Why is anxiety and MH issues so common now?

[Ilovedogs1]

Hi. So I've been posting a lot over the last few months due to having a bad episode with anxiety/OCD/breakdown.

I've noticed more and more anxiety threads popping up. Just wondering why are we all so anxious? What's happening to people ? Just pondering really.

I blame the Internet, I think it damages MH in many ways

The last four years has been bloody stressful.

Debt, cost of living, poor job security and the relationship problems that can result from financial stress.

I honestly think restricting gambling and shirt payday loans would have a big impact on mental health.

Maybe a lack of meaning in life.

Climate change, cost of living, covid, etc., plus society being structured so that family and community are often split up, focus is on work for the Economy's sake rather than sustainability, life/work balance is skewed, a lot of pressure to be certain things, or to be all things to everybody, social media presenting images of 'ideal' lives, the internet providing us with more information and the sheer amount of choice, whether real or artificial.

On the positive side, it's also due to more awareness meaning people can talk about their emotions and experiences rather than repress them.

Social media, people having fewer real human connections, people being more selfish, lack of community spirit, decline in family life, online everything means a lot of people are more socially isolated, elderly people no longer live with family - they're often alone in later years, people feel more able to talk about their genuine MH struggles, people who don't genuinely have MH struggles but are attention seekers, SM encouraging attention seeking and narcissistic behaviour ... I could go on.

All of the above, plus the trauma of Covid and a change in the way society talks about mental health. It's good that it is ok to talk about it now. However, I also think that pathologising (is that a word) everyday stress and unhappiness is in itself unhelpful and in some ways harmful. We don't teach children enough about resilience and 'normal' unhappiness so this is only going to increase.

People are more willing to talk about their MH.

Because a whole generation of people with childhood trauma have now reached adult hood. A generation that doesn't feel ashamed into hiding their feelings and actively seeking out support. I'm mid 30's, I was just into my teens when 9/11 happened. Since then there has been multiple terror attacks, natural disasters, government corruption, recessions, a global pandemic, cost of living crisis, plus my own family issues. My free spirited childhood is a distant memory, I've known nothing but anxiety.

I think it's more awareness. I have anxiety and it was diagnosed when I was about 25. My mum definitely has anxiety and it's awful and she has never had a diagnosis and thinks it's just the way she is

I have awful anxiety which came out of nowhere. I think it's because working hours have gone from 9-5pm to 8.30-6pm. The introduction of FB, Insta and LinkedIn have added an unbelievable amount of social and worklife pressure that we didn't have before.

On the other hand I'm currently reading WW2 diaries and mental health is a huge problem (obviously - who wouldnt be anxious?) but it was just kept a secret. It wasn't publicly discussed. Even between married couples.

I think the stigma has gone now. It used to be if you had a mental health problem you were (wrongly) labelled as a freak.

Nowadays it's much more acceptable for people to talk about it.

yes agree with this. Especially social media where people are constantly comparing their lives to others.

It’s not new.
Victorian women with “bad nerves”
Shell Shock post WW1
etc….
People have always had these issues.
Just different names, more awareness, more understanding.

I feel for you. I have complex PTSD but manage it and go to work full time but its a constant battle.
It's because life is so damn hard.
Marriages don't last, houses/childcare is so expensive you can't afford to eat whether rented homes or bought.
Family life is unstable and people no longer live in family groups and there is rarely any support.
We all eat shit food. Everything is expensive.
Life runs at 100mph.
I just feel sometimes I want to get off and go and live somewhere uninhabited off the grid for a break from it all.

I have suffered from anxiety all my life but it’s been so much worse the last, I’d say, 10 years or so.
For me personally, it’s the 24/7 society we live in. By that I mean purely the amount of information of which we are bombarded with all of the time. Yes, we all have the ability to switch off our phones, tv, internet etc but we don’t because it’s addictive.
I believe the human brain just isn’t designed to take in so much info all the time. Constant 24/7 news reels, images and stories of suffering, worry about the state of the world etc. Add in a pandemic like Covid and it’s a recipe for a huge decline in mental health and resilience (when my mental health is low I can not tolerate or handle anything, I crumble).
And the constant comparison via SM whether it be looks, money, houses, cars etc is getting too much. My 15 year old daughter constantly moans we don’t have the latest this or that or a brand new car or kitchen because it’s all she sees on Tik Tok, IG and the likes.
As they say, comparison is the thief of joy and the thief of contentment and good mental health imo.

I don’t know, I feel like I always would have been a worry-wart, regardless based on my mother’s mental health, my dad’s (probable) adhd, single parent family and being poor growing up.

Now more and more of us experience the above growing up, so it’s just inevitable sadly.

The good thing about it being discussed all through your childhood and having parents modelling their strategies to you is that you’re not massively alarmed when your mental health hits the skids and you know that there are things you can do/ not do to improve things.

Its learning to be human really.

My parents (now in their 90s) had pretty extreme mental health problems as I was growing up and for their whole lives. Never ever spoke about it - it was unmentionable though in one case ridiculously obvious. Having to pretend everything at home was normal when it wasn't as a child was just one way it fucked me up.

All of the above. Plus I think diet and lack of fresh air and exercise have a lot to do with it. Apparently there's increasing evidence that the state of the gut biome can have quite a big influence on mental health. We have lost connection with the production, preparation and consumption of real, nutritious food and we don't have much of a traditional food culture based on local, fresh, quality ingredients and recipes compared with those of many other cultures. That kind of thing contributes to well-being and feelings of shared community.

So many of us are all shut in our separate boxes, trundling back and forth to work, stuck behind desks, staring at screens, eating plastic-packaged crap and stressing about how to squeeze in exercise and lose weight, while letting social media convince us that other people are doing life better. Overstimulated by too much (and the wrong kinds of) input. It's no wonder lots of people feel shit and anxious. Modern life eh?

Agree with all the above but also a lot of normal emotion is getting thrown in under the "mental health" umbrella also. It's normal to be anxious and low sometimes. Particularly if you are isolated or in debt or other life problems. Sometimes this can reach a level of severity which reflects mental health problems but often this is appropriate but unpleasant emotion in response to circumstance. In these situations there is no evidence counselling or medication help though lifestyle changes can be useful.

Because we keep pathologising completely normal human reactions to experiences and expect an unrealistic degree of ‘happiness’ in daily life. It’s profoundly unhelpful to us all but especially people with severe mental illnesses who cannot improve with a bit of CBT.

Humans evolve pretty slowly - it takes thousands of years for even the slightest evolutionary upgrade. Unfortunately in the last 50 years technology has evolved much faster than we are able to cope with. The result of this is that we are not yet adapted as a species to deal with the constant demands being made on our attention; our brains are not yet evolved to deal with the excessive input that the internet and social media has created.

This explains why many people (especially younger people) often feel anxious and overwhelmed simply from scrolling social media or turning on the 24/7 news. We read the latest episode of everyone’s story and are asked to directly care about what they’re going through. It’s inevitable that we then become overwhelmed. This is not because we are weak or unable to handle life and its challenges, but because we are inadvertently overloading our mind with information it simply doesn’t need.

I think children having 2 parents who have to go out to work and leave small children with paid caregivers adds to anxiety but this will be a VERY unpopular view here.

The rise in anxiety and depression fits in with the rise in the number of hours peope now work.

Same here except my DM was in and out of mental hospitals so I sort of knew. I overheard lots of whispered conversations within the family 'poor Cathy and her nerves' etc. DM had been threatening suicide and died suddenly. It turned out to be natural causes and then I had to deal with DF on his own for 20 years and his MH problems.

Its nothing new. Remember the vast mental hospitals before care in the community?

Oh. And a lot of "depression" isn't actually depression. It's "shit life syndrome".