To wonder why everyone suddenly has a mental health issue?

[VogueVVague]

Dont get me wrong, im not talking about people who have struggled with long term clinical depression, schizophrenia etc.

But it seems like everyone now has some form of mental issue.

Hey, as a teenager and young adult i was a freaking mess, a teenage runaway, drugs, alcohol, confusing feelings, rage, destruction, depression, fear, shyness sometimes, anxiety. Just thought it was a normal part of transitioning.

Now as a fully formed adult some things still make me feel anxious, mny times i do feel unmotivated, depressed on a kind of existential level, sometimes nervous, sometimes not wanting to do something because it involves big gatherings or lots of strangers, which lets face it, can be awkard and uncomfortable for most people.

Isnt that just life and being human?
It feels like i meet so many people who "have" anxiety or borderline or bipolar. Especially teens. Arent they just experiencing adolescence?

Is social media making us believe the normal default is "happy and relaxed", when thats just one setting and humans are actually also designed to be down or nervous sometimes too?

I take the OP’s point about teenage stuff particularly. To have mood swings etc during this stage is usually normal and not something that can be treated as such.

Yes, but when those mood swings include breaking furniture, telling people you're going to cut their throat, banging your head against a wall, taking a razor to the wrists, and end in contemplating suicide... just for you to be fine and acting like nothing even happened an hour later... You've a problem.

There is some very interesting research that shows eating disorders are basically non existent in countries where food is truly scarce. This suggests that things like anorexia are triggered by our environment and that body dismorphia develops when the basic requirement to survive is no longer a challenge (because our psyche needs something to be top of the list)

Rates of anorexia on a pretty remote island increased once TV was introduced.

My mother had such terrible sociophobia that she couldn’t use the phone, didn’t attend any school function/parents’ evening etc (I had to phone school if I was ill, even at primary school!) and I remember if we had to go somewhere she would either be ill at the last minute or would do all this wailing and gasping before we could get out of the car.

This was all never diagnosed. I thought it was normal until I went out into the wide world.

Now I fight against any inherited symptoms myself and usually appear manically outgoing (having been stuck on the loo five minutes before) in social situations.

I pity people with very real mh issues, but in many cases (like mine) you can gird your loins and battle through. It would be easy to turn into my mother or seek a chemical cosh. Or even make a thing of it on social media.

I only know a few people with MH issues. Their issues seem to me to stem from unresolved past histories.
Sadly drugs aren’t going to fix any of that.

You really are a horrible bitter person OP. I have thought that looking at a few of your previous posts but this confirms it

I’m a mental health nurse- there’s definitely a trend for people presenting with what they are convinced is bipolar but which is often eupd and I say this as someone who has a diagnosis of bipolar- the difference being I’d do anything NOT to have this disorder-
There’s also a hell of a lot of ‘fibromyalgia’ asd and adhd

I think we are now beginning to pathologise normal human behaviours and emotions which is in turn making it harder for people to a)manage normal life and b) for those with genuine issues to get the help they need.

Why is "fibromyalgia" in inverted commas, where?

BumpowderSneezeonAndSnot you just said pretty much what I just said, only more concisely. I think it must be true of some cases. But I'm mainly replying to say that your username made me smile. Snot is one of my favourite words.

there’s definitely a trend for people presenting with what they are convinced is bipolar but which is often eupd

I wonder if this partly because bipolar is a more recognised "medical" issue, whereas the whole term personality disorder makes one think of it as a character flaw?

As I've said before, I have a EUPD/BPD diagnosis, while my DH has a bipolar one (we didn't contaminate each other, honestly! but probably did connect over our similar struggles). I don't really see them as very similar in our case, although maybe it would be a harder distinction with a rapidly cycling bipolar? DH will have his depressions for a longer period, and within those periods nothing really shifts it. These are interjected by periods of completely normal mood and fairly short hypomania (during which again nothing will bring him down). For me, while there might be a longer term trend, my moods are much more easily affected by every little thing around me, much more yoyo-like in a space of a single day.

Thanks flourella as a fellow OCD (with the bonus of recurrent depressive disorder and anxiety into the mix) I wish you well! It's a shit condition to have

ProzacAndWine I remember one occasion when the psychologist I was seeing suspended my intervention so I could be assessed for personality disorders. I think he had a few in mind and BPD/EUPD was one of them. The way he presented the possibility made it sound as though I wasn't mentally ill, that I simply had a personality that was bad/wrong/inadequate/unpleasant/a pain in the arse but in a pathological way. I'm quite ashamed to admit that I was so relieved that I didn't meet the criteria for any of them.

I have noticed an increase (on forums where I lurk) of people claiming to have undiagnosed BPD and receiving a lot of sympathy and congratulations on their bravery. The idea of it seems quite...I don't know, desirable isn't the right word. People seem to talk about it more, but in passing terms only. Do you find that?

I do think we need to teach kids to be able to plough on through, but when to seek help when it becomes too much.
I am also concerned that some parents unwittingly reinforce their kids anxieties by not pushing them.

I have noticed an increase (on forums where I lurk) of people claiming to have undiagnosed BPD and receiving a lot of sympathy and congratulations on their bravery. The idea of it seems quite...I don't know, desirable isn't the right word. People seem to talk about it more, but in passing terms only. Do you find that?

I think people talk about it more, but I can't say I've noticed the positive trend much? I do often avoid actually reading a lot of what is written about it though, because in the past so much of what I've read has definitely not been positive in the least.

I first heard the term in the late 1990s when a friend was diagnosed, and when about seven years later I was given the diagnosis, I was devastated. Reading about the diagnosis devastated me further, as there are many assumptions out there about sufferers, which I didn't feel related to me or my personality at all. Still, at the time (before the savings hit our local MH services) it was a ticket for treatment, so I stopped obsessing about the label and took the help that came with it.

To be honest, when I see someone talking publically about having BPD/EUPD my first thought sadly isn't about their bravery, but that they're sadly naive to give such fodder to anyone who might ever want to use that against them...

There is an awful lot on MN of "My child should never be emotionally challenged." Not every difficult situation that gets described, but many of them, for sure. It's like people don't believe that resilience is worthwhile, and usually arises out of living thru challenging situations.

I agree lljkk

I know I sound like some cliched grandparent, but can you imagine if some people had had to live through the Blitz?

My uncle was in Dunkirk, the D-Day landings and liberated Germany. He never ever talked about it. But for his funeral he had pre-selected a couple of pertinent poems.

I’m not saying a stiff upper lip is always the right way, but it can get one through rather than be encouraged to relive or dwell on bad experiences.

ProzacAndWine Yes, the impression I was given - by my psychologist, let alone what I read online - is that people with BPD are difficult, selfish, manipulative, and don't care about hurting others, while any hurt they might be feeling is just an overreaction due to the disorder and therefore it is not necessary to sympathize with them over it. I'm pretty sure that's not the case(!) and that people do suffer a lot from misconceptions about it.

So glad that you received treatment and hope it worked to help you handle things.

I am referring to pockets online where usually young people play top trumps with pretend mental disorders and autism, etc. They just have to say they have it, no doctor agrees but what do doctors know, and a load of other people endorse them. Nothing these people say suggests they know anything about the reality. So bizarre and clueless that it's hardly worth worrying about, but autism and BPD/EUPD seem trendy among that lot.

I have antidepressants short term.,I don't consider that I have my problems .I took them after seeing my Gp as due to my circumstances I was finding it difficult to cope.I knew it eas short term,4months in the end until I was managing without but they gave me the ability to work,keep thing together for my daughter and think rationaly about how to sort my life.
My DD came out of it all less well,self harming, withdrawal and then as we thought she was OK suicidal.
She has counciling,is checked by the GP regularly .She has been given a diagnosis of social anxiety(which I thought meant extreme shyness).
Her CAMHS referral has come and she feels she is managing ATM.She is not on medication but the label has allowed her to say when things are getting bad as apposed to normal teenage angst/exam stress.

It's not just the ability to be stoical that helps though - it's also that you can often take steps to help yourself get through. I'm anxious (or just a terrible panicker, as I used to perceive it) and I found ways of helping myself cope with flying, for example. Valium from the GP, reading certain books, some mental exercises. As well as just gritting my teeth.

I'm not saying anyone can just "get through" severe mental illness if they try hard enough – of course in some cases they can't. But there seems to be a rise in an attitude of "I have XYZ so everyone has to make allowances for me".

And yes it is often the mildest or self-diagnosed cases that are like this. Academics I know say they often spend ages dealing with students being very demanding and entitled about things like this, then realise that someone who hasn't mentioned anything at all is going through hell, suicidal, has a severe eating disorder etc. and has been suffering in silence.

Lots of,people who.lived through the Blitz /Battle of the Somme and undoubtedly every other traumatic conflict in the history of the world had extensive mental health issues afterwards, just as many of todays military do. Some people can deal with things by repressing them (the traditional stiff upper lip), some people can't. It's not a question of moral strength or trying hard enough, it depends on many variables, some genetic, some environmental.

When working with clients who feel they 'ought' or 'should' get over things or pull themselves together I compare it to height. I am 5ft tall so will never be able to reach things from a high shelf that a 6ft person wouldn't even have to reach for. I need extra help in that area. That doesn't make the 6ft tall person better than me - just different. Equally one person being differently affected emotionally or mentally by life doesn't make them better or worse than someone - just different.

I think people get mental health and mental illness confused at times.

I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder in my early teens. Being an emetophobe, it meant locking myself in the bathroom "just in case", only sitting next to trash cans/buckets, having panic attacks in which I begged my parents to kill me, and stabbling myself with a needle.

Mid teens, depression decided to appear, too, and I nearly failed Year 13 because I simply couldn't get out of bed and face the world. And trust me, I tried. A fantastic week meant I had managed to go to school Mon-Fri, even for an hour at a time.

I was medicated with Xanax, mentioned above. But I was also on antidepressants since my childhood, and mood stabilizers since my GAD diagnosis. I've been free from mood stabilizers for a year and a half now, which was such a victory!

Yes, sometimes I hear some behaviours justified by mental illnesses that make me raise an eyebrow, but it doesn't mean that they aren't mentally ill. Maybe they are just in a better place.

Very true, MsJinglyJones. Often those poor students who commit suicide prompt disbelief with people saying they had no clue anything was the matter. Very ill people (physically or mentally) ime tend to retreat in upon themselves rather than shouting about it from the rooftops.

Yes I agree that some of those who are suffering the most, are those who never talk about struggling at all.
That is why we do need to teach kids when to ask for help. Because some do need it. But it is a balancing act.
Also agree that it is finding ways to cope with it. I supported a friend who made a serious suicide attempt many years ago. She saw a psychiatrist and then counsellor afterwards. A big focus seemed to be helping her plan how to deal with her feelings and how to change things.
Another friend's partner has lots of anxieties about all sorts of things. After quite a few years her partner managed to get her to fly. It took a flying course, mindfulness and valium, but she has done it.

I am not saying any of this is easy. But I do think the focus on mental ill health needs to be far more - what can you do with the support of others, to improve things. Whereas the public discourse at the moment seems to be much more - I have this mental ill health and that is the way it is.