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.

Modern lifestyles are not healthy- life used be simpler. Incredibly hard, but simple routines boundaries by how far you could walk, what you could afford, and dawn and dusk. There were far fewer choices, and far fewer options.

That is the environment our brains evolved for, and we haven't caught up with the constant stimulation, decision making, etc.

I have a diagnosis of GAD as well as a few other things. I think for me it was a combination of things, a mother with mental health issues of her own in a different country to her own support network with a father who emotionally distant and drunk most of the time when he wasn't at work. My mother was mentally abusive to the point where I'm still terrified of doing something "wrong" as an adult, I saw my father almost bleed to death as a small child and then had to help clean up all the blood not knowing if he was okay. That was due to a fight between my parents but my mum pushed that it was my fault because it was me they were arguing about (she was going to leave him, he said she wasn't taking me), I was listening to them scream at each other from the stairs. Then another trauma as a student which acted as the final straw. I only got a "label" for my feelings a few years ago when having dc1 saw me wind up in front of a pyschriatrist. If I hadn't had a baby in that set of circumstances, I would have just struggled on thinking how I felt was normal.

I think it's always been an issue but wasn't thought to be a medical one, just a personality type in the past. My grandma was always described as highly stung, hysterical, neurotic and things like that, but now it's obvious to me that she had a very severe anxiety disorder which must have been very distressing all her life and she could really have benefitted from receiving treatment or medication for it.

On the one hand I think it's good for people to speak openly about it and for others to feel there's no stigma and they can seek help without judgment, but I think there's also a fine line where people in the past would have had a stiff upper lip mentality and carried on.

It's very difficult to know what to think because historically, like in Victorian times, if someone had been to anxious or depressed to get out and go to work, god knows what would have become of them. People were put in terrible asylums and treated inhumanly if they/their families sought help for them and suicide was a crime, although it obviously still happened. People in those days obviously did suffer with MH problems, often with a grim outlook, but the instances of people with MH issues which make them unable to go about daily life do seem to be higher nowadays.
In a lot of ways, life is easier now than it was for poor victorians, or for people during WW2, but there seems to be more depression and anxiety.

I think the only way you could judge accurately if the problem is worsening is to look at the numbers of people who are suffering to the point they can't go about normal daily life, because in the past there may well have been an equal number of people experiencing symptoms but for social or economic reasons, they felt they couldn't say/do anything about it

There’s something in that, picklemepopcorn

Life is extremely stressful - not only on a physical level but everything is much more expensive and quality of life has seriously deteriorated for all but the richest in the last twenty years. Everyone is at each other's throats, there is so much aggression and competitiveness and everyone is trying to be better/richer/more ambitious/more beautiful than everyone else. It really has got very dystopian and I'm actually surprised there is not more anxiety/depression out there!

Each generation has its stresses...those of us of a certain age as teenagers were constantly waiting for nuclear war to kick off in the early 80s, my grandparents it was 2nd world war, great grandparents, 1st WW..
Social media is a big player, comparison is the thief of joy..seeing others lives and not having the same experiences.

I'm prepared to be flamed but in the workplace anxiety has become the new 'backache' due to companies becoming MH aware..

I think it was always there. Since Adam was a lad and Eve was a wee lassie.
Didn’t Valium used to be described as “mothers little helpers”

I would say it’s less taboo now to talk about mental health issues, which is great- the more we talk about this stuff so it’s not shameful, the better.

I do think there’s probably more pressure now on people- the rising cost of living, longer working hours to name just a couple.

"She's bad with her nerves" is what it used to be! Now we understand it better, I guess. And, although life must have been pretty stressful in the past, to say the least, women weren't trying to balance as much.
Men's MH is terribly worrying too and I don't know enough about it to understand the causes. Maybe it manifested differently in years gone by.

I think it’s always been around, and was refers to as ‘nerves’.
I remember my mum saying xxx was ‘bad with her nerves’, and I remember this lady being very highly stung and nervous. it’s probably better diagnosed too now.

I had it since I was a child (so 40 odd years) but only recognised it for what it is recently. So it isn't new for me.

I ahd a baby... Boom post natal depression and anxiety.
It's dibilitatibg and awful, the extreme pressures of having to get stuff perfect for my child I find crippling.
Before if stuff went wrong I could cope a chuck it in the fxxck it bucket but I feel incapable of doing this now.
I think the fact that there is no fall back really anymore is scary

I agree with social media and also peoples judgement .

I think mumsnet attracts anxious people

I think it’s diagnosed more frequently than it was. I think people discuss it more than they did because it’s more acceptable to do so. There’s less of a British stiff upper lip mentality and people are prepared to open up more than they were. Things like PTSD were far less prevalent than they are today.

I also think that people describe themselves an anxious and depressed when they’re fed up. I think there tends to be less resilience, but also more stress and expectation.

Either there's an anxiety epidemic going on or else "anxiety" has become a convenient get-out-clause to excuse their own daft behaviour.

Or maybe people struggling with MH issues find it hard to talk about these things in real life and find it easier to confide in strangers online?

Personally I'm quite an introverted person so I spend a lot of time alone. I don't talk much about my feelings so anonymous forums are great for me in that respect.

I think you also have to look at how social pressures or worries have changed and why that means things are different now.

In the past people would have been worried about invasion by the Normans, crop failure, plague, being accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake, hunger, being cold, divorce was a stigma so was being an unmarried mother, women would have been completely at the mercy of cruel husbands, women were subjected to awful treatment - not allowed to own property and subjected to double standards about sex (still are to an extent), then people worried about conscription, the men of their families being killed in the trenches, then if their houses would be bombed. In older times if people were poor, life was very tough and they had to go without - like when children went without shoes or had to leave school early to work.

Nowadays those things aren't really relevant but there are problems that didn't exist then - social media, online bullying, debt through credit cards, car payments etc, there is so much more "stuff" available for people to buy and feel they need, there are issues over gender and sexuality which couldn't have been acknowledged before, there are more single parents because people go their separate ways more now. Jobs are unstable and in short supply. It's more common to be a home owner in modern times and house prices are out of many people's reach.

But then there are issues which have always been the case - self esteem, poverty, illness, bereavement, job loss, crime, infidelity, domestic abuse.

I would really like to know what the true instance of MH issues has been historically but that would be very difficult to find out because of the stigma and lack of access to appropriate healthcare in the past.

Yes in the old days it was just nerves
And 70% of housewife’s medicated with Prozac and gin.

Because the world is becoming more aggressive. Although everyone rabbits on about diversity you can’t be yourself. Everyone is told how to behave and think. Real differences, not the diversity box ticking exercise is either punished or medicated.

Success is measured in such narrow ways as to make most seem like failures.

Spiritually is criticised whilst at the same time we have created an empty and ultimately unfulfilling cult of materialism.

I think it's multi-layered.

Dm used to say that I was "highly strung". I now see some of the characteristics I had that made her say that in my dd who has quite bad anxiety.

Because "highly strung" was "just my personality" I didn't ever say I was worried about things. With dd, she's quite happy to say her anxiety is too bad. This means that it's out in the open, and because she has said it, then others can feel they can come forward and say they too are anxious about it.

This is good in a lot of ways.
However, strategies that I learnt to cope with my anxieties, have not been learnt by dd. She is 16yo and just realising that saying "I'm anxious about GCSEs" is not going to stop her from needing to take them. Up till now if she hasn't wanted to do something she had fallen back on being too anxious to do it, and very few people are willing to insist she did.

Also there's the diagnosis. How do you diagnose? How do you know it isn't just normal worries-you've got to take someone's word for it. Where does it tip from being normal anxiety about a difficult situation into actually a medical issue? I'm not sure there is a firm line.

For dd it was diagnosed after investigating crippling stomach aches and migraines.
Ds was recently "diagnosed". I'm using the term in inverted commas because his diagnosis was diagnosed in one trip to the doctors (about earache!) where I mentioned that he was beginning to show many of the same symptoms dd has. They asked to give an example, I gave one, the GP said "yes, that sounds like anxiety, I'll put that on his notes."

Some research has linked contracive pill and sometimes other hormonal contrceptives with higher levels of depression and anxiety in women though I wonder how much anxiey existed before they had common ussage around unwanted pg.

I image lack of sleep and perhaps diets vitamin deficiencies and possibly gut bacterial changes associated with modern life may also play a role and more diagnosis's though there been many threads on here with posters being told they had depression or anxiety and their actuial phycisal problem were missed for years.

But on the debt free thread someone posted a link to research about US about decade ago and why there were higher debt levels -
m.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A basicly more risk is pushed onto families and the default expectation is two incomes - so more families end up in debt spirals and bankrupcy - image that might also have an impact.

Another thing you could look at is how historically there were a lot of things available to buy which would be prescription only (like opiates) or illegal now, so there were a lot of people, in Victorian times for example who were effectively self medicating.

A lot of it is to do with social perceptions about mental illness, the most clear example being how in WW1 people who had a breakdown were shot as cowards/traitors but then the phrase "shell shock" was coined and people were sent to recovery homes to get better

I think it's just talked about more now - and don't forget it's also self selecting as all the people who don't have anxiety are not posting every day to say 'hey just to let you all know I don't have anxiety'

It's also only recently become a known and talked about term. My mum has always suffered through the 80's, 90's and 00's but it was only in about 2011 she heard the term/label and realised that was her. So before then she suffered in silence and with avoidance (avoidance of phone, crowds, dentist, social situations, shopping malls... all sorts) as a coping mechanism because she didn't know what was wrong or that any help was available.

Now she knows it was and always has been anxiety and has medication to help and is doing really well

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.

There is a lot of this.

I’ve had it all my life. I thought it was normal and on the occasions it was very bad I was told - by schools and others to whom I was referred - that I was just highly strung and nervous, or that I needed to buckle down and get on with life, or that I was just silly. One woman, from the Local Education Authority, even told me that I was spoiled because I came from a “nice” family so it was time I stopped causing trouble.

Eventually, in my mid-30s I had a complete mental breakdown. I was diagnosed during an emergency appointment by a doctor who was switched on to mental health problems (sadly, not all are still) and had six months of intensive therapy.

So yes, there’s more people with anxiety these days but it comes - in my opinion and experience - from those of us who were ignored earlier in life get our diagnoses now, and finally it being recognised much earlier.