Are there more depressed teenagers now than in previous generations

[differenttoyou]

Or are we just better at diagnosing and accepting rather than trying to push the problem to the back burner?

I've been pondering the question for a while. Was wondering what other people think.

I think a bit of both. My mum had a few friends have ignored breakdowns IYSWIM? People brushed it under the carpet more but everyone knew what was happening to so-and-so.

I found the pressure during teen years (from 2001-2010) pretty stressfull as so much is expected of you when you still feel a lot like a kid but plenty don't.

I grew up in the 70s and several of my friends had eating disorders and other depression-related problems; you had to be pretty bad before anything was done.

Looking back, my mother was certainly medically depressed for several years during my teens, but in those days seeing a doctor for a MH problem, particularly in a small community, was considered shaming and nobody could have suggested it to her, let alone got her to go along with it. So we just floundered along as best we could: a lot of it was laid on my teenage shoulders. With hindsight, I wish an adult had dealt with it instead.

My own dd has inherited the same tendencies but is learning to cope with them through CAHMS treatment. So yes, she is using up resources and making the statistics look bad in a way my mother didn't. But I like to think that she will also get the help to cope better and suffer less and that life will perhaps be easier for the people around her.

I think that three or four generations ago, a young person would not have much choice over how their life would be. They would be expecting to go into service, get married, work in the factory or help with the family business, depending on their background. For most young people, unless there was a war on, the reality would usually be pretty similar to what they'd grown up expecting.

For the last couple of generations, there has been an exponential increase in the choices and options young people perceive they have. They are told they can be anything they want; singer, model, author, surgeon, music producer, photographer, director, professional sportsperson. A few will end up achieving these plans, but the vast majority will be disappointed and will end up with no job or a job that was not what they foresaw for themselves.

A discrepancy between expectation and reality can certainly cause depression.

As said above I think there is far less uncertainty then before. Whilst before your life was pretty set out from the word go, it isn't now. I think this lack of security has made teens more unhappy and worry more about their future.

I would think that another reason, that is more specifically for boys, is that if you look back and compare 60 years ago to now, alot of the things that teenage boys would go out and do have now been deemed "to dangerous" by health and safety. Thus that means more pent up anger/boredom

The internet has allowed for much wider bullying then 20 years ago, and thus for those who are tormented by bullys there is far less escape. Along with the much more celebrity culture that tells girls that if they don't look perfect then they are ugly.

It also seems now that teenagers have far less spare time now then they did before, there is far more expectations and GCSE/A-level pressure is far more than it was before and thus leaves less spare time and therefore increasing stress which can lead to depression.

One difficulty with making comparisons with the past is you have to define which past, whose past.

My MIL who was evacuated as a teen during the war, narrowly escaped death when they missed the boat which was subsequently torpedoed, returned to England as an older teen and sank into depression when unable to connect to her parents was in a rather different situation from her son who was brought up in a stable family situation in the 70's.
(and yes, MIL was medicated, apparently on something very closely resembling heroin)

Plenty of evidence for depression and other MH disorders in the aftermath of WW1 and not only among returning soldiers.

Plenty of mention of valium in the 20's and 30's.

There was some reason why psychiatry was already going strong in the late 19th century: a lot of those practitioners made money treating depression.

There is also a reason why acedia (= depression) is counted as one of the mortal sins in the Middle Ages- and it's not that it's unheard of, any more than they put gluttony or lust on the list because nobody had ever come across those.

In my family there is a clear genetic line of depression going back at least until the early 20th century. But only one figure in the statistics: that of my dd. The rest just had to lean on their families.

Pretty much echoing what has been said before.

Going back one generation to the 80s when I was a teenager, I can remember lots of self harm / suicide attempts / EDs that were undiagnosed.

Several generations ago life was very different. People didn't really have a teenage life, they went from children to adults as young teens, going out to work often in very physical jobs. Excercise is a known help to depression, and I know that excercise helps my depression and reduces DS' rage - simplistic view I know, obvs there is way more to it than that.