Why are so many people struggling with life?

[Letsgetgoing888]

Not just due to covid, but it’s definitely been highlighted more recently....

But in recent years there seem so many more angry people, stressed people, depressed people, people that can’t control their temper, mental health issues, obese kids, obese adults, people who don’t look after themselves or their kids properly...

I know mental health services are woefully inadequate, but generally as a society we are talking more about mental health, provide benefits, charity support, free healthcare and so much more than in the past.

But more people seem to be really struggling in many different ways, health wise, financially, mentally, emotionally. Suicide rates are higher now than in the past (even pre-covid).

Did they have it right in the old days of stiff upper lip? And if not, why are things so much worse now when there is so much more awareness?

It looked at millennials who were given trophies for everything and praised and rewarded for everything, with the message of 'every one did a great job' even when they hadn't.

Millennials are 25-40 and they didn't set up participation trophies. That was the adults around them, mainly to get other adults around them to shut up about their precious darlings. You're looking at Boomers and Early GenXers who needed their parents validated through their offspring's accomplishments, which isn't actually new in the slightest. Some parents have lived vicariously through their kids for millennia. Some parents have always overcoddled their kids, we can do it a bit more. Some people have always complained the next generation has been spoiled. It's always been selective.

The only way people,especially kids learn how to deal with things is by being thrown amongst it at an early age and being able to build up a resistance.

Bullshit. Really bullshit

Resilience has sociocultural as well as biological factors. People don't learn resilience just from being 'thrown against it', but by overcoming difficulties in a way that proves it is worthwhile and that they are capable in a developmentally appropriate fashion with people receptive to them.

If you want to see what happens when you just throw kids against it without those and the other factors involved , I'd suggest looking into research on Childhood-onset PTSD and other trauma disorders. No less resilient, the brain has just rewired in an effort to protect them as all brains do, but in a result ended up damaged with maladaptive coping mechanisms. Rehearsing and ruminating on dangers to try to avoid them has merit when in the thick of it, but has long lasting consequences.

No one in this day and age in the uk suffers hardship.

Everyone living suffers. That's reality. Yeah, the person in the UK living in sexual slavery suffers more than most people whinging online, but that doesn't mean the latter isn't suffering hardship.

There is no benefit to telling people they're not suffering hardship, it's far better to show how they've overcome shit in the past and help plan how they do so more in the future.

As someone paid for the privilege to be in this country and passed through a fuckton of hoops over many years to do so, the idea any country or any group suffers no hardships is ridiculous. We're never going to eliminate suffering, but we're not going to make anything better if we pretend and try to get others to pretend it doesn't happen.

I don't think it's harder. Just that there was a bulge of people (boomers and older gen X) who had it much easier than those before and after. So people born 1945-1975 have done artificially well in: housing, wages, pension, standard of living raising, health through Nhs, foreign travel. Etc

In a way that my grandparents (born 1920s) and my gen (older millennials) haven't.

Just to add I hate this 'bulge' classification of millennials as being hard up etc.

I went to grammar school (state) and a red brick uni, so am privelleged intelligence wise but from a poor (due to mental health etc) family

Everyone I went to school with that I know of is married with kids and owns a house. All have good jobs, some in new industries many medicine, financial services, food industry, gym & leisure- whether in home town or moved north or London.

Yes house prices are higher but as an older millennial we've benefited from that eg buy a house in London age 33 in 2016, now gone up £50k or whatever

I think it's the generation below mine (Z) that is much much worse off.

Only millennials that went into dying industries like journalism seem to get a voice in the times and daily telegraph and daily mail wnd moan all the time !

@Pyewhacket

I think part of it is this: when I was growing up my parents taught me (wrongly it seems) that if you’re a good person, try your hardest at everything abd do the right thing, then things will work out for you

Sure, you can be unlucky but I still think that is broadly true today. I also don’t think people really appreciated the effort and hard work necessary to succeed. They look at social media and the likes of the Kardashians and fail to realise that is just bollocks.

I think that's the problem though. People see vacuous nonentities become super rich and famous for basically nothing, or for making a sex tape. Then they think it's attainable for them without hard work and sacrifice.

I agree that mental health issues aren’t necessarily worse, just different. We don’t have to worry (usually!) about a plague taking out our whole family, we’ll never end up in a workhouse, most of us will never go to war, our whole village won’t get slaughtered because our liege lord has lost a battle...

But I think the reasons why mental health is generally bad is because we life in such a society of hyperbole. It’s either the “best day everrrrrr” or were posting videos of ourselves sobbing our hearts out on Facebook (like the first thing you think about when you’re upset enough to cry is to film it for FB 🤨). We believe that others’ lives are truely perfect or absolutely awful and judge our own lives based on this. We either work far too many hours, often in front of screens, or we don’t work at all but either way, we feel entitled to everything that everyone else has and it’s never enough. Everyone tho is they should be able to get the lastest tech an brand new car and a new build house so we either feel hard done to that we can’t, or we get it on credit then wonder why we’ve no money left at the end of the month. We can’t wait and save up, we have to have it now. We look to the future and see that, for about one under probably about 50, retirement is never going to be an option even though we pay into a pension. When we’re not working we attach ourselves to a screen until it’s time for bed, often staying up late because we’re mid Netflix ‘binge’.

Children (many of whom are now young adults) are brought up to never take responsibility for anything that goes wrong, it’s always someone else’s fault and mummy and daddy will sort it for them. They don’t get to hang around together and work out how to get along, problem solve and be part of a society. Some children genuinely video game every minute that they’re not at school or asleep.

DH is a manager of a young teams who are the last f the millennials and the first of generation Z and they are so difficult to manage. They can’t take criticism of any kind as they’ve spent every minute since they were born being praised for every little thing. When DH makes any suggestions as to what they could do differently, they immediately jump to who’s fault it is (usually DH’s somehow) and then they cry. They’re more than happy to tell DH how they think he should be doing his job, someone who has worked for him for 3 weeks was telling him that he should chance his entire approach to management to suit her this week! I’ve heard many of his phone conversations over the past 8 months and I’d be the first to tell him if he was being unreasonable but he really isn’t, they just can’t cope with anything less than gushing praise. One of the other area managers has genuinely had one of her team member’s mum ring her up to talk about how unreasonable she was. This is a proper, grown up £30k+ a year job, not a part time school child’s job!

I think a huge contribution is poor diet and exercise, right the way through from childhood to adulthood. We feel entitled to eat what we want, when we want and we also want to be thin and Instagram perfect. Obviously our bodies don’t understand that they should just do what we want them to! The whole idea of Instagram perfection is also flawed as all the influencers pictures are heavily edited anyway so it’s a double whammy of feeling inadequate. We often work too much to have time to workout or we get stuck in a cycle of sitting around and not moving, which makes us feel worse so we do less etc etc.

There’s also the thought process that everyone who has any sort of unusual feelings or behaviours must have some sort of condition. How many threads on here do you see with posters insisting that someone must have depression, Autism, ADHD etc based on one post? There was one yesterday whose husband had taken 2 hours to get his child ready. One poster suggested the DH may have ADHD and the next insisted that he must get professional help for his ADHD. That’s a big jump!

Anyway, that’s a loooong answer so my short answer is: too high expectations, too much entitlement, technology, armchair diagnoses, poor diet and lack of exercise.

@silverfonze

I don't think it's harder. Just that there was a bulge of people (boomers and older gen X) who had it much easier than those before and after. So people born 1945-1975 have done artificially well in: housing, wages, pension, standard of living raising, health through Nhs, foreign travel. Etc

In a way that my grandparents (born 1920s) and my gen (older millennials) haven't.

As a generation the boomers are extremely unhappy though and a very angry generation. Maybe because they've lived through a lot of accelerated social change and want to go back to the way things were.

The 1950s to the early 2000s were a good period to live in, relatively to most other eras. Life is never without problems, of course but early 1900s to the 1940s were really tough.

I am in my late 60's and I think the rot set in the 1980's when the "have it all" mentality arrived along with easy credit, (I blame Maggie Thatcher).
In the 70's people were more accepting of their circumstances mortgages were very very difficult to get, so renting generally was more affordable, and local authority housing was more available.
During my lifetime I have seen peoples expectations alter so drastically, which is not a bad thing, but most parents nowadays expect their DC's to go to university which often gives them unrealistic expectations career wise.
I think that many young adults are more reliant on their parents nowadays compared to previous generations.
I suppose I could be described as a "baby boomer" but my life hasn't been particularly easy, I have always had to work despite having 4 DC's, (no family chidcare available, and very few nurseries childminders or preschool available when mine were young),
We were first time home owners in our mid 40's, and although me and DH look comfortable now, we have survived several bad recessions when DH had no work and did morning paper rounds and I did a Betterware round to feed the Dc's.
Each generation faces different circumstances, and I don't think there is such a thing as "the good all days" we all live our lives and adjust our expectations according to what our environment and experiences are.
I don't think (in my lifetime) things are any worse or better than they have been they are just different

I suppose you could think about it another way OP - what is it about your life that means you aren’t struggling (if you indeed aren’t). It can help to muse on things that way round as it reminds one that it isn’t a case of them vs us

Do we really need hardship to raise people right?

FIL and MIL retired at 55. Both in fairly low paid clerical jobs but had a nice lifestyle in a leafy suburb. House bought and paid for when they were a lot younger. No stress

I don't think we are more miserable these days (COVID excepted). I think its a myth.

People (in this country anyway) are wealthier and have longer life expectancy than they have had at any point in human history. For most people, life is easier and quicker than it ever has been.

It's true that there are nuances to that: we are more aware of our shortcomings compared to others, of differences in wealth and life outcomes. Social media does amplify this, although I think the downsides are overstated.

I think we have become much more aware of our general unhappiness, much better at communicating on it and much more "entitled" (not in a bad way), in that we expect to be happy.

There are some nuances to this: such as the eating disorders thing, and obviously COVID, which shouldn't be minimised. But overall I just don't think its true to say we are all less happy.

I don't think more people are struggling with life. It is just far more socially acceptable to talk about struggling. Some things are better, some things are worse. As a late Generation X/Early Millenial I am very grateful that their have been advances in mental health support. My Great Uncle suffered from many years of depression due to serving in the war as a young man and he couldn't even bring himself to talk about it. My father was emotionally repressed. It is good people talk more now even if it can verge on whingeing. I am also so grateful male violence/consent issues towards women are much more talked about than was the case when I was a teenager. I remember so many shocking incidents when I was young, brushed under the carpet. So many stories from my mum's generation talking about being stuck at home and lonely with babies/young children. I do think the screen time addictions amongst the very young need to be managed better. But it is becoming a thing, take a break from social media etc. - also young people with mental health issues reaching out to each other can be a good thing. This will sound strange but some of the teenagers I know who have gone through self harm stages have come out very strong the other end.

@Caeruleanblue

I keep waiting for people to set up off-grid communities, back to basics etc I think it might come - the proliferation of fake news and, according to a radio 4 Law programme, fake documents which are impossible to tell from the real thing, we are all stuffed really. Someone will raid your bank account, claim your house as they have the documents, claim your car etc etc etc, they'll have the 'proof' and it's your word against theirs. Something has to give.

But at the moment to set up life off grid you need to have money .. to buy a property, land, stock.. I've considered this, but it's just not possible unless you've a house to sell.

@SomelikeitHoth

FIL and MIL retired at 55. Both in fairly low paid clerical jobs but had a nice lifestyle in a leafy suburb. House bought and paid for when they were a lot younger. No stress

By 'nice lifestyle' what do you mean? I can almost guarantee that they started life with a load of old furniture, that they weren't able to afford to eat out other than 'occasions' and that they lived within their means. They probably envied some of their better off neightbours/friends but did feel any pressure to Keep up with the Jones, their life was fairly private same as their friends. I too as a boomer, '48. realise that, through no fault of our own, we post-war babies had a much easier ride but I also think that we were willing to accept far less and lower expectations.

Capitalism, sedentary lifestyle, abundance of shit food.

Before we had millionaire reality TV stars, we had the nobility and upper class who were rich simply because they were rich. Why is the modern situation any more likely to be responsible for mental health problems? Likewise, we’ve always had people with lots of money and people who had to work very hard just to keep a roof over their heads. Blaming “The Tories” for modern struggles as if social inequality and poverty are something which we never had in the world prior to a centrist party being elected into power in the U.K. in 2009 is bizarre.

The OP’s question was essentially why people today seem to struggle more than people used to. And a lot of posters have made negative comparisons between very certain aspects of modern life today and some rose-tinted version of a period roughly between 1950-1980 where it was apparently easy to buy a house, life was simpler, and you could keep bees in the garden and buy meat from the butcher who came on his bicycle. Not only does this period not reflect the hundreds of years of human struggle which came before it, I doubt many working class people who lived in urban areas would recognise that description of the 50s, 60s and 70s, and I doubt any of those posts reflect what it might have been like to grow up non-white in the UK during those decades. You can’t simply say “life was easier then” without providing a greater context of the “then” you’re referring to.

Somebody asked upthread “would you have wanted your great-grandmother’s life?” and I think that’s a good comparator.

For most of human existence the expectation for the vast majority of people was that life would pretty rubbish and very hard almost all of the time.

Only the tiny elite had any leisure time and enough to eat all the time.

Only very recently has there been an expectation that most people should have a pleasant exsistence and that life should be fun.

The sharing of information allows everyone to see how the elite live and creates an expectation that life should be like that.

Humanity is healthier and richer than it has ever been

Whilst I agree with a pp who said struggles have always been there, but they are different, I do think social media plays a role, both in aspirational terms (look at me #makingmemories) and in terms of oversharing. An oversharer twenty years ago wouldn't have had the opportunity to tell cast amounts of people at the click of a button how crap their day had been. You wouldn't have had apps encouraging you to rate your day, or asking you to share how you feel with the general public. On a thread about baby loss there was a general consensus about previous generations not being allowed to speak of it, whereas now women often want to #saytheirname. So to summarize 20/30/40 years ago people most likely felt the same, but societal nirms/technology didn't give them a voice.

Fast food / junk food
Lack of exercise
Lack of outdoor time
Relationship woes
Social issues
Social media
Job insecurity
Boris being PM / Brexit drama (going into the unknown)
Lockdown / global pandemic
Prices of everything going up
Living in a I WANT IT NOW society
The Kardashians and love island lowering IQ

I think the rot set in the 1980's when the "have it all" mentality arrived along with easy credit, (I blame Maggie Thatcher)

The irony was Thatcher was a social conservative that believed in thrift.

In wrestling power back from the unions and responding to a post-industrial age, she created a real monster. But she was only replicating what Reagan did in America.

Neither countries have recovered from the social change that resulted.

@cactusisblooming

Whilst I agree with a pp who said struggles have always been there, but they are different, I do think social media plays a role, both in aspirational terms (look at me #makingmemories) and in terms of oversharing. An oversharer twenty years ago wouldn't have had the opportunity to tell cast amounts of people at the click of a button how crap their day had been. You wouldn't have had apps encouraging you to rate your day, or asking you to share how you feel with the general public. On a thread about baby loss there was a general consensus about previous generations not being allowed to speak of it, whereas now women often want to #saytheirname. So to summarize 20/30/40 years ago people most likely felt the same, but societal nirms/technology didn't give them a voice.

People now with social media and internet have become hooked on dopamine. Whether it's men and pornography or women and social media likes on instagram or facebook (or vice versa, or both).

Ultimately, it rots your brain.

@User158340

I think the rot set in the 1980's when the "have it all" mentality arrived along with easy credit, (I blame Maggie Thatcher)

The irony was Thatcher was a social conservative that believed in thrift.

In wrestling power back from the unions and responding to a post-industrial age, she created a real monster. But she was only replicating what Reagan did in America.

Neither countries have recovered from the social change that resulted.

Very true. Stuart Maconie’s analysis of the real legacy of Thatcher spells it out in graphic detail.

The breakdown of the classical family has also had a massive impact on the mental wellbeing of a vast proportion of people. There's a direct correlation in the increase of mental health disorders and single parent households. Obviously that's not to say every single parent household will have a poor outcome outcome as there will be some that are better than 2 parent ones but the evidence definitely suggests a correlation.

@cactusisblooming

Whilst I agree with a pp who said struggles have always been there, but they are different, I do think social media plays a role, both in aspirational terms (look at me #makingmemories) and in terms of oversharing. An oversharer twenty years ago wouldn't have had the opportunity to tell cast amounts of people at the click of a button how crap their day had been. You wouldn't have had apps encouraging you to rate your day, or asking you to share how you feel with the general public. On a thread about baby loss there was a general consensus about previous generations not being allowed to speak of it, whereas now women often want to #saytheirname. So to summarize 20/30/40 years ago people most likely felt the same, but societal nirms/technology didn't give them a voice.

I agree with you, but how does that explain the massive rise in suicides in recent years?

Or have they always been the same, just swept under the carpet?

It feels much more of a problem now, but maybe the media report it more. I don’t have any stats.

“By 'nice lifestyle' what do you mean? I can almost guarantee that they started life with a load of old furniture, that they weren't able to afford to eat out other than 'occasions' and that they lived within their means. They probably envied some of their better off neightbours/friends but did feel any pressure to Keep up with the Jones, their life was fairly private same as their friends.
I too as a boomer, '48. realise that, through no fault of our own, we post-war babies had a much easier ride but I also think that we were willing to accept far less and lower expectations.”

I agree with you completely.