to ask if MH issues amongst our young have increased since my day?

[UnseenAcademical]

I've name-changed for this because in the context of my other posts it could be identifying.

I teach in a modern university. My students are diverse, but the vast majority are between 18-26. I'm an X'er and grew up in the 70s and 80s. I do not have children, relevant because my only point of contact is through my work.

To be succinct, the first part of my AIBU is to wonder if mental illnesses / health concerns are increasing in young people today (compared with recent generations). I ask this because large numbers of my students have various anxieties and other MH issues. In the context of one of my classes, I ask who knows someone personally who has committed suicide and almost every hand goes up. I see cutters and other harmers in class and have read more notes from MH professionals than I care to think about. Other colleagues say the same.

The second, and potentially more controversial part of my ABIU, is to ask whether this has anything at all to do with modern parenting and educational practices (I'm not suggesting that these are the only contributing factors). I ask this because many (and certainly not all) of my students often seem to be so fragile and lacking in resiliency. Many struggle with failure and with comments that are designed to support and pave the way for better work. I'm told by those who have children in the school system that a major focus of parenting and teachers is on self-esteem. I'm confused because the students I see often seem to have very low self-esteem or a sense of personal identity that is strong only when being praised, not challenged. I'm at a loss with regard to how to support them.

Is something going wrong? If so what? Or is it (sadly) all down to the fucked up world we live in more generally?

[charliethebear]

Comparing my friend, who definitely has depression, to some others descriptions, hers were much more extreme and obvious. There was a definite "I have mental health problems" which were not really mental health problems. Which counds bad to say it but comparing the descriptions it was quite marked.

[Meemolly]

I don't know, I wonder sometimes if we have raised the bar too high on what 'normal' is, so we have lost the concept that life isn't always going to be happy or good. Life is just life. In all its forms. We have adopted the terms 'stress' and 'pressure' and turned them into something that leaves us breathless. I'm not particularly 'resilient' either, so I'm not saying that to sound judgey, I am just wondering.

[UnseenAcademical]

Thanks for your responses, all of which have given me food for thought. I'd considered the 'stigma' one, but I'm not 100% sure I buy it. I wasn't clear about knowing someone who had committed suicide. I do stress that I mean someone in their peer group who they went to school with or played sport with. I'm also the recipient of notifications for inability to hand in work where suicide of a friend, etc. is often cited as a reason. And many have the names of friends who have taken their own lives tattooed on their bodies.

I do wonder about the contagion theory and the competitive aspect to be honest. It is almost as if suicide is part of contemporary youth culture.

I'll keep reading and thinking.

[MrsMook]

I think that there's a combination of being more open and a more pressured society.

Comparing the generation that experienced the 1940s, they had very traumatic experiences that were brushed under the carpet, but because so many people were in that situation together there was solidarity. Miscarriage and infant loses would have been more common, and so common as to be something you just gloss over and move on from, but today because they are less common, the mental recovery is more isolating, and could be more stressful.

We are in an information age. Social media means we can know everyone, but actually have few close personal relationships. Families are more fragmented. There's less bad marriages, but difficult relationships after divorce/ separation don't entirely solve the problem. Less community. You may not go to school with your neighbour, and may be ferried off to different schools.

There is less certainty. No jobs for life, even if it's the certainty of a life down the pit or in a factory. Politics has pressurised the school system. Teachers and mentors are constantly coaxing away to meet targets set by an algorithm based on averages in a different subject in a test from years ago. There's less freedom and down time to just chill, play and be children. Less independence to make your own mistakes and learn to pick yourself up. More aspiration, much of it unobtainable. Bullies can access you in your own home on the internet.

Life has always been hard, but society often knew where it stood. The last 20 years have seen a lot of change and we're adapting to that. A lot of it is very mental rather than practical. We also aren't aware of the extent of the issues in the past- things like the historical abuse allegations coming out now expose that. I also think that we carry baggage from previous generations. My mother acts a certain way because of the way that she was raised. She was raised in that way because of her mother's upbringing, and she was growing up in the war and in a family devastated by the impacts of PTSD.

In short, it's complicated!

[RiverTam]

Yes, I do think that, without losing sympathy, some young people do just need to crack on and stop wallowing. It's be one too easy to do that, to allow how you're feeling to define you. Everyone gets anxious from time to time, it doesn't always have to follow that you suffer from anxiety.

[UnseenAcademical]

Mrs Mook - there is a lot in what you say. I'll think it over. I agree that there are also general political / economic / social structural changes and that I had not thought enough about these in the context I am describing.

One other thing I'd emphasise is that many of my students don't self-diagnose. They have letters from psychiatrists, psychologists, family doctors and counsellors all naming some sort of illness or disorder.

[Swirlingasong]

I think a lot of it boils down to too much information without adequate education in how to deal with it both practically and emotionally. I think future generations may look at this period n the same way as we look back on the era of cigarette adverts extolling the health benefits of smoking.

[EwanWhosearmy]

You say your students are 18-26. I was born in the early 60s and have had MH issues since my teens. But at 16 I was working FT, as were the majority of my peers. At 20 I was married with a mortgage. By 26 I had 3 kids.

Catching up on FB now with old school friends who left at 16, most did the same as me. DH's brothers did too.

Our Dc and our DNs are getting to their 30s without being married, having a house, or children. That has got to be significant.

[middlings]

Lots of really good points here.

Regarding the point around stigma. I do think there is less stigma but more, I think there is greater understanding.

I was diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder 11 years ago after years of debilitating panic attacks which eventually lead to pretty persistent suicidal thoughts. I was told at the time that I had acute anxiety which had lead to moderate depression. I was prescribed medication but did a lot of reading and embarked on a course of CBT instead . Through pretty rigorous CBT, I got better and now, so long as I get enough sleep, exercise and remain almost teetotal, I'm good.

However, I remember very clearly having panic attacks when I was about 10 and crying for HOURS but not knowing or being able to articulate why. My mother didn't recognise what was happening because back then, unless a child had been through a horrific identifiable trauma, it just wasn't considered as a possibility.

I now have two DDs and I'm very very careful about helping them to learn to deal with emotions, both good and bad. We allow disappointment. We express disappointment. We allow winning, and losing, and talk about both. I really really want to make sure that if their brains are wired in a way that is prone to anxiety, they deal with it before it's a problem.

I'm not presuming they do by the way (although being related to me, my sister, my aunt, my mother and my grandmother means the odds aren't in their favour) but I want them to be able to cope if they do.

[kesstrel]

Back when many fewer teenagers went to University, I suspect the ones who did were better prepared academically. Over the last 40 years the primary and secondary curriculums have been changed to put much less emphasis on correct and grammatical writing, using academic language, understanding how to construct an essay, how to take notes etc. Even reading anything but fiction tends to be unusual (no textbooks).

Then they get to Uni and they are expected to be able to do all these things, as well as understand how to do research (something they may never have done, apart from cutting and pasting from the internet) and also how to manage their time.

I don't think it's surprising so many find it really stressful.

[KondosSecretJunkRoom]

First of all, what are you addressing in your lectures that makes it appropriate to ask who knows of someone who has committed suicide by a show of hands?

Further, if you cannot say for sure that there has been an increase in mental illness between the generations, then it does seem like pissing in the wind to go about deciding how it has come about that there has been an increase in mental illness between the generations.

Usually when people attempt this slight of hand where they answer a question which presumes a truth which has yet to be established they fill the gap with wooly narratives and prejudice.

[nickEcave]

I did an arts based degree at a Russell Group university in the 90s. I now work (non- academic) for another Russell Group university and there is unquestionably more mental health problems amongst the students now than when I was at university but the pressure to succeed is far greater and the bar for "success" is far higher.

When I was at university a 2i or even a 2ii was considered a perfectly acceptable degree and I never particularly worried that I would get a job after university. I had a small student loan that was paid off within 10 years. Now with loans and tuition fees, students are under pressure to get a really good degree and to do additional work/volunteering/internships to burnish their CVs just to get into that first job after university. This is quite apart from the pressures of social media and the fact that everyone else presents a "perfected" version of their life which can be very anxiety inducing in itself.

[kesstrel]

itsmine I agree, but I think most people would agree that high stress levels where you feel you don't have the tools/ability to do what is expected of you can lead to mental health problems.

[Toddlerteaplease]

I'm a peadiatric nurse and I've noticed a huge increase in DSH. When I did it as a teenager it was so rare my school had no idea how to deal with it. When I was newly qualified 10 years ago, teenagers would take impulsive overdoses because they'd had a argument with someone or something fairly 'minor'. Been seen by CAMHs and that was it. Repeat overdoses were rare Cutting was very rare. Now the kids we get have huge problems, much more serious ongoing self harm. Many of them are already known to CAMHs and social services.

[Fiveandahalfweeks]

According to the Samaritans stats, suicide rates have actually slightly fallen over the last 30 years in the UK although slightly risen since 2004 among females particularly. I wonder if part of the reason your students are aware personally of acquaintances that have committed suicide, is simply because social media means they are more aware of people they know who have died in this way, than I would have done in my teens - it was simply harder to keep up with everyone I went to school/college with. Plus, people may actually be more open about the reasons someone died.

The highest suicide rates are among men 45-49 and women 50-54. This would suggest that what we though was resilience was actually bottling things up and people can't cope beyond a certain point.

Having said that, I do think it's important to allow young people to try things out themselves and develop their own ability to deal with difficulties - while knowing that their parents and wider families are there to support them when needed. And that failure is not the end of the world, it can be a chance to learn and develop.

[gandalf456]

From my own experience of the schooling system, I think there's a lot more pressure to achieve than there was - even at primary level. My children seem to be overly aware of their peers' abilities early on- particularly my daughter who is 12. She is low ability so that's maybe why. My son is brighter but less bothered.

I also think that everything's got more damned competitive. Even what your child eats seems to be a competitive sport. I certainly don't remember it being to the degree that it is now when I was a child. You got boastful parents but they tended to be in the minority and, collectively, many parents thought they were awful or perhaps it's the area I live in now, which is very middle class.

So, it's not surprising that it rubs off on the children. You can't just be ordinary anymore. You have to be extraordinary. We need to get back to a place where it was OK to be the former.

[BarInSpace]

A far higher proportion of young people go to university now than they did a generation ago, although I'm not sure whether that would make a difference.

I think in the past, many students with mental health problems might have kept it private, dropped out of their course, or not yet have had their MH problem diagnosed or recognised by anyone. Unfortunately, many were probably just considered "misfits" by some of their peers instead of a person who was not well.

[Lancelottie]

RiverTam, I thin you might be falling into the same trap of conflating terms here.
some young people do just need to crack on and stop wallowing. Everyone gets anxious from time to time, it doesn't always have to follow that you suffer from anxiety.

True. Bu the OP isn't talking about kids who are 'just wallowing'. She says these are young people with diagnosed mental health problems. Those, on the whole, don't go away with a bit of positive parenting and lecturing about stopping wallowing.

Thanks, by the way, for the earlier crack about 'not such superb parenting if it still leaves a child unprepared for university'. Parents helping a physically disabled child to struggle through school tend not to attract comments along the lines of 'still can't bloody walk though, can he...?'

[Lancelottie]

I'm not sure I'm making much sense even to me now!

Where there are pre-existing or underlying mental health problems (often the case, if it's been going on long enough for diagnosis), the hard-won help that has been obtained at home and school may have been enough for a child to hold things together.

That being so, the child may start to feel that possibly they can cope with university - after all, everyone's telling them that they are bright, they need a degree to compete in today's world, they should be proud of what they've achieved despite everything they've had to contend with.

But these just-coping youngsters head to uni, and need to negotiate a whole new support system, often a very disconnected one. Some are going from 32 hours a week support at school, to maybe 1 hour at university (if you can get it - try organising that sort of thing when your key difficulties are social and communication).

Perhaps the answer is indeed to let them fail earlier so that they never reach uni. I live in hope that there are other, kinder ways.

[UnseenAcademical]

Thank you all very much for your input and thoughts. There is much to chew over in this thread.

Thank you those who reminded me that

• MH issues often went undiagnosed / unacknowledged in the past
  
• Stigma has decreased
  
• Pressures have increased.
  

I think I also need to think more about the discussion re 'general stress' and 'MH issues'. Many of my students do have MH issues, and many more are stressed and sometimes unable to cope. I do think that for some this is simply that the work is high level and they need to focus (although it is steadily being dumbed down, and that's a rant).

Back to my original point, though, I'm also not convinced that resiliency is not an issue... but I also think that this goes beyond those students who have diagnosed MH issues.

I'll think more about it. But thank you again for your contributions!

[Grumpyoldblonde]

I have been thinking about this question a lot lately, I think kids suffered in silence back in my day, there is much less stigma now. At least 3 teens from my school killed themselves by the age of 20 and from what I recall nobody had any idea they had any problems. I knew 2 girls who became pregnant by 16 and were made to have their babies adopted against their wishes and often wondered what the effect on their family relationships and their lives was. I also know a couple of girls who were sexually assaulted as 10 year olds and it was treated as a bit of a joke shockingly by both parents and teachers. I fear for kids now as social media means they can be bullied 24/7 and there is a lot of pressure to do well at school as well as pressure to look good.

[Areyoufree]

I agree with Grumpyoldblonde. I was talking about how attitudes have changed just the other day. I remember in the village we grew up in, there was a young girl whose father drank heavily. Everyone knew he hit her, but no-one ever did anything. It was just accepted, although we were told not to go and play there. Same with pedophiles. You knew there were men that you should stay away from, but it wasn't seen as such a big deal. Stuff was just swept under the carpet. Speaking personally, I attempted suicide at the age of 12, but nothing was ever done about it. Professionals didn't really know what to do, so they just patted me on the head and sent me home. I think there is more support for teens now.