to think we should be grateful for flushing toilets...

[evergreener]

honestly, there is so much trauma and anxiety on these threads, and I don't really understand it. Spending much of time in a part of the world with no sanitation or drinking water, I think that we are incredibly privileged and fortunate in the UK. I'm thankful for access to flushing toilets every day!

yet these threads are so full of misery, inspite of our luxurious life style, abundance of clean water, cheap food, clothes, education, medical care, etc.

People are upset about not wanting a CAT scan, wanting a change or HRT medication, teens being anxious about going to school, wanting a better car, not liking the homework a teacher has set, wanting their partner to get up early with the baby, wanting someone else to unload the dishwasher, worried about what brand of moisturiser to use, and so on and so on

I hope I am not offending too many people by saying this, but we are so rich here, we have so many luxuries, we had such an easy pandemic, we have got everything that most of the worlds population cant even dream of, why is everyone so sad?

I wonder what the demographics are for all these increased mental health issues.

It strikes me that the people in poorer, more desperate situations are more resilient and able to cope with things than the middle class with their cushy lives and not a lot else to worry about.

The people with real problems in their life dont seem to have the luxury of navel gazing and wallowing, they just have to get on with it. They can't afford to go under.

It seems this is what the op is talking about.

Sounds like you’ve had a lovely gap year

Telling people they have a wonderful privileged life when they haven't eaten for days, their children are sick from their mouldy house that they can't afford to heat and they're waiting in line to get a bag of crappy tinned from a foodbank isn't going to make them happy.

I don't think these are the people op is talking about.

‘honestly, there is so much trauma and anxiety on these threads, and I don't really understand it.’

Well that’s a ‘you’ problem then. If you can’t feel empathy for people just because they have flushing toilets, then that’s on you.

I have not experienced this but I can see how stressful it must be to have an anxious teen who won’t go to school. It could affect their future life, education, job prospects and adult mental health. What decent parent would not worry?? Yet you don’t understand because their toilets flush.

Menopause can stop women functioning, make them lose jobs, suffer with panic attacks; why should they not want HRT? Interesting that you cite that as an example of trivial worry as well as wanting a dad to look after his baby in the morning. Why are you so sexist? Women should be happy as their toilets flush?

And nobody is sad about moisturiser, don’t be ridiculous.

Most people are capable of appreciating what they have and worrying about the big stuff and trivial stuff at the same time.

I was supporting an Israeli friend yesterday. She was sobbing about her two younger brothers who had been called up to the army to fight in Gaza. She was also wryly mocking herself at how she still managed to get ‘angry’ about an issue with HR where they had messed up her pay by a small amount. Was she ridiculous for getting irritated by her pay when her family had more important stuff going on?

OP you know nothing about human nature and my guess is you are older and living in relative privilege. You might want to work on opening your mind and educating yourself about mental health.

Their lives had changed drastically compared to what they had previously. That’s the comparator.

I worked in hospitals during the pandemic btw and it was the worst couple of years I have had. I can still feel sympathy for those stuck at home.

‘UK children have food, clothing, education, medical care, play opportunities, safe outdoor spaces, - all of them’

As a consultant psychiatrist who does home visits to families, I can assure you that there are hungry kids stuck at home not getting the education they need (often SEN) living in high rise flats, entrenched in damp and black mould, who have few toys and parents who are not supported to care for them and play with them.

And for all your virtue-signalling about working in orphanages, you don’t seem to know that there are people from these same poor countries living here too. Having left their countries for safety or whatever reason. Many are living in cramped overcrowded conditions. They are adversely affected by the noise in the hostels, the drugs endemic in the temporary accommodation where they live, having to live on £8 a week and eat substandard food. They are desperately unhappy. Even though they left countries with no flushing toilets and now have them. Shocking and ungrateful of them, yes?

I get what you're saying OP.

It's a mindset. The more we have, the more dissatisfied we seem to become, like the parable in the tale of the Fisherman's Wife.

https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk#:~:text=Compared%20to%20other%20developed%20countries%20the%20UK%20has%20a%20very,unequal%20than%20the%20United%20States.

The thing is that when you look up “quality of life” type stuff and where we (UK) sit it tends to always be the same countries ranking above us.

“The UK's wealth distribution is roughly average compared to the other OECD countries. The UK has a wealth GINI coefficient of 74.6%.”

However, “Compared to other developed countries the UK has a very unequal distribution of income, with a Gini coefficient of 0.351. The UK has one of the highest levels of income inequality in Europe, although it is less unequal than the United States.”

So just pay people more is the answer. We are only going to move to Switzerland/Norway/Sweden type standard of living if we pay the bottom rungs more and tax them and they get to spend more. However, it is complicated because house prices in London are so much higher than other places. So house price living index needs to be accounted for in wages.

The suicide rates would contradict this. The highest suicide rates are in disabled or long term unemployed men. For those in work the construction industry has the highest suicide rate, managerial and 'professional' occupations have the lowest. The getting on with it and not wallowing leads to people not seeking help and ultimately, ending their lives.

You are extremely out of touch. Benefits no longer cover the basic necessities due to benefit caps, 2 child caps, the cost of living crisis, lack of genuinely affordable housing, high rents and a failure to raise the local housing allowance along with rent inflation. This results in not being able to afford food or clothing, ending up homeless and housed in a series of temporary hotels, hostels and bedsits all over the country disrupting or even completely halting education. I should think this also makes it hard to see or register with a GP but then there's mental healthcare which is basically non-existent for children meaning again that disabled children are not getting the diagnoses that might help them to access decent education, housing and benefits. Where are all these play opportunities and safe outdoor spaces for children living in temporary housing on disused industrial estates, or maybe trapped in inappropriate inaccessible housing with a disabled parent?

There are many many factors at play in the UK that you have absolutely no idea about. Having experienced a period of time in your childhood where your parents couldn't afford heating does not give you any insight into the current issues you are being wilfully ignorant about. It's not just having to chose between heating and eating, there are far too many families in the UK who see having any options as a luxury!

UK children have food, clothing, education, medical care, play opportunities, safe outdoor spaces, - all of them

My mother missed the memo.

The only thing she gave me was c-PTSD

Because happiness is not about having things per se, but having a sense of dignity, self worth and hope.

Someone living on the breadline in the UK might still be objectively better off than someone living without sanitation or food security or in a conflict area etc.

However if you're scraping by and know that makes you stand out from the local community, you will feel shame and desperation because you feel like an outcast. Poverty is about more than just material things, it makes you feel trapped and shameful.

The same does apply in developing countries - I used to work for a development charity. If you have a lot less than your neighbours, you feel like a failure. Even if by Western standards both groups of people don't have much.

This is bullshit.

People on lower incomes can't afford therapy so well or access things like fitness classes and green spaces etc that benefit wellbeing.

Yes, there might be some cultural class difference where working class communities show solidarity, support each other through hard times etc.

There are also higher incidences of heavy drinking, overeating, domestic violence and other forms of violence, stress and premature death.

Have you just returned from a gap year OP?

OP is denying such people exist in the UK. Hence why she's getting called privileged and clueless.

Yes if you don't know any different you can't miss what you've never had .

I can see things to be grateful for in my life - no housing costs for example is huge one, when DH was made redundant during Covid we didn't have to worry about losing our home.

But on the other hand we need to completely wipe out our savings to buy a new roof, DH can't earn enough to cover his own costs let alone contribute to household costs due to situation with DS, so I cover costs of pretty much everything, while also working around all the various appointments we have for DS. All this has knock on effects on our health etc. - stress, disrupted sleep, no time for exercise, not eating properly...

The fact that things could be more difficult for us doesn't make our current situation easy. But I am well aware others have it worse.

I have to admit that I thought of this thread as I was chucking in a load of laundry before work. I’m grateful to be able to do that, washing is an arduous process in some countries, whereas we just chuck it in the machine and get on with other things. 🤷

You sound like my mother. To her mental illnesses were either "needs to be committed in an asylum" type or the luxury of the rich /bored housewives.

She was neither so worked hard, didn't wallow and got on with it.... by beating me up.

Shit, stressful day at work? Drag your daughter around by her hair.
Two days in a row? Beat her up with a stick, raging and screaming because she's hiding under the table and you can't reach her.

Shit, stressful week? Beat her up and kick her out of the house. If she won't go, repeatedly slam the door on her foot until you break something or you tire yourself out.

But she never complained, never wallowed, never admitted to any snowflakey stuff like anxiety and depression.

I think the poster who said about it depending on what life experiences you have to compare your current life to is possibly right.

Maybe because I have had a life very hard in parts, sleeping rough as a teen, and that sort of thing, that is maybe one reason why I feel very grateful for a standard of living that makes other people feel hard done by - maybe because they experienced better in the past, or hoped for better?

No. This is exactly wrong. The bigger the Govt, the poorer the country becomes, and those at the bottom suffer most.

Need to cut Govt, cut regulation and things would improve for everyone.

Not going to happen though. We haven’t learned from other countries’ example. We are going to need to feel the pain before people will get that. Those who can leave will of course, as usual.

Also the social engineering of ESG is such that middle class people need a victim card to avoid discrimination. Mental health is one.

Well I would rather walk an hour to school in bare feet than live in a cramped mould-ridden flat in England.

I always feel grateful for having the ability to turn on a tap and have safe drinking water come out and to be able to flush a toilet .
I know some water bills are extortionate but ours is reasonable and I really don't mind paying it because I am honestly so grateful.

However I can still sometimes lose my shit over the most ridiculous events etc!

"The fallacy of relative privation rejects an argument by stating the existence of a more important problem."

My Mum gets upset when she watches the news. But contents herself by saying 'it could be worse'. Or by listing a situation that is happening to a person or a people 'over there'.

It's akin to whataboutism. And she often retreats into this life cushion. She said recently about a subsection of British citizens that she perceives to have an attitude problem that she couldn't understand why they were moaning as Britain is so amazing in XY and Z terms.

The Brits do like a moan. And my Mum is certainly no exception! And you can't diminish one person's feelings over an issue over someone else's, as they still feel. At the same time we all use a 'relative' barometer. I certainly do.

Perhaps a website that is used as a support forum might just unearth people's problems.

If on the other hand you have seen a rise in disquiet over the last decade. There may be other factors at work.

I was born in the 70's and there were similar themes of gloom and doom when I was being raised. There was the threat of WW3 and M.A.D. This petrified me. There was also the optimism of advances of industry and science. I was young and could feel the excitement of enlightenment. I thought the human race might just solve all major issues by about 2020, and we'd be living in some amazing future scope. But, it's the same old shit, on a different day! My personal quality of life is actually heading towards the bin. Though at least I have the Internet for solace.

I always feel camping/travelling realigns values. And pulling yourself out of the busy can give you a different perspective. I left the city for the countryside about a decade ago. And sometimes just retreat to the woods. Now the cities/towns/villages/civilisation can appear utterly bonkers to me. We all have different value systems. There are members of my family that would have fits if you tackled your dinner with the wrong knife or fork.