To ask how I can have a healthy debate with my Dad about this?

[WaterBird]

I'm a child of the mid 90's so still fairly young, and my parents are great, but I am terrible about any kind of debate/argument.
My dad believes that if you grew up in a home with lots of love and few money problems, then you should have little to no problems with mental health. His argument is that people in older generations (3 of my grandparents came from an Eastern European country) have had to deal with a lot worse, and have still come out very resilient.
I really can see where he is coming from, but I also want him to see that mental health is a very real thing in my (and probably his) generation. Basically, I just want to help him understand. I might be feeling a little sensitive about this because I'm working through a rough patch right now (I don't think he realises the extent of it, so I really don't think it's a matter of him being ignorant). The conversation had originally come up because of a psychology course I am taking.
What are your thoughts? Thanks.

I don’t really believe young people aren’t resilient. I think it’s something spoilt baby boomers like to think.

There have been many many suicides, alcoholism, drug dependency, locked up for insanity, etc etc throughout the last century. It’s been hushed up brilliantly.

Statistics don't really help the person dealing with it. An illness might be rare amongst a certain demographic but to tell that to someone suffering really won't make them feel any better. Their suffering is not worse or less depending on their demographic, their suffering is dependent on the severity of their illness. Which most often has specific physiological symptoms.

Resilience might help but it is bit of an elusive thing to teach. One person might learn resilience from undergoing stressful experiences another might find themselves in Post Traumatic Shock.

I don't know if this helps you - but my parents and I have a lot of differences in our opinions. For example, I am well travelled, atheist and politically conservative. They have never left the UK, regard anyone who is "foreign" (according to their definition) with suspicion, are semi-religious.

For me the most important thing is that we get on - they are getting older, I don't want to fall out with them. Whilst I wouldn't lie and give my agreement to something that I felt was wrong we just don't tackle a lot of subjects - including politics and religion. A lot of older people are set in their ways and I think it's better to try and live harmoniously so they see their GCs and us without any fall outs. Not always easy but they don't want debate - they want to stay as they are. I don't want to ruin my relationship with them with arguments.

Thanks everyone for your replies and support.
My DF, like many of your parents, is a really kind, supportive person in general. I think I won't debate this with him.
I still think it's a little bit sad that he may never understand, but I will just have to accept that.

Your old man's right.....

Waterbird if he is a decent, kind man as you say why not tell him how bad you feel?
It doesn't have to become a debate just tell him you need his love and acceptance. That's what families do for each other.
He might surprise you.

Lots of women were regularly valium’d up to their eyeballs in the past for things they might not even get mild antidepressants for these days.

Barbiturates were incredibly good at making people feel better so MH problems were more instantly treated. But then it turned out that they had horrendous physical side effects so we have the lot less effective SSRIs instead.

Oh, and Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel came out probably before you were born.

Agree with Gifts; all the crap about not allowing sports days to be competitive, as everyone should get a prize; having to balance a negative with a positive when marking truly awful pieces of work; knowing all the rights, but not being prepared to take on any of the responsibilities. I remember the howls of protest when the internet cut out just as ds was about to play a beta of a new game. It was down for two days. resilience would have been to shrug and do something else productive instead.

I sometimes have to kick my own 23 year old up the bum to remind him that adult hood is hard, and that failing is an intrinsic part of how we grow and learn.

Helmet I am too young to be a boomer; I am Gen X supposedly.

Oh, I can totally imagine someone in my generation getting worked up over the Internet like that!
Thanks again to everyone who replied. These posts have given me a lot to think about and put things in perspective.

Some, not all, of your Dad's generation have little knowledge & experience of mental health issues as back then it wasn't talked about (my Gran treated my Grandads dementia as something not
to be mentioned even when he had to go into care for his last 2yrs). So he's coming at the subject with very little knowledge & strong opinion. You could Google research & statistics re schizophrenia & bi polar often running in families (like the breast cancer gene) but at his age is he likely to embrace admitting he's wrong? My older relatives will never admit they're wrong re their deeply held (often bonkers) beliefs, not sure why.

Totally agree about not approaching it as a debate as this becomes about winning, plus you will get frustrated as you'll repeatedly come up against points where by your logic he must acquiesce by he won't - because you'll each be coming at it with a different set of underlying beliefs which are at odds with each other. That's really hard when it's a personal issue to you and you won't be able to help but to take it personally and feel he is attacking you or disbelieving you.

I agree the best way to get anywhere close to a mutual understanding is to go with the intention of understanding his point of view particularly as it is so difficult to understand for you currently. But even this isn't going to bring him around to your way of thinking, it's more of an exercise in finding some common ground, which you will eventually. It still might have a personal cost to you. Bear that in mind before you expend emotional resources you might not be able to share.

You re assuming you’re right and he# wrong.why do not you listen to his opinion.

Spare not share, and other typos.

You can't make it about right or wrong, these are not facts to be proven, there is a lot which is subjective.