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?

corythatwas that's okay. Maybe I don't explain what I mean very well (though I know you didn't direct your first post at me personally, and maybe you didn't even notice what I'd said).

About your mother just getting through things even though they were a struggle: that line She thought she did the right thing in soldiering on has made me feel quite sad. I sympathize with you having to experience a parent with issues, having been a child growing up with an alcoholic mother who probably had other illnesses as well. I was never called upon to care for her as such, so didn't have that pressure, but living with her moods was by turns baffling, frustrating, excruciating, and scary at times.

Your daughter's consultant seems to have shown a closed-minded attitude that is quite shocking in a health professional. Trying to refuse a new referral a year after last seeing her? A lot can happen in a year, and if a person has been experiencing continued anxiety and whatever else for that long, it seems obvious that things need looking at. I hope she doesn't have to see him again.

There's definitely a difference, even in "situational" depression/grief, between 'normal' and 'not normal'.

corythatwas your comment made me think of my grandmother. When her husband suddenly died, leaving her with two small children and no money, her grief went far beyond normal. My mother remembered my gran storming out of the house, telling them she was going to kill herself and not reappearing till the next day. My mum and her sister were confused and frightened by all that, and didn't realise till much later in life that that went beyond normal grief, and into "needs a doctor" territory.

On the other side of things, my mother experienced having two of her babies die, and was given a tranquilliser by her GP to help her cope. She took it once, and then never again. Her level of grief was normal and appropriate to the situation, and didn't need medicating but working through.

The difficulty is - how do we learn the difference between a normal, if unpleasant response to something happening to us and a response which needs medical intervention? How do we give people (young people and adults) the tools to tell when their feelings are normal, rather than pathological? And how can overworked GPs spot the difference in a ten minute consultation?

Most married women become widows at some point; just the way it is. I know and have known many. Some are very sad, some seem a bit relieved, to be honest!

My mother had the worst reaction. My father died in middle age, and my mother could not cope. At one point she was even wailing that she wished it had been me who had died rather than df. She became very ill and just lay in bed for weeks, but sent away the GP who I summoned. I think it was me who actually suffered the lasting damage...

taught in schools, where people can learn it before they need it

Children younger than 11 are being diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. I was around 11/12 . It would need to be very early to be "before they need it" imo.