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?

Backforgood summed it up earlier for me.
Parents who do their kids homework, write their university essays, protect them from the failure of not having prepared themselves. Bail them out of everything or not even let them experience the tiniest consequence. Limits resilience and leads to poor coping.

@Tomatoandbasil

Too much work and not enough life (for some).

This

Some great points on this thread! I totally agree with a lot of you.

I think women have it so hard as there is now such a big expectation on us to have/do it all which just isn't possible.

I also hate the lack of contentment. The competition and "keeping up with the Jones's" is having a big impact on mental health which is exacerbated with social media use

It's not that long ago (40 years?) that kids would go out and play with their friends in an adult free world of their own where they had their own rules and were independent. That was where you learnt to sink or swim with your friends. Without that great reality check of being outside with other kids, I think kids grow up before their time now and are a weird mix of spoilt/mollicoddled and over exposed to adult problems with too much pressure from adults and peers.

This, definitely this! Kids need other kids. My DD is an only child and when she was little it was so hard to find kids for her to play with outside school hours. I felt so sad for her, and useless as a mum. She's now 12 and organises her own social life, but I wish she'd had that early freedom. Even now she loves to hear my tales of growing up as a free-ranging (naughty) kid in the '70s. I learned a lot from my friends chess, bike riding, swimming, tennis which my depressed parents would not have been able to teach me.

I'm not depressed, but not really happy either. Life is a treadmill and COVID has made it worse.

For me it is the feeling that however hard I work, I never get anywhere - can't buy a house, go on a decent holiday and I don't have time for hobbies with two young kids and working full-time. It's the feeling that if I had the same set up I do now (both working full-time, average salaries) 25 years ago we would have a much better life. The lack of any progress and inequality and ageism in this country (when it is totally possible for it to be so much better) is the worst for me. The government have removed any prospect of progress for anyone. I fucking despise them.

Social media and pointless aspiration crap/TV doesn't help. I avoid instagram/property programs, anything fluffy which is about improving your life materially/changing how you look. I find it incredibly depressing (although saw a program last night where the house rennovation was hideous (not DIY SOS)! That made me feel better about my situation.

IMO people don't really chat - you know over the fence to the neighbours - the whole village knowing everyone and raising the child...very disconnected society. People rush off to work and back again.

Small villages especially in coast or holiday areas often have lots of empty properties which are holiday lets or second homes and so less people so the shops close, the pub closes even the local school struggles and sometimes merges with another larger one and closes. The village just isn't the same.

Social media - WOW - the posturing, the posing, the pouting, the look at me and how wonderful I am, look what I am doing, where I am going, ME ME ME ME. Others 'FOLLOW' - people on social media - I mean seriously! Why would anyone want to follow some of the vacuous empty shells of self indulgence! ME ME ME ME

Now people that live in the paragraph above appear to have wonderful lives but I imagine they are quite empty if they really need 'likes' from random strangers to get by...... The followers sound like the lives are also quite empty. Mental health?

The resilience..... a 14 day student lock down in a university led to cries of 'what about our mental health' - they couldn't manage 14 days without ridiculous protestations - bearing in mind a pandemic.... parents also complained about the 'poor students'. General everyday resilience to smaller things seems to be lacking in some and so when something big comes along?

Many appear to have to have it all (and now!) no waiting, no saving, compare it to others and come up lacking. There will always be someone brainer, richer, more good looking/beautiful, faster, so what!

Perhaps we need to stop comparing, step away from social media, live our own life our own way? Who knows?

I don’t k is if it’s worse now but I do know this...

We have created a society where most people sit in chairs in schools being told what to do and then go on to sit in chairs in offices being told what to do.

That’s no life.

Humans need freedom, creativity, self-direction and connection.

.Social media
The internet.
Smart phones/cameras.
More take aways.
People not socialising.
Too expensive to go to the pub (God, when I worked in pubs I felt like a therapist with people coming in with their problems).
Work life is more hectic so more stress.
We are more aware of mental health so more people have it.
Price of living is high and wages still low.

Many things have changed the way we live, the way we respond to things and the amount of money with have/don’t have.

I think women have it so hard as there is now such a big expectation on us to have/do it all which just isn't possible.

We really don't have to accept that expectation though do we? We don't have to put ourselves on the treadmill at all. I agree either it isn't possible or it comes at a massive cost.

Also adults seem to magnify every problem and share with their children who are not children but their 'best friends' - seriously! The children seem to take on the worries - an example a person in 30's, no health condition really went on about dying from covid.... the chance was extremely small - extremely small but the parent share and the child is now anxiety ridden about covid - no reason at all to be - the parent putting their woes and worries on the child is IMO a form of abuse.

We've always had a huge wealth gap in this country, but it hasn't always been rubbed in people's faces. Before the days of social media, most people moved in a circle of people broadly like themselves. If they saw the inside of someone's house, it wouldn't be very much different from their own house. Of course, we were aware of much richer people but they were firmly in their own world.

Now, social media thrusts the minutiae of rich people's lives into the living room of anyone who uses Facebook etc. And even people in their own circles will confront them with the Instagram version of their lives, not the reality. That breeds discontentment and, in some cases, breeds crime as people feel 'why shouldn't I have that?' and don't care how they get it?

Is social media at fault? Not really. It's the wealth gap that's to blame. It's always been there, but social media has brought it to light.

Because families can not support themselves ( mostly) with a single income.

With both parents out of the home - people cook less and rely on convenience foods (obesity), spend less time together with their family ( loneliness) and woman who ran houses in previous times were also heavily involved in the community and they also helped to look after the less fortunate in the community. Women are naturally caring by nature and I think their role at home should be valued more and not looked down on as it is now! Also their needs to be more financial protection in the event of marriage breakdown.

Families are also spread all around now, people no longer live in the community they grew up in. Which means again they have less of a support network.

I think women have it so hard as there is now such a big expectation on us to have/do it all which just isn't possible

I don’t think women have it any harder now than they ever have. Life was a lot harder 100 years ago with no running hot water or indoor sanitation. Everything had to be washed by hand, every meal cooked from scratch, all groceries carried on foot. Housework was women’s work and there was no reliable contraception. Women frequently died in childbirth. My great grandma had 16 pregnancies, seven of her children reached adulthood. That was hard.

Life is too complicated. It makes people crazy.

And people expect to be happy instead of content.

And where is our hope?

We are living in seemingly irreversible catastrophic climate change, surrounded by world leaders who seem hell bent on doing nothing to stop the destruction and carrying on regardless.

Huge assumptions and ignorance surrounding mental health in this thread!
Life is always difficult for one reason or another and people have always struggled with their mental health it’s just that now we are more aware of it and it is talked about more. Back in the day people would have just suffered in silence.

Anecdotally, I work out regularly, spend time outside, eat healthily and have a huge support network around me and still suffer with serious depression and anxiety.

It’s because parents don’t teach resilience anymore, hence the snowflake culture.

Oh God not this snowflake ❄️ nonsense again. Bloody lazy idiocy.

The secretness of the internet - I'm sure many people do things they would never have considered doing or never had the opportunity of doing in the past.
It shows people's bad sides rather than their good.
Also availability of porn, gambling and now credit (seems to be being offered on all the major online sales outlets) - people are going to get into a hell of a mess due to these..... and worse, NO ONE is doing anything to stop it.

@VinylDetective

Oh God not this snowflake ❄️ nonsense again. Bloody lazy idiocy.

What’s bloody lazy is not bringing up emotionally resilient, confident, responsible children.

"I wouldn't expect it's actually worse or that people were largely all that different 50 years ago or 100 years ago etc - I think people are less bound by shame and societal norms have changed, so these issues can be talked about more openly now. People suffer in silence less and adopt a stiff upper lip less."

But the facts say opposite to this - since suicide rates increased ....www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/research-policy/suicide-facts-and-figures/

I don't just mean increased this year, I mean the trend over the years - ...... my question is why since many things in life are easier (better healthcare, better education, more education around health, benefits system whilst not great is so much better than a hundred years ago, employment rights better, pensions etc.

Something has changed in mental health strategies since people and often much younger people (suicides under 40) are not coping and self harming (huge in school children) and killing themselves.... social media and online bullying can lead to the death of children - now something is really wrong there (rotten even)

10 years of tories with another 4 to go
Universal credit
Increase in in work poverty
Zero hours contracts
High unemployment/underemployment
Uncontrolled capitalism
Pornification of society/ esp childhood
Social media/smart phones
Social conservative/right wing attitudes on the increase
Isolation/lone person households
Lack of secure careers
Sex discrimination
Stigma of mental health
Lack of understanding of trauma

High expectations.
We are told we can have it all and when we can't we feel hard one by.

10 years of tories with another 4 to go - we had 18 years of it from 1979 to 1997
Universal credit ✅
Increase in in work poverty - not new
Zero hours contracts - not new, there’s always been piece work and hourly pay
High unemployment/underemployment - has been for decades
Uncontrolled capitalism - was always thus
Pornification of society/ esp childhood
Social media/smart phones ✅
Social conservative/right wing attitudes on the increase - not new
Isolation/lone person households
Lack of secure careers - not new
Sex discrimination - less now than at any time in history
Stigma of mental health - see above
Lack of understanding of trauma - see above

Very little of this explains the phenomena OP outlines.

Capitalism.

Inequality. The gap been rich and poor has been widening. People living in the most equal societies are the happiest. That is why people look back to the 1970s and think it was better, people had less but most people you knew had the same as you.