to wonder why so many people have anxiety nowadays ?

[littlepaddypaws]

it seems a lot of posters suffer from it and i wonder why that is, having mn problems myself i can relate to how difficult it is and life can be limited for those with anxiety it in the worse scenario can keep you housebound.
it's good the mh is dicussed more openly but i'm curious, is modern life stress more people out ? don't recall so much on here a year or so ago.

Anxiety is more diagnosed, and discussed these days. It is a common mental health issue. It is hard to say if it is more prevalent now, than for previous generations. However, I would hazard a guess that the increased pressure on people these days makes some vulnerable to stress and anxiety. Its social media, the cost of living, the lack of a job for life, the pressure to do well at education, to be friends with everyone, to work with a young family...just for starters. I also think alienation and isolation are factors. People move around nowadays for work, studying etc so they lack community ties, and many don't know their neighbours etc.

Pressure from work and education.
Social media.
Other people are more angry and aggressive than they used to be.

I think people are more aware now of the state the planet is in; and after ten years of the same uncaring government it's apparent locally as well, even in wealthy market towns and the like. I honestly think when "austerity" started nobody, except the people who dreamed it up, really believed it would still be in place a decade later. Though increasingly as the years go on I'm realising that 1997 to about 2003 was the blip and we've actually gone back to the long term norm for humanity. (Apart from the climate change thing.)

Things like zero hours contracts - that's how the world used to work. They're not a new idea. I grew up in part of the world where my grandfather's generation would queue at the shipyards every morning to see if there was any work for them. But because we had around a generation of things being relatively stable we all started thinking that was the long term normal.

Also there is possibly more awareness around mh issues, which, as someone who's suffered myself, is not a bad thing.

I think plenty of people say they "have anxiety" but arent actually diagnosed. Possibly they have self diagnosed because they sometimes feel anxious, but it's not actually at a level that they should be saying they "have anxiety". I don't doubt that many people do genuinely suffer from anxiety affecting their every day lives, but I find it hard to believe it is as common as you see on here. Especially as people often dont mention it until they've been told their behaviour is unreasonable.

Well obviously it’s because medical science and understanding has advanced and they’re able to put a diagnostic label on it now. And people are possibly slightly more open about it. And forums and social media platforms enable people, who you’d likely never have spoken to in the past, to explain that they have anxiety and so your exposure to it is greater.

I’m hoping this isn’t supposed to be a thread bashing people for being ‘weaker’ these days?

is it passed down through families?

The world is getting to be a more horrible, intolerant and stressful place everyday. It is no wonder it is affecting people. Climate change, prospect of shortages, orange racists in charge of nuclear weapons... And so on.

That drains peoples resources.

Mine was brought about as a child who had a very anxious mother, then magnified by a traumatic death of a close member of family who was a little older than me. I do my best to not show my own children that side of me as I don’t want them to be like me, it’s debilitating.

I have had MH issues (depression, rather than anxiety) for many years but have only recognised there was a problem and sought help in the last few years. I think attitudes have changed and people are now more comfortable with sharing this kind of information.

I think it’s a combination of better awareness and wider diagnostic criteria. I doubt that life a couple hundred years ago when your husband had the right to control all your money, beat you, rape you at will etc and your children were likely to die of disease or due to a bad harvest was less stressful. I’m not saying modern life can’t be stressful but I find it hard to believe that it could be anywhere near as stressful as life has been for the majority of human existence.

Stresses and strains of modern life with far less family support for most of us is a big factor.

makes sense what you are saying scooby. i do wonder sometimes if it's an excuse not to do something or attention seeking, being bi was trendy a while back, before that having bi polar, someone i know claimed she had it but hadn't been diagnosed, but just knew she had it. 'you haven't got it paws your're just moody' wtf ? turned out i did have it and was diagnosed. she got the steaming hump as a result. now it's allgeries to everything and to life in general. no longer related thankfully.

Day to day "normal" life seems to be getting worse - it's other people! Whether it's a stroppy shop assistant, someone letting a door bang in your face rather than hold it for you, someone parking across your drive, or whatever. Never used to be like that. People generally used to be considerate but now everyone seems self-obsessed and selfish.

Just look at how unpleasant some people are posting on Mumsnet! No wonder so many of us have social anxiety when most people seem quite unkind.

Fear for families and friends because of austerity
Fear for humanity and all wildlife because of climate change
Fear for the planet because of idiot politicians spending more on war than health and education
For those from war torn countries - all of the above plus losing their homes

Its really all rather depressing once you read information about the important issues facing us.

i do feel for people with mh problems and it's good it's in the open,but don't ever tell me you are depressed because it's raining / i missed the bus so was late for ork and got rollicked, that is being vvvu

I wonder the same thing op. I had a stage in my life (couple of years) where I had panic attacks and was very jittery and unsettled and felt unable to do a number of everyday things. I got through it and it hasn't returned (this ws more than 25 years ago). I suppose if it came back I would be able to say I suffer from general anxiety but it was an expression and diagnosis I hadn't even heard of back then.

I think a large contributing factor is that we are more open about mental health now and more aware of what to call mental health problems. Anxiety has always existed, both as a temporary/situational feeling (e.g., going through a period of personal upheaval) and as an ongoing condition (e.g., GAD), but we now know to call it anxiety. I know when I was a child in the 80s/90s there were family members, neighbours, friends of my parents, etc. who were referred to as sensitive, emotional, or 'highly strung' and they would also be referred to as suffering from 'nerves' or were 'ill with their nerves'.

we don't do enough of the things that biologically our time should consist of instead are sedentary and stare at screens (hiya), we have too much free time to ruminate, we have too much division and specialisation of labour, we are under so much pressure to be/do so much, we are surrounded by 'evil' things; capitalism, consumerism etc which manipulate us into feeling unworthy for profit, we've got so many addictions, it's a clusterfuck.

I think it is multi-faceted and here are some of the reasons I think that levels of anxiety have increased at a societal level:

• The food we eat. High sugar = higher anxiety
• The sleep crisis - 70% of adults are sleep deprived
• The work environment / financial pressures - self explanatory
• The lack of risk taking - everything being so safe does not help us build resilience and 'feel fear' so when we do it seems strange
• social media - especially for teenage girls. Proven in research from the states on the impact on teenagers
• breakdown of community and real conversations. We used to talk and get feedback from a variety of sources. Isolation makes anxiety worse.

I think it is a real thing and seems to be getting worse.

People used to get a bit stressed or anxious when facing difficult situations. Now they “have” anxiety, like an evil twin constantly hovering over their shoulder. I’ll bet only a tiny percentage would actually be diagnosed with a mh condition.

I think people are much more open about it these days.

I've had (diagnosed) anxiety since I was eighteen. I've been on and off medication ever since, have been through several therapists and have been signed off work with it as well.

My most recent "bout" of it was exacerbated by work stress - bullying/being ostracised at work, stress/pressure from management and also some level of micro-managing which ended up destroying my confidence in the workplace, resulting in a negative attitude which spilled over into my home life.

I ended up on sleeping tablets because I was surviving on 4 hours sleep a night and then going and working a 13 hour day (including two hours commute). I just handed in my notice and already feel like a weight has been lifted.

MH issues are pretty complex though and I think other people in my situation may have coped differently.

I think it's epidemic levels of loneliness that make people vulnerable to anxiety and that is exaserbated by social media and fewer shared spaces where people come together as a community.

I had never suffered from anxiety until a couple of years ago. I had had anxious moments, I'd been nervous, but this was different. It was horrible.

In my case I think it was/is peri-menopause. I worked really hard to manage it in various ways and I am 80-90% of the way back to how I used to be but I don't think, with the UK and the US as they are right now, that I'll manage that last 10-20%.

I have noticed this as well. It seems to be a peculiarly MN ailment. So many posters on here fretting about how they should have reacted to some inconsequential incident and then inevitably mentioning that it brought on their anxiety. Either there's an anxiety epidemic going on or else "anxiety" has become a convenient get-out-clause to excuse their own daft behaviour.