying "oh my anxiety is playing up" was a complete excuse to not try.
I could see things that I had felt the same and had to develop strategies to get through. And I did. She had to start developing them probably about 5-10 years later, and it was much harder because she'd always given way to the anxiety and just not done it, and then she often had playing in that everyone else had done it heaps of times and she'd always got out of it.

There's also been times when I've had to say that it isn't anxiety - everyone gets nervous about them/doesn't like doing it, but sometimes things have to be done or someone has to do it. She finds it really hard to believe that other people might feel the same way at times; she feels she feels it worse than others.

I think also there is a SM habit of feeling nervous and self diagnosing as "anxiety".
I wouldn't tell people I have anxiety, not just because I'm not diagnosed, but also because I don't think it is something that's actually helpful (normally) for other people to know. It's for me to know, so I know I have to find strategies to work through it. That's where it's helpful. Not in others making allowances for me.

Emotions weren't discussed in our house when I was growing up.
I had no idea how to communicate what I felt as a child. It's only as an adult I realize I was an extremely anxious child (possibly undiagnosed ND) As an adult I've learnt how to manage it to certain extent but it's always there in the background. I guess if I was a kid now it would've been picked up on.

All of these, yes, probably, and what we used to call lack of moral fibre... i. e. no resilience for some of the reasons above

What age/background/profession makes you predict the person will have anxiety?

Young people have an awful lot to be anxious about, student debt, lack of affordable housing, for most, little hope of ever earning much, climate change, the environment..

Aren't UK teens the most stressed in Europe? and who is that on? us, for who we vote for.

As for resilience, i think thats a load of bollox, dreamt up by older people to defend their own actions, the young people i know are very resilient

In any case, its the older generation who parented these young people who, they say, have little resilience!!!

MH issues are at the highest in the under 24s, very closely followed by the 25 to 50 age group.

Older people have always criticised the young.

This sounds about right, plus I think people spend most of their time overthinking and trying to control everyone around them

The end was meant to say it's now diagnosed anxiety! Not not 🙄

I think it's more that things that used to be difficult are easy and things that used to be easy are difficult.

Every material want is catered for with a click or a swipe but it's becoming harder to find meaningful human connection or a sense of belonging and purpose.

I also think were nutrient deficient due to crap soil and food habits

Being anxious is a normal feeling in certain types of situation. I think anxiety disorder is different, but who would argue with someone saying they can't come into work as they are anxious?

It's always existed, but it's talked about more now. My 85 year old dad has suffered from anxiety his whole life. His mother (no longer with us - she was born in 1908) was also a life long anxiety sufferer.
It used to be referred to as nervous troubles, or neurosis or people would say "he suffers with his nerves". My parents knew many anxious people when they were growing up and they were born in the 30s and 40s.
My son (11) suffers from anxiety. Someone may roll their eyes at this and see it as a modern, made-up condition, but I can see very clearly that he takes after my dad and my grandma.

I know several people with what I'd class as anxiety. As in they've been on medication for most of their adult years, suffer from panic attacks etc
For some i hate to say but it is jumping on the bandwagon and being brainwashed by social media
Every behaviour and personality type seems to need a label
You can't just be introverted or shy anymore. You have social anxiety