To think that adults are much less resilient than they used to be

[louease]

First of all I'll admit that I'm on the older side of 60 so the weight of my belt onion could be effecting my judgement on this.

I see a lot on social media including here where people say they are upset at words they read on a screen, that they've been triggered, or that it should have a warning attached.

Are we making the world harder to live in by trying to make it too comfortable do you think?

Totally agree. I recently had a boomer relative get shirty with me because I mentioned that don't like Ricky Gervais. They went on about cancel culture etc and said that I was anti-free speech.

...I just don't like him. I think his opinions are boring, and I don't think he's funny. So I don't consume his content. That's not me cancelling someone, that's me deciding not to listen to a comedian because I don't find them amusing or interesting. I don't care if anyone else listens to him, but if you ask me why I don't like him then I will tell you.

I don't understand what people who froth about cancel culture want tbh. Do you think I should be obliged to spend my time engaging and contributing to the wealth of people who I don't like?

I see resilience as working on yourself or making things better for yourself. It's hard to do that if you're always validated, accepted and helped by others.
That validation and attention for your labelled issues can get addictive as well.
It stops people from working in themselves to bring about change because they don't need to change.

Op, would you read stuff, or listen to stuff where people are saying “yes I’m fine, I manage life fine”
nope
what we hear about in life is through a filter of what is interesting to discuss. Good times and bad times. When peop,e are,particular happy or when they are sad and unhappy, or depressed or vulnerable.

it has always been thus, and always will be.

We have different ways of hearing news, and even for the news journalist to hear news. What stories are told are coming from different sources than they were in even 1990s when internet was just kicking off.

we also have made significant breakthroughs in recognising mental health issues. I worked for company that made Prozac in early 1990s. Whilst we can argue about good and bad of Prozac and SSRIs in general, it has played a significant role in openinng up a massive conversation on mental health . As has the fact that in 1980 the led mental hospitals closed, and people who has even serious and enduring mental health issues, were treated under “care in the community”. Again, we all know this is a crap model and was never funded to succeed and let’s down 1000s of people but it also opened the conversation about mental health and illnesses as people with quite poor mental health were being looked after at home, expected to work etc etc.

peoples mental resilience is not down to “growing a pair” or putting their big girls pants on. The brain has a very nasty happy of tuning into threats and amplifying them if it experiences either low level threats a lot, or constant anxiety. Read up about it.

Im 60 and am actually way less resilient mentally now than I was aged 30- a combination of suffering from abuse which has led to complex PTSD, very bad menopausal anxiety and a number of lower level traumatic events and very stressful situations. I’m getting help and have been for the last year, and have made much improvements.

in short, It is hugely arrogant and ignorant to state people are less resilient than they were. Humans are humans, always have been and always will be. We all come with a set of unique genes that can predispose us to certain mental health challenges, we all acquire emotional baggage through life that shapes us and leads to all sorts of oddities, traits and wisdom . If your E got through life never feeling emotionally vulnerable than good for you: genetics, hormones, and circumstances got you there - but it doesn’t mean you’ll always be like that , you do not know at all what’s round the corner.

@Lheuredubebe I've never used Tik Tok (and my children are too little for devices just yet) so I don't have a strong opinion, but my instinct is to err on listening to actual users of the platform such as yourself, rather than scaremongering about it. I'm a good 10+ years older than you so I was an early adopter of Twitter, Facebook, Tinder, Tumblr, etc, before they were mainstream, and those were the places I found my people, had my ideas challenged, grew my understanding of the human condition, met my husband. So it really amuses/infuriates me in equal measure when people who don't use e.g. Twitter get all worked up about how evil and scary it is.

There'll be something else in a couple of years 🤣

No. I think people were just as damaged in the past. They were just allowed to hit children and spew racism and sexism to express it. People got wound up over what they saw in the media in the past too. Social media has been a game changer in many ways, but it hasn't changed resilience, it's just a new thing to get used to.

If you think everyone around you is a snowflake...who's the snowflake?

I think people are a lot less resilient now. The ability to agree to differ and have healthy debate has also declined. People seem to interoperate a difference of opinion as a personal attack.

I work with young people who've experienced violence, abusive parents, Homelessness..... but they're all working, paying their bills, learning independent living skills, ambitious about their future. I don't recognise what you've described at all.

“In my day we just took it for granted that the opinions of women, children, brown people, the disabled, those with mental health issues didn’t matter so much, never mind their feelings. Life was so much easier when all those people had lower expectations!”

According to the office of national statistics, "Relative to the size of the population, the suicide rate in England and Wales has declined by 28% since 1981" so I would say that adults appear to be MORE resilient than they used to be, @louease

The "OMG I'm so triggered" people just have a platform to say it where you can see it now for the first time (as do you, right here on Mumsnet!). They were always there, wringing their hands about something or other. They were probably just on residents' committees or PTA's 30 years ago, judging people for other stuff.

But as for the rest of it, all the adults I know seem just as resilient (or not!) as ever, with the difference that men who need mental health support are more likely (not HUGELY likely but more likely), to seek it, instead of getting drunk and battering their wives (or, apparently, committing suicide). Women who need mental health support are more likely to seek it than to sink into depression, alcoholism or pill-popping (“Mother's little helper”). People were always having "nervous breakdowns" and ulcers when I was a kid (I'm mid-40's).

Alastair Campbell is the same age as you @louease and speaks openly and earnestly about his struggles with depression and how SPEAKING about it and seeking help are why he is still here.

But it's also much more stressful now, I think, and relentless. Men and women work much much longer hours and their jobs are much more invasive - emails and whatsapp messages from their bosses on their holidays/evenings/weekends (bosses holidays as well as their own).

And.... when you were 18, OP, you could buy a house for maybe 2 years' salary - now it's more like 20 - 30 years' worth of earnings. How do you think people of 28 feel about that?

I'm the same sort of age as you, OP. I often think the same as you BUT then I remember the much much slower pace of life, the ease with which I walked in and out of jobs when I first left school at exactly 18 with my handful of O Levels (left weeks before A levels). There was simplynot the competition for jobs, or Uni places or even the horrible snarkiness of Job Centre staff or the dole office.

I know we grew up under the shadow of 'the Bomb', and my Primary school years were punctuated by IRA bomb scares - but NONE of that bad stuff actually happened to me or to anyone I knew.

I grew up hearing my parents' and their siblings' stories about fighting in the war, I saw b&w films of war heroes. Those were my role models. My dh thinks I am incredibly strong and I think I'm normal.

My dd is besieged by the competition she will face when she finishes studying, by how she will make a decent enough living to rent, buy food and pay bills, let alone how she will ever own a house or even a tiny flat. She studies so hard she has made herself ill in the past, so she has to manage that too.

Everything is stressful, healthcare is inadequate, state education is inadequate, all public services are inadequate, the State is inadequate. The Police and the politicians are not to be trusted, but trust in those two institutions were normal back in the 60s, even on the Tory benches there were people you could respect and police were deemed to be safe.

And when you saw the man at Oxford Street with the sandwich boards saying the end of the world was nigh you laughed and moved on. Now you're watching it happen.

It's no real wonder people are more sensitive than there were in our day, really.

I do get frustrated with the infantilisation of teens. On here you quite often hear how a 17 year old is a “child”. I reflect upon being 17 and I had a part time job and we had already been drinking in pubs and nightclubs for two years by that point! Some of the stuff I encountered was edifying to say the least and I think missing out on these experiences can be detrimental

I do think there's a lot more discussion but also a lot more shouting long and loud and a lot more drama.

There are people who have to be resilient, they're expected to be. Are there more people who are less so, it's hard to say. What I do think is true is that we're in danger of those who don't shout about things sinking without trace. As always

Resilience in the true sense of the word, as in the ability to bounce back from bad things and use it constructively, should not be banned at all. It's an incredibly important life skill.

The problem is that "resilience" has been captured and turned into a shorthand for people to insult anyone who shows any vulnerability, has boundaries or asks difficult questions.

Accusing someone of lacking resilience because they seek help for a mental health problem is arse about face. You have a much better chance of improving your resilience if you are able to reflect on something bad which has happened to you, take stock of it and learn from it, than you do by buggering on, stiff upper lip, don't complain etc. A fast road to becoming stuck in a rut and failing to move forwards with your life.

You see it every day on here. There was a post deleted because one word on it is triggering to some people. There are countless posts about people being upset at the wording in an article. It’s a race to the bottom at the moment. No doubt someone will be offended by this.

I definitely think you're doing the right thing, I don't see the sense in this whole hearing that's going on at the moment, as it's so obvious that no one there has ever even used the app, nor have much knowledge at all of how phones work or the internet in general, so how can they possibly be the right people to make any type of decision?

In my opinion, Tiktok is revolutionary. I've never learnt as much in my entire life (including school) as I have in the past 3 years. No, small children shouldn't be on it (same as any social media) and it's up to parents to block their children from using it. There are already plenty of security measures in place, but if a small child has their own phone and zero supervision, then they're going to find Tiktok. Parents can't put 100% of the responsibility on the app.

The algorithm is genius and I really raise my eyebrows at the people who say it's full of inappropriate videos/soft porn/awful views, because if that's all you're seeing then it's all you're searching for/interacting with. My "For You" page is harmless funny videos, opinions on subjects I'm interested in, beauty tips, body positivity, learning how to be on social media without going insane (!), "science tips", info about historical figures, etc. All of it would be fine for a 13-year-old to view. On the odd occasion I get a video I'm not interested in, I scroll past and the app understands I'm not interested and doesn't show me anything like it again.

If people are concerned about data/privacy etc then they need to look at the laws as a whole, not at a single app that isn't doing anything all of the other apps (Facebook etc) aren't also doing. But banning it will be a massive loss, far bigger than a lot of people realise and will definitely have pretty big consequences. So fingers crossed it sticks around! 😊

https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/mental-health-liberal-girls?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

While this article focuses on the most affected, there are some great possible explanations for what is going on, in it.

How people communicate has changed and things like social media didn’t exist so I’m not sure how you compare decades ago to now.

Maybe their parents were emotionally illiterate as a lot of the older generations are, and they are just doing their best?

With many it's not lack if resilience but more of a demand for validation, eg "yes you are right, your opinion is the correct one" and need for attention imho

Let's see now, demand for validation, need for attention. Punks, anyone?

If young people, under 30 are less resilient, and the jury is still out on that, I would propose it because of what the internet and social media have done to the constant abuse and criticism and unrealistic expectations it has indoctrinated on that generation

You only have to look at the likes of women leaders and MPs who quit these days- not becuase they’re intrinsically less resilient than a Maggie thatcher or Barbara castle but becuase they’re being threatened , abused, hounded, derided constantly. The human brain and psyche can’t cope with that constant stress exposure - as I said eariler we know the brain becomes more vigilant with each mounting threat, the brain is designed to tune in more to threats than secure situations.

I would hate to be raising my DS nowadays, let alone girls . Fgs they seem to get all the shit off social media from their teens when the brain is still developing. That suit includes constant pressure to look a certain way , sex pestering from barely pubescent boys who consumed a diet of quite extreme porn . It makes people fearful, and once that happens it’s a very slippery slope to maintain resilience when you are challenged or slightly stressed. The brain will amp up that to a real threat and fear .

I do detest the phrase "man up". Someone used to use that phrase at work a lot and it made my blood boil.

I’m 68 and I’m naturally resilient and understand that people react to things differently and maybe if I was 28 now I’d be a very different person.

When I was in my early teens I survived a violent stranger rape. There were complications of this which left me unable to have children. A short while after I went for a long walk with my Dad (who had his own traumas in the war) and he basically told me that I could let this define my life or I could rise above it and embrace the rest of my life and enjoy it to the full (this just a tiny summary of the whole conversation obviously). He told me to be the rock in the stream, let life flow past you, both good and bad.

This has always served me well. I was injured in the Harrods bomb and been a victim of DV but I’ve come out unscathed, mentally if not physically. I’ve been round the world on my own, lived and worked abroad, had a full life and still do.

I don’t condemn those who aren’t so resilient but I admit that it’s hard for me to understand - but we’re all different and do what we can to get by.

Yes. Ask anyone working in HR and they'll confirm it with their younger employees who don't seem able to take criticism. I think it boils down to not developing coping skills when younger and things go wrong. I don't think it's the fault of parents though it's just how society has evolved but we need to be aware of it and try and counteract through how we parent. Simple example my daughter went to visit a friend in an area of our city she hadn't been before. She got a bit lost (not completely off track) first thing she did was panic then ring me and asked me to locate her so I could guide her to the bus stop she needed. She'd no phone cover so I couldn't find her, she would not ask anybody for help she just did not seem able to know how to ask directions because she's always just rung me and I've "rescued" her. It was a big reality check for me. When I was her age I couldn't ring mum for help so had to figure things out for myself and get myself out of all sorts of predicaments.

Considering others isn't a lack of resilience. What would you prefer?

To give an example in talking about weight. It might be of 100 people who read a post 99 aren't bothered at all by it. But one has an eating disorder and the trigger warning stops them reading and relapsing. For the other 99 it's a 1 second sentences they've had to read with no effect on them what so ever.

What do you wnat to happen we stop using trigger warning and let people find it harder to live in the world? How does something like this negatively impact you?