To think we wouldn't have as many MH problems if we lived differently

[Ginlette]

Panic attacks, anxiety, depression...

How much of this is happening because of the way our society is set up?

If we all lived in fairly small communities and had good relationships with friends and family near by, would we have these issues? If we had stable work that didn't feel like an impossible workload and paid fairly?

I'm even beginning to wonder whether "positives" of modern living are actually subtly undermining our MH as a society.

• The obvious examples being the Internet and phones, but also..
• Mobility: looks good on paper, but maybe the idea of the world being your oyster subconsciously is anxiety inducing?
• Travel: fun but frequent travel again contributes
• Home ownership and improvements, style & beauty inprovements: again this idea of we have choice, but is it contributing to a low level sense of always chasing?
• More freedom of partner and freedom to have children or be childfree: but does it create a "What if?" sensation past generations wouldn't have had fluttering at the edges of their mind?
• Remote working/self employed: I have done this for over a decade but does it maybe contribute to a sense of no base, no community?

I’m not convinced that mental health is any worse now than it was historically. We just talk about it now.

I disagree. I think mental health in teenagers and young adults is way worse, and being chronically online is a big contributor to that imo.

Capitalism might not lead to happiness but I’m not convinced that socialism leads to happiness either 🤔 I’ve only visited one Communist country in person but friends tell me it resembled others that they’d visited or lived in. Happiness amongst the populace seemed conspicuous by its absence. There were rules in abundance, quite draconian ones, but I felt no sense of joy in the country, unlike more Westernised ones which appear to run the full gamut from misery to exhilaration.

Again, maybe a melange of economic approaches - shades of grey once more - would be better?

Mental health issues are usually genetic and environmental, your childhood experiences have a major impact on your mental health and any future struggles you may have as an adult.

There isn’t enough data on it but around half of the UK population has experienced at least one adverse childhood experience that could lead to trauma which would then impact on their mental health, personally I believe it’s much higher than that (I work in care) and I’m sure a lot of people could tick off a few traumatic experiences before reaching the age of 18. This has a massive impact on how our brains develop and our ability to cope with negative experiences.

Mix that with very little support both from family/friends and doctors then it’s no wonder we have such a huge crisis going on.

Our mental health services are awful, the NHS can only offer a limited number of resources to people so unless you can afford to go private you don’t get a lot of help through therapy services and medication can help but it’s not a permanent solution.

I do agree that society also has an impact and in some cases it may be the cause of someone experiencing mental health issues but in general I would think it’s a build of several negative experiences happening such as poverty, bullying, relationships, work, past trauma, it all accumulates and at some point it does becomes too much and I do think the younger generations have a lot more pressure on them to be able to achieve a good standard of living as an adult, the UK seems very bleak right now.

Well when it comes to food I love having so much choice and being able to find really good recipes on the Internet. I love Chinese/Japanese food. In the 70s growing up there was a Chinese restaurant in a nearby town, but we could never afford to eat out. I can remember a friend having a birthday there and I had gammon and pineapple and thought that was exotic 😂

Now I can shop in my local Chinese supermarket, there's a Japanese supermarket not too far from me. Even waitrose offers a lot of the basics. I can make some amazing dishes now.

My childhood dinners were usually plain boiled potato's or "smash", veg, maybe a beefburger or a couple of sausages. I ate huge amounts of puddings, cakes, sweets etc so not sure it was really any healthier.

Sounds a bit like 15 minute cities 🤔

Community is held together by other things too - seeing people in the supermarket, or knowing the woman who runs the local Chinese takeaway or the local taxi company, or just the person who serves you at the pub.

But all of those things are now done by an app. On a recent mnet thread, many people said they actually prefer ordering a pub meal using an app. Presumably the same people who, when looking for somewhere to live, want a place with a strong sense of community. The two things aren't separate.

Yes, I agree with you.

And yet where are we? Online! Maybe there’s another case for “everything in moderation”? Being chronically online is almost certainly bad for our mental health, but not being able to access the wealth of good things the Internet has to offer would also limit both us and younger people.

I think part of the problem is that the move from where we were in the 70s (I am old enough to remember them) and now has gone so very fast. Personally I enjoy the Internet - it lets me stay connected to my adult DC, and we are able to have serious conversations which we then carry on when we meet face to face. I work hybrid - I did have a 100% WFH job but hated it and having the human connection in a workplace is valuable to me. However, WFH has opened up possibilities for people who cannot function in a workplace environment, so it's swings and roundabouts.
I love to travel. It isn't stressful, it's exciting and enjoyable. If you don't feel that way - don't do it!

Ultimately we are all responsible for our choices and our values. If you go through life feeling envious of other people's lifestyle and possessions, you're going to be miserable. If you value what you have and look for the joys of every day, you'll be fine. That's no different now from how it was before, it just takes a bit of mindful thinking and self discipline.

Me too! I can now keep in touch with cousins all over the world!

And it’s been incredible wrt the democratisation of information too.

How do you keep in touch with siblings and parents though?

I definitely think there is a 'tyranny of choice' problem. Dr Rangsn Chatterjee in one of his books advises, as way to reduce stress and anxiety, to reduce choice as much as possible. People mist ofcthe time are choosing between things that are not that different, but it just creates uncertainty and insecurity over whether you have made the right choice, and whether you really thought about it well enough, and look at other people who have made other choices and wonder if they were better off as a result. It is also a massive time waster.

I don't think anyone would deny that the internet is incredibly useful in a huge number of ways. If it weren't, people wouldn't use it, would they? It's very much a double-edged sword though.

And throwing your hands up and saying 'Well, it's about individual choice' isn't really the answer imo. It's also people's individual choice to take illegal drugs, smoke, eat a terrible, health-endangering diet, drink excessively etc. That doesn't mean that nothing can or should be done to address it. The big tech / social media companies should be more regulated imo.

I can’t wrap my head around never leaving the house. I really struggled with lockdowns and the ‘stay the fuck at home’ rhetoric.
I also feel really unsettled by the end of the day if I spend all day in bed (which happens maybe once every couple of years when I’m ill), I can’t imagine doing it for any other reason than not being well enough to get up.

@Abbimae

I agree - I never hear people say ‘I feel a bit down today’ or ‘I’m really fed up’. I honestly think it detracts from people with serious MH issues.

Honestly, I’d have less anxiety and stress is society allowed us to work part time/survive as a family on a single wage and that paid properly.

Yes the government has proposed they will help with childcare costs, but we shouldn’t be trying to get 9 month old babies into childcare. We should get companies paying better wages, reducing the working day to something like 10am-4pm, and work back towards a society that allows people and families to decide how much or little they want to work.

I think you make some good points OP.

I don’t disagree with you that those things do have the potential to be bad for mental health but at the same time I think there’s a very strong temptation to blame ‘modern life’ and romanticise some non-specific time in the past as a halcyon era when everyone lived in happy, healthy communities, with happy, fulfilled mothers staying at home raising happy, rosy-cheeked children, and happy, fulfilled fathers rushing home from their jobs to greet their oh-so-happy families.

When we know that the reality hasn’t ever been anything like that, at least not for the majority of people. Actually when I think about the 20th century I’m shocked at how barbaric a lot of it was - and that was recent history!

I haven’t RTFT but I do feel people are idealising the past here.

My dirt poor family left Ireland to avoid starvation (potato famine) in the 1870s. Started again living in terrible conditions in the East End of London. 7 from ten children died before they were 5. My grandad was born in the workhouse.

Roll on through two world wars, extreme poverty, living through the Blitz when a whole branch of the family was wiped out by a single bomb.

Both Mum and Dad (born in the 20s) were evacuated and Mum didn’t see her mum for three years. Living with strangers.

Mum and Dad lived with his parents in a tiny flat for 7 years after they married - first child was stillborn.

I could go on but I just want to say, if you were poor, life was always stressful. Starvation/eviction stressful.

My gran who had 4 children and was a cleaner on the railways and had an outside toilet until the 70s would raise her eyebrows at the complaints of WFT in a warm house with a benefits safety net.

Most of us have so much to be grateful for and not feel we are unduly hard done by. And please don’t say ‘Oh yes but they were part of a community ‘ because that really doesn’t help when you’re hiding from the debt collectors or scraping ice of the windows or ( in the case of two of my relatives) working as an occasional prostitute to pay the bills.

It's not so simple as you put it, but some of it is explored in more depth and complexity in Lost Connections by Johann Hari. Worth a read if you're interested.

Socialism doesn't equal Communism. No mater how often they try to tell you otherwise.

The problem is, you're never going to find a society that suits everyone.

My mental health improved dramatically when I changed careers and slowed my life down, but I've read numerous threads on here that describe my way of life as boring, or dull, or pointless, or depressing.

And the flip side is I read about some people's busy lives and feel stressed just thinking about it.

What benefits one person will have a negative impact on another.

It is, but it's not the ONLY factor.

Had my son been born in 1952 and not 2002 I think he would have had a much less stressful time of it.

One reason - school. He would have been in the R stream, almost certainly. Far less pressure and expectations. It was accepted then that some were academic and some were practical. My friends brother was in the R stream at school. Did no exams, but left school in 1975 at 16 having done practical things. We lived in a farming area, so he had learnt animal care, how to drive a tractor and basic car mechanics. He walked straight into a job.

Scroll forward, despite my son being in the equivalent of the R Stream, but obviously not called that, he was still put under a lot of pressure to achieve academically and there were no practical options available.

Another reason - There were more jobs for youngsters then. Most large companies had a post room or a canteen, there was more factories that needed human labour. My dad started at 14 as an errand boy, eventually retired in higher management, but always said that year or two doing so many basic things, which often involved thinking on his feet, were invaluable.

My son has struggled to find work. Not because he is unwilling, but he isn't academic and has no qualifications. He is bottom of the pile.

Today's expectations and the lack of basic practical opportunities for those who don't get 27 GCSEs exacerbate problems with anxiety and self esteem.

Add social media (and a lot of teenage social media is horrible) into the mix and it creates a very toxic environment for a lot of teenagers.

I think the biggest problem of modern society is that the concept of rest has been lost. We're always on the go, always being stimulated, and on a population level we don't get enough real rest.

In what ways do they differ?