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?

Most of it is a load of old bollocks - this is not to diss those who genuinely suffer from it, but the number of young people who “have anxiety” eg before exams pisses me off. You’re anxious, like everyone is before exams or a big event, you’re not suffering from anxiety. It’s like everyone these days self diagnosing with ADHD because they’ve done a quiz on Facebook. Everyone has to be “special” these days. A few years ago it was imagined food allergies, diagnosed by some Chinese quack in a shopping centre, but now it’s anxiety or ADHD. And it makes life a lot worse for those who do actually have it.

Im in my 70’s if we had an exam or had to stand up and speak or something similar in front of the class, you would have felt nervous, nowadays they have anxiety. I have said this for years.

Real, severe, anxiety, like GAD, is horrific. I had an episode during lockdown and was close to suicide at one point. I couldn't take the 24/7 panic attack any more. My mind and body were ravaged. I lost a stone in a month because I was nauseous with terror all the time.

Feeling worried, even really worried, isn't a disorder, even though it can be unpleasant and miserable.

I also have a GAD diagnosis and barely left the house for years after being forced to give up my job (though I am much better now). I don’t think anybody is suggesting that genuine anxiety disorders don’t exist or are ‘trendy’. Of course there are both adults and children who are suffering with MH disorders often alongside conditions like ASD or OCD and life will be very, very challenging for them.

The discussion is more around people claiming to have anxiety, when they’re just experiencing perfectly normal uncomfortable human emotions. My DD will often claim to be having a ‘panic attack’ when she’s just feeling slightly stressed or in a rush. That isn’t as panic attack, and it’s a bit of a slap in the face to sufferers of genuine anxiety disorders to call it one. She is also convinced that she has ADHD, when she grew up displaying no signs of it whatsoever. I believe that she’s actually lost her ability to concentrate due to screen addiction, like many of our youngsters. Unfortunately I don’t know if there’s any way back from it now.

Exactly. Everyond claiming they have anxiety or trauma and self diagnosing themselves, takes away from those who do have it. Nobody is taking a dig at people who have diagnosed anxiety But that simply can't be the msjority in a class .

Speaking as one of those who has one of the conditions you are cheerfully disparaging, I would say it is your behaviour in taking to internet forums and repeating narratives that invalidate medical diagnoses that makes life worse for us. Please stop.

I was born in the 50s -if you had a breakdown you were pitied, if you were thick you were mocked, you were assumed to be coping as that made you a proper sensible person. Or else you could be looked down on. So no one was anxious. Or treated for it.

Turns out many probably suffered without support or medication. But it was possible to cop out of life more easily, eg physical jobs like road sweeping, cleaning jobs -so your life wasn’t pressured and you got by. Often with family support.

if everyone works rigid hours the family support is gone -ditto if a home costs 160,000 how would you find a home. I think it was always there but modern life shows it up more.

You do realise that a lot of children do experience trauma in childhood? The NSPCC currently estimates 7 children in every classroom will have experienced abuse by the age of 18 and the Lancet Psychiatry journal cited a childhood trauma exposure figure of 31% in 2019, noting these children were twice as likely as their peers to have a range of mental health disorders.

These are the children some posters are cheerfully disparaging with their ill-informed 'snowflakes' narrative. These children need our compassion, understanding and support.

Not everyone. Not to the extent we are seeing today. There was in fact a really good article in The Economist which I now can't find, where actual doctors said the flood of people self-diagnosing themselves with imaginary conditions and using therapy speak is taking away from real victims.
Being nervous about an exam is not anxiety. Doing badly in an exam is not trauma.

Definitely have undiagnosed ocd. I remember my worrying and anxiety got so bad my mum went to have a chat with the GP and then relayed to me not to worry, the GP says its called rumination! Very unhelpful. I was struggling so badly, labelled a dreamer by most teachers but was having intrusive thoughts etc..and couldn't concentrate because of that.

I don't think anyone is saying it is. What is being pointed out to you is the relative prevalence of abuse and other sorts of trauma in childhood. We understand cancer better now than we did in the 1950s and we understand mental health better too.

Think SM, being always contactable and 24 hour rolling news doesn’t help. I’ve come off all SM except occasionally logging in here. Feel so much better. Have to say I limit my news intake too which is very beneficial. So glad I was born in the 1970s so my childhood was before phones/SM etc. I wouldn’t have coped well at all especially as I had a very unhappy childhood home which is where I think my anxiety originated. For me personally, I find being able to digitally disengage with the world helps enormously, I take walks or read/do crafts. This would have been normal behaviour years ago but now it takes a lot of effort. I think we need time for ourselves to recover from daily stresses and we no longer get it in this digital age.

This is very boring, but exercise helps. Not for people with severe conditions. But for the rest of us. I got rid of my car in the pandemic, and it is the single best thing I have ever done ( not possible for everyone I know).

The difference was in the 70's (and I would say right up to the 90's) no-one cared if you were nervous or not, you just had to crack on and do whatever it was that made you feel uncomfortable. Nowadays, you would be given the option to sit it out.

And we're not talking tightrope walking over an abyss here, we're talking about standing up and talking in assembly, trying a new food, going to a new club, having to sit and be bored by Great Aunt Ethel for 45 mins.

This exactly.

I think the problem is that we all 'get anxious' about things, eg driving in unfamiliar places, attending interviews, doing exams. So a certain amount of anxiety is normal. But people co-opt the term 'suffering from anxiety' to describe their perfectly understandable reaction to life events and its meaning becomes watered down. But it is still important to remember that anxiety disorders have to start somewhere. They don't necessarily arrive in your life like an explosion. It's often a gradual build up until your life isn't your own anymore. So I do think it's important not to immediately dismiss someone's claim that they are suffering with anxiety, just because the thing they're reacting to or the way they're behaving doesn't seem 'bad' enough or doesn't fit with your idea of what anxiety should look like.

There's also saying you're 'a bit OCD' because your life feels better when the house is clean or your books are in alphabetical order. It's not unlike the type of behaviour seen in people with OCD, except that engaging in the behaviour is making you feel better, even happy. People with OCD don't feel better when they wash their hands/check and recheck things/line up their belongings. They are suffering from an irresistible compulsion and, in their minds, have no choice but to carry out the associated rituals.

Just thought of something else! I have, in the past, suffered from crippling anxiety that effectively put my life on hold. But I also have what might be called chronic 'low level' anxiety that chips away constantly and is definitely a very significant barrier to living a full and normal life. Not all anxiety is the same and I suppose what I'm saying is that we should be careful not to do mental health assessments of other people when we have no idea what it's like to live in their head. I imagine I look reasonably together to the outside world. I kind of wish I didn't have to ...

I don’t think anyone’s saying that anxiety doesn’t exist or that it’s ’made up’. But those pointing to ‘severe’ or ‘diagnosed’ anxiety or ‘conditions’ like GAD are forgetting that these, like all kinds of anxiety, are self-created and a self-fulfilling loop.

Not a popular thing to say but any psychologist will back that up.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t real, it just means that it’s a feedback loop that has gone very wrong. There isn’t anything medically wrong with you. Some hormonal conditions do exacerbate anxiety, like menopause, and obviously neurological conditions like ASD also make it much more likely, but anxiety itself is a pattern of thinking that causes physiological symptoms. When this pattern of thinking is fed (usually by avoidance and certain thinking styles) it gets progressively worse.

I was really shocked when I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder and anxiety. I should perhaps have guessed as I spent two years barely leaving my room and crying in the phone to my husband to come home as I was scared the tree outside would fall on the power lines every time a slight wind blew.

a simple pill a day magically made my life a million times better.

Psychologist here. I think you are over simplifying. Many health conditions (e.g. under active thyroid) and vitamin deficiencies can create symptoms akin to anxiety. With chronic anxiety, or trauma / PTSD (a type of anxiety) it is actually dysregulation of the central nervous system - from living in survival mode and being overly attuned to potential threat. This can lead to myriad physiological symptoms from palpitations, brain fog, breathing difficulties and poor sleep to long term health conditions including autoimmune disease. With chronic anxiety the physiological symptoms are often there FIRST, before any thoughts creep in, especially in the morning as people with high anxiety experience higher levels of cortisol in the early hours. This is why grounding strategies are useful, as focusing just on thoughts won’t work - the person is far too physiologically dysregulated.

This is not self created, either. People develop anxiety for a reason - plenty of which are outlined on this thread. I’ve never worked with a person who suffered with their mental health for no reason - even if those reasons were not immediately obvious. Often anxiety is linked to adverse early experiences, insecure attachment and stressful life events - no one creates anxiety out of nowhere! Anxiety and worry can be maintained via CNS dysregulation and ruminative thought processes as well as behaviours such as avoidance but that’s very different than it being created by the person, with no external trigger(s). My point is anxiety is a lot more than just patterns of thinking, and it can lead to medical problems if chronic and untreated. Living life in threat mode for years with high amounts of cortisol is very unhealthy and it is no wonder people struggle to function.

I think you need to tread very carefully about using a term such as 'self-created' when describing an anxiety disorder. This implies some sort of autonomy on the part of the sufferer. It suggests that they could just as easily have made the decision to not have anxiety and lays the 'blame' firmly at their door. And that, of course, isn't true.

As for your 'any psychologist will back that up' assertion, where on earth did you get that from? It's complete and utter rubbish.

Oops, cross posted with an actual psychologist!

"Living life in threat mode for years with high amounts of cortisol is very unhealthy and it is no wonder people struggle to function."
@Plastictrees ... yep, my cardiologist put anxiety as the underlying cause of my heart attack because of the continual cortisol. That is why, when my daughter was showing signs of anxiety in her late teens, I took her to the doc. She is medicated and had some talking therapy. Both of which have helped her immensely. (And together are worth much more than individually... for her)

@BeyondMyWits Yes I was going to start listing various health issues that have strong links to chronic anxiety and stress, but then I thought better of it as I don’t want anyone reading this to feel more worried! I hope you and your daughter are doing well now.

I don’t think anyone’s saying that anxiety doesn’t exist or that it’s ’made up’. But those pointing to ‘severe’ or ‘diagnosed’ anxiety or ‘conditions’ like GAD are forgetting that these, like all kinds of anxiety, are self-created and a self-fulfilling loop.

Yep, I self-created my 'severe' anxiety by throwing myself down a flight of stairs, giving myself life changing injuries. I should probably just snap myself out of it/pull myself together like I'm sure you would if it were to happen to you.