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.

[RockinHippy]

Pressure, pressure, pressure, plus nutritionally poor food or faddy diets leading to deficiencies that cause anxiety

[MaidenMotherCrone]

We are circling the drain......

[Stabbitha]

Our older generations took things 'for their nerves'

Same shit different name.

[aquashiv]

We know more about consequences

[adaline]

Because they are snowflakes.

What a well thought-out argument

[Hoik]

Anyone who uses the word "snowflake" as a dismissive descriptor of a group of people automatically goes on the arsehole list.

[Starlink]

Because they are snowflakes.

[Figmentofmyimagination]

To add a historical perspective, I’m reading a wonderful book atm - called ‘Decency and disorder 1789-1837’ - by historian Ben Wilson. One of the best and most readable history books I’ve read in ages.

He talks about how the intensity of living and perpetual pressure to keep up with the competition in the early 19th century led to an epidemic of nervous disorders. There was also the backdrop of a revolution and war over the water, and eg the guillotine.

One quack, ‘Dr Samuel Solomon’ achieved celebrity status, a huge stately home and mega-wealth selling his cure - the Cordial Balm of Gilead. Think Mrs Bennett and worse. Fascinating.

[ppeatfruit]

DUH

[Retroflex]

@ppeatfruit seriously? Well there's no cure for stupidity so 🙄... Maybe I should start smoking, so that I can quit and see if it works... 🙄

[GruciusMalfoy]

I promise I will go back and read the replies, this post is sort of place marking/putting my thoughts down. For me, I think that like with many MH areas, anxiety is slightly better understood, accepted and diagnosed. Not that I'm saying there isn't still a stigma around MH issues, but I do feel it is more spoken about.

I look back and feel like I have been anxious forever, but it wasn't spoken about. I was called shy, nervous or introverted, but never anxious. But I remember the feelings as a child, and they're the same as when I feel anxious now as an adult.

[MiddleClassProblem]

Not sure of anybody said this but it’s also a hormone thing.

Our ancestors would have a lot more use for adrenaline using fight/flight/freeze with predators. Even in more recent history there were many more life threatening situations and conditions that required adrenaline but as the risks go down our bodies can use it in a different way. It’s similar to how some domesticated animals are more likely to have it than their wild cousins. They have less threat and less adrenal outlet other to a degree.

That paired with our understanding of it and it being recognised as a medical condition results in more diagnoses.

[ppeatfruit]

Yes Retro Stephen Fry (or was it Simon Callow?) spoke to a doctor on telly about that imbalance and she said she cured hers by stopping smoking.

[Retroflex]

I have bipolar disorder, and the anxiety and OCD that's associated with it. (I get pissed off when people use OCD as a verb for being tidy!) it's debilitating obtrusive thoughts! But my bipolar is of course caused by a chemical imbalance in my brain, and not "stresses" from everyday life, although I'm sure that doesn't help!

[GrolliffetheDragon]

When we were looking at schools with my son, I felt physically sick at the sight of my old school and just couldn't go in with him. I'd managed to avoid going near it ever since I left. Thankfully he preferred other schools so I dodged a bullet.

I made sure I moved to a different area before I even thought of having children. I would never have sent any child of mine to the school I went to. I'm sure it's changed now, but I wouldn't have wanted to go anywhere near it. Far too many bad memories.

[user1497207191]

So much for your school days being the best days of your life!

When we were looking at schools with my son, I felt physically sick at the sight of my old school and just couldn't go in with him. I'd managed to avoid going near it ever since I left. Thankfully he preferred other schools so I dodged a bullet.

[Alwayscheerful]

I can remember my Mum and Grandma saying they were suffering with their "nerves" during the 60s and 70s. Is anxiety the same thing?

[GrolliffetheDragon]

Have to add how much I despised games and PE and the teachers who turned a blind eye to the bullying, even when I was being openly hit with a rounders bat or a hockey stick.

Bastards.

[GrolliffetheDragon]

I'd have my packed lunch in there.

Snap.

While everyone else headed to the hall for lunch, I'd sneak into the toilets in the other block before the doors get locked and then hide under the stairs. Until the caretaker caught me. Have lunch in safety, then it was just a case of sneaking out and back to the main building for registration.

I imagine there's quite a lot of us with similar experiences. So much for your school days being the best days of your life!

[user1497207191]

Me too. Used to sneak back in doors and hang about in the corridors until the caretaker caught me and started leaving a classroom unlocked for me so I wouldn't get in trouble. I don't know if he knew what was going on or if he just saw how miserable I was and took pity.

I didn't think it was so common. I used to hide too. In my case, it was under the stage in the main hall. There was a small 2 foot high door that you crawled through and went down a few stairs into the foundations. It was where they kept stage lighting, props, costumes etc. I'd have my packed lunch in there. I always hated it during weeks of exams or plays etc as I couldn't hide under there when the hall was in use and had to find other places to hide. As I got older, I just played truant instead - far simpler, but buggered up my education.

[Footiefan2019]

Yes @hiddenmnetter what you say about community is interesting ... on mumsnet the Mum round the corner is seen as suffocating if she wants to see you more than once a fortnight, and any child rearing advice is seen as criticism, making poster ‘anxious’, FIL popping in is intrusive and makes you feel ‘scared in your own home’ that he’s been round and let himself in when you were out (to fix a tap, but the way Some people go on they think he’s been sniffing their underwear...), and the friend who offers to have your kids on a Monday can’t be trusted because she wont feed said kid the organic sugar free diet you want to give them and you once saw her give her 18 month old some Haribo and therefore she can’t be trusted. Honestly a bit hyperbolic but it’s what you see on here all the time. It’s like a sort of paranoia combined with a competitive ‘my life is more stressful than yours’ thing.

[GrolliffetheDragon]

I'd literally hide in dark corners at breaks and lunchtime to hide from them. I'd spend all lesson worrying about where to hide and how to avoid them at the next break.



Me too. Used to sneak back in doors and hang about in the corridors until the caretaker caught me and started leaving a classroom unlocked for me so I wouldn't get in trouble. I don't know if he knew what was going on or if he just saw how miserable I was and took pity. It was all locked up lunchtimes because one of the bullies had been vandalizing classrooms during the break.

The bullying involved things that could have seriously injured me, potentially fatally. It was more luck than judgement that I wasn't badly hurt. On the other side the main bully was also very self-destructive and did things that would be recognised as self-harm now so as an adult I can see that he was clearly very troubled.

Thirty years later I'm still not keen on groups of teenage boys.

[Kazzyhoward]

I've been anxious since I was a child

Yep, same here. I was fine until I started secondary school at a crap state comp. Bullied relentlessly from day 1. Went from a straight A* student at primary to leaving without a single O level. It wasn't just names and general bitchiness. It was theft and damage to my property, physical assaults (kicks, punches and fag burns), etc. I'd literally hide in dark corners at breaks and lunchtime to hide from them. I'd spend all lesson worrying about where to hide and how to avoid them at the next break. Teachers were sodding useless - always the same "advice" telling me to toughen up and stand up to them - anything for them to keep their easy life and victim-blame!

I've been anxious dealing with people ever since and always fear/prepare for the worse. I even get palpatations when walking down the street seeing someone coming the other way and often cross the road to keep plenty of distance. It's not healthy at all and means you can't lead a normal life.

[GrolliffetheDragon]

I've been anxious since I was a child, didn't decide to get help for it until after I had DS. And I do mean anxiety - rituals to cope, panic attacks, physical symptoms, obsessing about worries, worrying disproportionately about minor things, problems sleeping, unable to focus on what I'm supposed to be doing, and so on.

It runs in my family, you can see it in my DM and DGM, in my uncle and two of my aunts. Add in sexual abuse and bullying in school and there you go. Anxiety, depression, borderline eating disorder as a teenager, then I turned into an anxious adult, who is trying very hard to not show anxiety to her DS, who unfortunately is showing signs that he takes after me rather than DH in this area.

[MissSmith1]

Compared to 50 years ago we have no quiet time. Walking to work/shop, sitting on the bus, not much tv, phone calls minimal etc Today we are constantly hearing, seeing , and so much of it distressing - poor brains.