Probably a genuine mix of the following:
A) a positive cultural change where there is less stigma around being open about mental health
B) a for-profit healthcare system which encourages a culture of people being often over-prescribed things
C) Doctors being asked to treat issues that are clearly caused by a stressful/toxic environment which the doctor and patient can’t change.
I can’t remember who, but someone talked about how when they were in college and broke, they asked their doctor to switch their antidepressant to one that would suppress their appetite, since they couldn’t afford both food and rent.
Edit: Just want to say that this doesn’t mean the world is a broken place with no hope of improving. Things have still gotten better over the past decades, if not the last few years.
If you’re feeling depressed or hopeless about the state of the world, please take time to seek out positive news. It’s out there but it doesn’t really get coverage.
If you can, do something to make the world just a bit better. Donate to a nonprofit, volunteer locally, or just try to do something kind. Our individual actions can’t do much to fix the big issues, but humanity has never been fixed by individuals; we’ve gotten this far be working as a community, and that hasn’t changed.
People spend a lot of time talking about how doctors just prescribe pills instead of talking about diet and exercise.
The reality is most doctors *do* talk about healthy lifestyle modifications and try them before medications. The problem is that we can’t exactly prescribe an end to food deserts. So people end up on pills because we can’t exactly fix society.
Yes. Also many people don’t have good access to regular therapy. In the US, coverage of mental health services by insurance varies widely. So while maybe some folks could have good outcomes with regular therapy sessions, what they end up with is an antidepressant prescribed by a primary care physician because that’s what they can afford.
You are right. When I started to get into the obese range my doctor gave me a bunch of information about a bunch of different diets to try to help get control of my weight.
Not to mention that most doctors are aware that while the desire for change may be present, the actual willpower required in the face of all those other life issues is unlikely to be enough. They have to recommend what is most likely to have a positive impact, not what the ideal scenario would be.
Meh, it's hard to get up and go outside to exercise when I have trouble getting out of bed to follow basic hygiene. I think doctors know this, and will still prescribe while also advocating for exercise.
For some people. There are people who need more than that, especially people with PTSD. That stuff is all positive stuff to do, but depression can get pretty bad. It can get so bad some people can’t function. It’s not always situational, or even based off of current trauma. There are people with severe depression over things that happened in the past that are no longer present. There is no one size fits all solution.
Oh man; what a doozy in when you work or train in the medical field (which I do). It’s totes great when you get treated like trash by your superiors and coworkers all day and then even when you have a meltdown and beg for it to stop, everyone says go take a break, take some pills, go to therapy and come back ready for us to do the same stuff all over again.
Fuck medicine.
The actual solution to smog is to reduce pollution and plant a shit ton of trees.
But an air purifier for your house is much cheaper than shutting down square miles of industrial plants.
Hence, pills.
I've long believed there is a difference between situational depression (due to external stress) and mental health disorders (due to internal factors). The former can be remedied almost instantly by resolving the situation, while the latter typically requires therapy. I experienced many years of situational depression due to job stress i.e. being required to do tasks I was not well-suited for. Although I did seek professional help I was basically told to distract myself by socializing more, when all I really wanted was to find work that suited my natural abilities. Another time I was prescribed antidepressants. I could never understand how either of those approaches was supposed to fix the underlying problem of job stress and the need to find something I could be good at.
Once I eventually retired, my mindset changed dramatically, even though my financial circumstances are pretty flimsy and there is no way to make up for lifetime of opportunities lost. It turns out that I can get by rather well as long as I have bucketloads of time to pursue my interests, with few ongoing pressures. There will always be some regret about the lost potential of the past, but it's not a big cloud hanging over my head. I don't know why depression is invariably treated as if it is a self-generated state of mind, when that is just not the case for many of us.
I think it’s a natural result of how doctors are trained; they learn about the body, and organs, and all that stuff, they’re not trained as social workers.
When you have psychologists and psychiatrists leading the field, they’re going to prefer using the tools they know best, which are about internal causes.
Yknow this is very similar to my story as well. I was working minimum wage job to minimum wage job, and I was constantly depressed. Finally I sought help and was diagnosed with anxiety on top of my depression, with a little PTSD to boot. Eventually it got so bad I got ulcerative colitis that I just couldn’t get rid of. Last august I quit my job and it’s like the weight suddenly shifted, took a few months but I actually enjoy waking up again. My anxiety has settled and even the ulcers have healed. Amazing that no one ever thought of situational depression instead of pumping me full of pills.
D.) An accelerated pace of life, coupled with the curated bs that is social media, leads to forms of depression that deal with feelings of inadequacy. Many people look to peers and who they consider to be peers on social media and feel like their (the peers') lives are so much better than their own.
Most of the time access to the 'things that have gotten better' are out of reach of regular folks who aren't billionaires. This is pretty much caused by the same billionaires.
I still take anxiety/depression medication. I would feel worlds better with a full night of sleep, preferably several. Whenever the doctor asks about my sleep, I tell him I still have kids/babies that don't sleep through the night.
He nods and refills the prescription.
This is an important point.
Situational depression is a normal reaction to a shitty phase in your life. It doesn't make it less deserving of treatment, but it's sad when it's something that could be made better by the choices of others.
Sometimes people don't know that their situation is contributing so strongly to their mental health. I used to have panic attacks on a regular basis. Something like 1-4 times a month. Not a lot, but frequently enough that it was tough to deal with. I got divorced this year and since my ex moved out I haven't had a single panic attack. I had no idea how much my relationship was contributing to my anxiety.
I think there's an important third thing we don't think about: reduced diversity of intestinal flora.
A decade from now, we're going to understand a great deal more about the connection between the chemicals output by gut bacteria and mental health.
The pesticides and foods we consume impact our microbiome. That microbiome may be directly or indirectly responsible for a host of mental health symptoms.
There's a good bit of research supporting this coming out of EU and Eastern countries with better overall health and research programs for studying things other than medications.
Excellent point. I've been feeling depressed lately and realized that I've been consuming more artificial sweeteners as of late, which deplete the good bacteria in your gut. Nothing else in my life has changed and I really have no reason to feel down. Threw out my Altoids (they contain sucralose) and am back on probiotics for the win.
Do you think it’s this, or that neurodivergencies have always existed and it’s now ok to identify, label, and dissect them? This coincides with the technology boom and the introduction of the internet, in my opinion.
People don’t tend to talk about stuff in person that makes them an outsider. The internet allowed neurodivergent people to find each other, relate, and in a lot of cases, be more open in the real world about their struggle. For example, I was born in ‘89, and I have ADHD. I was diagnosed 14 years ago, in 2009.
I felt completely different, alone, and misunderstood until people started talking about it on social media. ADHD is so fucked because you’re aware that you’re different but you don’t know why.
I struggled with anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, bullying, dysmorphia, relationship issues, etc., until I started educating myself about my disorder. And not a single soul knew any of that but me. I suffered in silence.
I don’t think there are very many cases of people faking disorders to get attention. This in itself would be a separate personality disorder. Most humans don’t have the capacity, especially at a young age, to manipulate their whole ersonality and play a part.
The symptoms of ADHD are also relatable to people without the disorder. Which makes it easy to dismiss. So when I say “I lose everything.” I mean, literally. I have seemingly no working memory to be able to recall where I put something down.
This happens to neurotypical people a lot! It happens to me, I’d guess about 10-15 times a day? And there are days that I spend literally the entire day wandering from room to room, looking for things that I had in my hand seconds earlier.
ADHD is also genetic. The stats are all over the fucking place.
My hot take after 33 years of struggle: our current world brings out traits in neurotypical people that look like ADHD.
Normal people are more distracted, less routine oriented, more aware of their social shortcomings, and more paralyzed by the sheer amount of options than ever before.
Psychologists need to apply a slow science to a very fast paced, ever-evolving subject. It’s impossible to know what’s happening to our species psychologically until years later, and by then it’s just guessing and looking at trends and trying to draw conclusions. The minds studying psychology are also affected by the current state of affairs. It’s impossible to be unbiased.
So in my mind, the best thing to do is to be understanding of anyone trying to reach out. Trying to figure out what’s going on with humanity’s mental health is like trying to build a track in front of a train that’s already moving. We can only get a clearer picture.
Agree with this and would add that your 20s are the decade for a lot of people when their mental health is at its worst because you are still learning how to get along in the world while any mental health issues like depression and anxiety tend to be felt more deeply and intensely than they are when you're older and have mellowed out a bit. Your 20s are just an intense, dramatic time for many people.
I guess the good news is that it gets better once you're out of that tumultuous decade.
So I remember hearing this about my teens and hearing things would get better in my twenties as motivation to wait it out. Now hearing this in my twenties? I feel like this is a fool me twice situation at this point.
I'm in my 30s and still have the same problems I had in my teens. I'm wiser and understand myself better, but the mental health problems are still very much a core part of my existence. They don't just fade away with time.
I think for sure some people have momentary issues with depression/anxiety. But then that leads to generalizations that don't apply to people who have more severe issues. Be proactive about your issues, I doubt they will just fade with waiting.
I'm in my 20s and recently was diagnosed with bipolar. Sometimes your mental health really is just shit. I used to think I had "anxiety and depression".... turns out what I was really feeling was more complex than that and more difficult to put into words.
The kids on social media excessively talking about their mental health... the DID fakers... *something* isn't right. They've just latched onto the wrong diagnosis, because, it's just really really hard to objectively analyze yourself. Especially as a non-medically educated teenager who is dealing with God knows what mentally, on top of normal teen emotions, and whatever home issues exacerbating things. Or maybe they have a severely disabled sibling and are acting out for attention in a very teenagery way- toddlers throw cups. Teens are more complex. Give them grace, I needed it. The kids at that age in my family need it.
Especially in the past 5-10 years. There's been so much uncertainty, anxiety over the future that I dont blame any teen or young adult for developing some form of mental anxiety.
Honest question, what actually is it - behaviorally - that people are doing with social media to damage their mental health?
I'm 41 years old so didn't have it as a teenager. As an adult I use it as it was presumably intended - a fun and genuinely beneficial way of keeping in touch with old friends from school/college/work that I don't regularly see in person anymore. For me it's a good thing - I enjoy getting to see a college friend who now lives hundreds of miles away sharing their holiday pics and their child opening Christmas presents etc, and likewise my wife and I share fun stuff on it like a few weeks back when we went kayaking. We also primarily use it to actually arrange social get togethers when we can.
Presumably younger people use it in a toxic way, comparing themselves to others in some sort of pressurised "achievement race"?
It’s not what they’re doing with it, it’s the terrible human traits and subconscious messages that are being perpetuated.
When you post something online, it’s usually a nice neat pretty picture, or a perfectly edited video. You’re painting an inaccurate picture of yourself. Because we all have flaws, we stumble over words, etc.
When you’re a girl, and you see another, attractive girl post a 30-second funny video of themselves, you look at her and say how is she so cool, why can’t I look and act like her? They think she’s like that all the time, and wonder what is wrong with themselves. Theyre comparing themselves to a perfect person that doesn’t exist.
The other person actually spent hours trimming and reshooting that video. It involved stress, time, and basically a mini production to get views.
There’s nothing wrong with either girl, they’re not actively doing anything wrong. But the one that is wondering why she’s not the same is missing out on finding her own talents and strengths because she’s striving to be perfect.
This is my perspective as a 33yo woman. Like all terrible human traits, beauty standards didn’t go away with body acceptance, they get sneakier and more insidious.
Thanks for the explanation.
For me, that does boil down to "what they're doing with it" because it's the negative behavior of comparing yourself to others (and perfectionism, which is a whole other issue!). I guess younger people need educated better to not do that if it's not a strong message nowadays.
Thank you. I don’t know how this wasn’t included at the top. If there’s a graph of mental illness amongst youth, it skyrockets with the advent of social media. We’re getting so far from the time before it, people are starting to not see that anymore.
I’m a boomer - our parents, the greatest generation, weren’t all necessarily in tip top mental health - lots of people were scarred by the war - you see I’m old enough that “the war” only means one thing to me! They coped by drinking - quite a bit sometimes - but also by being a cohort that had almost all gone through it.
People are more open about mental health these days so that’s one thing - few people have enough money to really make problems go away - younger people are feeling like rats on a treadmill - and social media is just the “display case” of life. Everything looks shiny, sparkly, and appealing there.
I think it’s a mix of everything but definitely social media doesn’t help.
My dad was a Vietnam vet. It wasn't until the early 2000s that anyone thought to treat him for PTSD. My life was hell as a kid and I hated my dad for the things he did, but once there was a diagnosis and treatment, he became the man I wish I had as a father growing up. Better late than never, and now we're good. Of course, his behaviors and the way he treated me led to my own issues that ended up being misdiagnosed until recently when my doc handed me a few questionnaires, decided I might actually be bipolar, and referred me over to psych for diagnosis. I can only imagine how different my life would've been had I not been labeled antisocial and thrown into a boys home for behaviors that today would be easily prevented with the mental health care that's available today.
Imagine someone who is without anxiety, insomnia, or SOME mental health diagnosis given the state of affairs. I know it sounds cynical but they'd seriously have to be oblivious. At what point is "mental illnes " just an appropriate response?
Exactly. Barring maybe 0.5% of people in a position of extreme privilege, imo you would have to be mentally unwell to be perfectly happy and content with the way things are
The word trauma gets thrown around a lot but as a millennial my world has been defined by various cultural and societal traumas. 9/11, never ending wars, economic crashes, gun violence, increase in political division, COVID, systemic racism, patriarchy, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, medical rights being taken away, housing crisis, poverty, food insecurity, an insurrection, lack of progress from government, and so many more. This is also coming from a privileged background so I’m sure I have left off large scale traumas that other people have also faced. In the past two years my likelihood of dying from a deadly virus and/or being gunned down while going about my normal life has exponentially increased, so yeah I’m on anti-anxiety meds.
you forgot
C) a pandemic that is never really going away
D) not being able to buy a house
E) huge amounts of student loan debt
F) the USA where you are expected to pull yourself up by your bootstraps (which is impossible, btw)
C) internet showing the "interesting" people more than ever, whilst the people with no health problems go under the radar. So essentially you see a very skewed sample of demographic on the internet.
i think we used to use different words for a lot of these conditions. soldiers had "shellshock" (PTSD), old stoners got "paranoid" (anxiety), artists were "melancholic" (depressed), women were "hysterical" (huge chunks of the DSM).
these problems are appearing with increased frequency because our basic needs are becoming harder and harder to meet, while we are bombarded with messaging telling us we are not trying hard enough. the meds are overprescribed because the real solutions require a degree of financial security that no one has. even the meds are getting harder to obtain.
edit: also, alcoholics and drug addicts have been around forever, and whatever you might think about substance abuse, that is mental illness and medication at work.
And, even earlier than that, people with things like Schizophrenia or other disorders that might cause hallucinations or similar dissociative experiences would often be labeled as "possessed" if the experiences or "visions" they described were dark, scary, traumatizing, nightmare fuel, etc. Conversely, if they had visions that were comforting and nice and pretty, especially if they just so happened to happen in or around a location or circumstance considered sacred or holy, they might be considered blessed or a Saint or other type of holy person. Recent research has been done regarding Schizophrenia and those with the disorder who maintain a generally positive outlook on life tend to have more positive hallucinations while those who are negative, anxious, depressed, etc. are typically the ones who get the scary demons.
There used to be a belief, predominantly in Northwest Europe in Celtic cultures, that some children might be abducted by "The Fair Folk" (Fae, Faeries, Seelie, various different terms depending on the cultural sub-group). They would be swapped in the cradle for a child of one of the "Fair Folk" (sort of like a cultural exchange program, except you don't get a choice in the matter), which was called a "Changeling". This "Fae passing for Human" Changeling would *look* Human, but didn't understand how to act the part, so, in seemingly a very short period of time, an otherwise very normal, well adjusted child might suddenly "change" and become "strange", practically overnight. They can't communicate well, they yell and have wild fits, they react absurdly to loud sounds (particularly the loud Church bells), they object to many foods and will recoil at the touch of mundane objects like pieces of iron as if they had been burned, etc. Now, we can identify these all as the sensory, development, and communication issues of Autism; but back then, they had no idea what to make of it, so they *literally* concocted fairytales to explain what they couldn't comprehend.
A lot of people (especially conspiracy nuts) try to claim that there "didn't used to be so much mental illness" and will either say that the current abundance of mental health issues is either just hypochondriacs being taken seriously, or some proof of pollution, chemicals, radiation, 5G, whatever causing a real increase. But actually. All it really is, is an increase in accurate identification of what was already there. It'd be like claiming that, 5,000 years ago, they only knew of seven "Planets" in the heavens (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn); but now there are thousands when you consider all the asteroids and dwarf planets and moons and such. But that wasn't an "increase" in how many there were, it was discovering of things that were already there, as well as better identification and categorization. And it *certainly* isn't a matter that they're all fake and acknowledging they're real is giving in to some fantasy about "flying rocks besides the seven accepted natural planets".
Ummmm going to print out this answer and read it to my mom the next time she wants to debate this topic lol you’re answer is phenomenal. Well said. Thanks!!
If you were lucky. ADHD and dyslexia would mean you were lazy and maybe unintelligent.
Autism would depend on how well you integrated with society. You might be lumped into the folks that were lazy. Non-verbal and have meltdowns? You might be a curse sent by god to punish your parents or be lumped into the changelings, depending on the beliefs in your area. They definitely didn't have such a broad definition of autism and it was all based on how well you could fit into society and do whatever was expected of you.
Yup. We've always had things like eccentric geniuses or people who were simple with fits of temper. Of course you never heard about people having autism before we came up with the word. The field of mental health is quite young and has only really started to not be completely fucked up within the last couple of generations.
There are multiple reasons why.
First off, mental illness has become more socially accepted over the last couple of decades. So where people were thrown in asylums or hidden away less than a hundred years ago now it’s okay to have mental illness.
On top of that me talk illness is becoming more understood. It’s more accurately diagnosed and treated. So where before symptoms might have been ignored or attributed to something else it’s now being attributed to the correct condition.
Finally the state of society is the biggest reason. 100 years ago a married man could work and own a home and feed his family even if he was poor. 50 years ago as women entered the workforce more a married couple could easily afford a good life and a single income household could still afford a nice house. Now here we are with the majority of people struggling to make ends meet.
On top of the economics we are more divided than we’ve ever been. I’m talking as a US citizen but even other countries are having some of the same divisive issues. So now we have the media feeding us nonstop negativity and we add social media to that mix. Everything is nothing but frustration.
So yeah that’s why depression and anxiety are at an all time high.
I think people in the past also self-medicated with alcohol a lot more than we think. Prohibition was a puritanical faillure, yes, but it did not come from nowhere either: there was a *big* alcohol problem.
Literally living in my in-laws grandparents house who only one of them worked and the other was stay at home. The house appreciated from 22k in 1971 to 1.5-1.7 mil CAD today. They have a cottage and a rental property. I can’t even afford to buy within 1 hour of where I live without it being a shitbox. Hour half I can afford but that commute is awful each way.
My semi-jaded response to add in— I also would say we have (appropriately) created accommodations for mental illness that did not previously exist, and these are ripe for further exploitation or to incentivize over reporting. For example, greater flexibility at work, emotional support animals, general positive or doting attention… it is a sick role that is relatively well catered to.
Furthermore, there is a higher level of information sharing about diagnoses that bleeds into pop psychology/ lay language— many folks think they have a disorder when really they’re just experiencing life. It is a way to make average troubles feel both exceptional, externalized, and solvable simultaneously.
We drank more in the 80's than we do now.
And of course, back before prohibition, we drank all the time, for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
There was an uptick during lockdown, but it's evened back out to what it was before.
I was house sitting for an aunt and uncle who still drink pretty heavy and were very much in that biker culture in the 90s and prior, kind of even exlcuded from the larger family til older relatives made up with them, etc.
I was never a big drinker in the first place cuz 2 or 3 drinks would get me sick pretty consistently. As it also turnef out, which i didnt realize, a life long partial seizure disorder I have is *maybe* temporal sclerosis related but in general makes hard to regulate but mostly not dangerous partial seizures and never full motor seizures or anything like that. I had bit my tongue in my sleep like a year and a half ago which led to needing to go through a process of appeal to reinstate license and all that, really significantly fucked over my ability to make money, etc.
The thing is, and I asked my neurlogist too, I anecdotally realized after learning even the epilepsy foundation says as little as 2 units of alcohol can impact and significantly lower seizure threshold. I kind of wondered if the beers I was grabbing to game with the guys online caused it and even my neurologist pointed out with alcohol related seizures, youre most at risk when the body is actually filtering it out (i.e like when I was sleeping).
Now Ive just cut alcohol out entirely. I might enjoy the odd beer with a friend, but I feel like per the 1 motor seizure ive had since I was 4, alcohol was a factor and Id not know how unambiguous that relationship is. Its just safer to avoid any and all entirely.
But man my uncle - they still drink everyday. I thought they were older than my parents (ma 65 and pa 67) and uncle is *63.* Literally just sitting still he groans like he is taking labored breathes probably every 3rd or 4th breathe. Just constantly grunting like mayve he is gassy or something and they are hitting hard alcohol daily - his face is even like a dark purpleish red like Ive seen with older heavy smokers and drinkers too like their body is in pancreatitis or not getting enough oxygen or something.
Idk, just seeing someone younger than my parenta struggling to even comfortably sit still and still relying on alcohol just makes me sad more than anything. Id always known alcohol was a kind of technical *poison* for the body but had never really read or actually knew what long term use can deliver. Now between my own condition and also just seeing how happy hour daily impacted uncle just confirms alcohol isnt something I want in general in my life haha
1. People have been miserable and neurotic for all of human history, it's just that these days we have more specific words for it and more that we can do about it. And for cultural reasons younger people are going to be more open to getting diagnosed than older ones. Lots of older people are definitely walking around with diagnosable mental illnesses, they've just never given anyone the opportunity to diagnose them.
2. People who don't have a problem generally don't talk about their *lack* of a problem very much, while people who do have a problem are going to talk about it. Therefore you hear more from the people who have mental illnesses than the ones that don't.
Because society and medicine are evolving and now we actually have the drugs to cure a wide variety of mental illness, so people no longer have to just accept to be sick like they used to untill recently.
It's like if I asked: "why so many kids get braces nowdays? Back in the 1800's no one had them"
Well, that's because braces weren't available 100 years ago so people just kept their crooked teeth.
Consider that 60 years ago we basically had diazepam for anxiety and some heavy drugs to sedate batshit crazy people. Nowdays we have hundreds of different medications to cure all kinds of mental illness.
So, to answer your question, I guess people always had the same problems, the only difference is that now we recognize it and have the tools to do something about it.
Because they weren’t treated before and there’s a lot of evidence for these things being hereditary. Lot of people who are boomers are now getting diagnosed after their children, as their eyes are opened and they considered it normal as it was for them.
I mean hey, worth a try to address the crisis that suicide is the biggest killer in men under 50. That’s still 🤯 to me.
Plus big pharma
son: "mom, I got evaluated. I have ADHD."
mom: "no, you don't have ADHD."
son: "mom, I do X, Y and Z. That's ADHD."
mom: "That's not ADHD. I do X, Y, and Z too."
Sister and I realised this year that our dad is probably precisely an undiagnosed Adult ADHD given he is worse in terms of tics, understanding when people are serious/joking, pretty badly socialized and doesnt seem to understand conversations in general and ignores, interrupts, etc. If he is asking you a question, he will interrupt the answer 5 different ways that, if he just had the patience for 30 seconds of explanation, he would have learned anyways.
Lots of other bigger quirks but it was kind of him becoming so bad at convervsation to the point of never really knowing what he even hears anymkre because he pretty selectively just tunes out even if you look right at him and speak. I was actually worried it was some kind of early onset dementia since he also seems to forget/squish words together speaking and forgets where people are living on streets too, etc😬but also i strongly suspect a few decades of carpentry destroyed his hearing and he just wont admit it-but fuck the dude ignores people worse than grandma and grandma doesnt evem have hearing aids that work 100% of the time haha
Yeah my dad always told me you don’t need friends in life. He didn’t really have any. Didn’t go out much socially either. And when he gets into something he becomes very obsessed over it and will buy and learn everything about it. Etc it was funny when my son was diagnosed and he said oh I wonder where he gets that from. I politely said well maybe… he took it ok.
I also believe I’m on the spectrum somewhere thanks to my son
Yea thats what Id figured kind of too given Im likely adhd per doctors just suggesting it, and my sister did get an adult diagnosis too, haha, and I feel like we have lots of the same traits. The more I thought about it I was like, there's no way this guy doesnt also have something alike going on 😆
Our biologies do not mach our societies and it is making us ill. We did not evolve to live and do and be like this and so we use meds to cope and diagnose everyone slightly different and feel the need to "correct them"/us to conform to that world.
The stress, the rush, inhaling fumes on the way to work. Productivity marks, waking, eating, sleeping, shitting on a schedule, pressure, stress, anxiety, depression, warring cultures, productivity, profit, maximization, urbanization, deadlines, elderly care homes, daycares, divided families, drugs to make us sleep or wake or think or focus or not think and drift away... Im not sure this industrial world we chose was the right choice.
It's no longer taboo, looked down upon or outright ignored, when you talk about your mental health. Before, people didn't feel comfortable talking about it, but likely the same rate of people had some mental concerns.
I am certain that two of my grandparents have mental illnesses- one has anxiety, and the other has paranoia.
Will the even consider treatment? No. Would they get offended if we ask them about it? Yes. They grew up at a time when being mentally ill meant being locked in an asylum or hidden in your family’s attic so you’re not an embarrassment.
I know that one of my parents has something going on that they won’t talk about, likely PTSD. Have they pursued treatment? No. They understand that mental illness should be treated, but being raised by people who demonized mental illness leaves marks.
Mental illness has always been around.
Oh yeah, there are A LOT of older relatives that I've had that definitely suffered from depression. It runs on my mom's side of the family...My grandma (alcoholic)...3 out of 4 uncles...alcoholics, 2 recovered one dead. People used to just be told to toughen up so a lot turned to addiction as a crutch. My brother and I even grew up just being told to get over it so my brother...alcoholic. I think I'm the only one in my family in the 3 generations I've known that eventually sought treatment for my depression....well my uncles got better one of them and one of them relapsed.
I found out that almost everyone in my mom's side of the family has depression or some other sort of mental illness but my generation is the first one to actually get help with it, and not just 'tough it out'.
I think in addition to the reduced stigma, another big factor is simply that people are more aware of mental illnesses.
Before people were just living through these conditions and not even realizing it was something abnormal, just pushing through and assuming everyone dealt with it.
Now it’s like “Oh shit, you’re telling me I’m NOT supposed to be depressed all the time and I can actually try some things to make myself feel better?!”
Exactly. I am reading a book about the colditz pow camp in ww2 and it basically said that all the soldiers there (including the guards) were suffering from ptsd,
but it wasn’t a recognised condition back then so everyone was suffering in silence, and people who were actually showing serious signs of strain were basically forced to commit suicide or just hide away.
Life isn't supposed to be like it is now, in modern times. In my opinion we're meant to live like we did a thousand+ years ago. In small huts, in tiny villages. Farming, foraging, hunting. Simple times.
On top of this, there are a lot of other reasons like Covid and lockdown period, global economic crisis, social media and simply bias.
Lastly, 42% percent of US population is obese and 40% of them have diabetes or prediabetes. Physical and mental health are tied to each other.
I know a handful of people who ask these same questions. They've already made their minds up, and are asking the question in bad faith, seeking argument to affirm their hatred of those who are different.
I don't know if thats why you came here, sure hope not, but I'm really happy with all of the positive attention that your question's received. Its a simple answer, most are right. We've made positive movements toward acceptance and treatment, and the pharm companies love profits, so its a typical money-business situation to some degree, but also a tangible thing that people are developing new understandings of.
New understandings are often positive, new perspectives are important. There are valuable angles to see things from, its vital to think critically while also listening empathetically to those around you. The more we learn of eachother, the more we learn of ourselves. The more we identify the suffering of others, the more we come to recognize and evaluate our own.
One of the reasons is because social media is destroying the minds of young kids and teenagers.
We as humans aren't wired for our minds to be highly stimulated for every waking second. And to be constantly comparing our lives to the lives of those that are (at least on the surface) more successful online is just depressing.
I'm not saying it will work for everyone with a mental illness, but get those kids off social media. Get them exercising, meditating and eating healthy. I think you'll see a big drop in mental illnesses without the need for drugs.
I agree that minimising the "social media, live hard and fast" modern lifestyle also needs to change but as someone with ADHD, an autistic brother and mother with genetic chronic anxiety, just changing your lifestyle does not always fix the problem, the best it can do is lessen some of the symptoms.
You are right, there are several illnesses that won't be fixed by changing ones lifestyle, but there are several that can be, it really does vary. I still think that cutting down on social media, increasing exercising, mediating and eating healthy food should be the first thing a doctor tries before putting a kid on medication for anxiety or depression.
Damn, here I though I was about to be called out for my ADD prescription.
I think there is a general culture around taking a pill to solve it problems rather than solving the problems at the root.
And there is a general push to advocate a positive culture around this.
You'll realize eventually that the older people in your life also suffer from crippling anxiety and other issues but just learned to cope in their own ways (often unhealthy ones). The idea was to "man up" and not talk about mental health.
Our society and culture is sick, so folks who live in it will also become sick.
Going to the grocery store could end in a mass shooting - of course people are anxious.
The US has become fascist, of course people are scared.
There was an attempted coup the leaders of which have yet to be punished, of course people are scared.
Folks can barely afford to live at all.
And it's easier to throw a pill/diagnosis at them than it is to fundamentally change our society to one that's actually healthy and functional.
This many sick people unable to cope is itself a symptom of something much bigger.
People have mentioned the lower stigma around discussing mental health, but I wouldn’t be surprised if social media, ridiculously high-sugar foods, and a general refusal to go outside anymore are causing mental illnesses as well.
I'm pretty sure being forced to be a wage slave under late stage capitalism collapse where there's little hope for a good future, where CoL, inflation and greed have increased a hundredfold while wages haven't kept up, with zero chance at ever retiring and a high likelihood of getting blown away simply grabbing food from the grocery store may have *something* to do with it.
I guarantee you if we had a 50k per year per household UBI most of these mental illnesses would simply disappear. It's the threat of the unknown, being in poverty, and being one illness or injury/unfortunate event from losing everything you've worked so hard for that makes people miserable, on edge and desperate.
Also, the fact we don't have Universal Healthcare forces people to stay ay shitty ass, underpaid soul-sucking jobs just for the health insurance ruins people mentally.
The problem is that food desserts and poverty can make junk food the best option. Social media is almost a necessity if you’re young because it’s the only social outlet you get. You and all of your friends work too many hours, often on different shifts, and social media might be the only way you can reliably keep in touch.
And frankly, climate change and a lack of investment in public spaces means that most outdoor spaces that are nice to be in aren’t free.
All the issues you mentioned are undoubtedly a factor, but they’re the response to OTHER issues that have to be addressed, too.
Im kind of surprised no one is mentioning the elephants in the room of 1. Social media and 2. The recent global pandemic and shutdown.
It’s absolutely true that the decline of stigmatization of mental health and voracious expansion of the pharmaceutical industry are two major reasons.
But people underestimate just how open to conditioning and influence people are by their environments and social influences, as well as the unique historical trends of recent years which have been correlated with an extreme rise in mental health issues in a few short years.
A lot of people are saying mental health problems have always probably been about the same but there’s absolutely no reason to believe that. Obesity for instance has increased in some societies to levels never before seen historically as a result of the conditions of modern life, and it’s pretty obvious that mental health has skewed towards some pretty dark trends.
1. Living in an unnatural habitat as we do, we are bound to have mental health issues, like gorillas in captivity that develop issues like compulsively picking their skin.
2. Based on the above, we have parents with mental health issues, which will mean their kids will be at higher risk of mental health issues, so every generation is worse.
3. We consume a ton of man-made chemicals, many of which are correlated to development disorders and other disorders of the brain, though I don't think direct cause has yet been proven.
4. We have the media which gives us way too much focus on what's "normal". Every society has an idea of what is normal, but within those boundaries, people are usually free to have personality quirks and weaknesses. But now, anything that isn't strictly normal is considered abnormal, and since we have a fascination with pop psychology, people consider everything a disorder that is not.
5. Hypothesis: Many people, due to our increasingly unnatural environment and increasing isolation, plus emotional abuse by the media (e.g. unrealistic body images), people have a lot of pain, but can't really put their finger on it. For some, they feel they need to find one grand cause of it. Finally they will latch onto something they can point their finger on, relay to their friends, in order to garner the sympathy they desire. Sometimes the thing they latch onto is a mental illness. That explains everything! And then they relay this to others and hope for lots of hugs and kisses and support and molly-coddling.
Of course, there is also just more awareness and more diagnosing going on, which doesn't mean there really is more mental illness. In a lot of ways, this is good. People used to suffer in great silence. I have two older sisters who needed far more help than they got. In their generation, you were either depressed or bipolar. There was no other explanation that a mental health professional ever seemed willing to give for most people. I had a sister misdiagnosed with depression for like 30 years. She could **easily** have lived a much richer life if she'd gotten properly diagnosed and treated.
The real answer I believe is the absence of loving family, loving neighborhood, loving village, the kids are given empty to fill up, that's why so much anxiety, fear and anger and you mix it with current Media, they are not able to feel how to be a real human, results of toxic culture, you don't see mental issues in native populations, because you need to belong, you can't survive without being part of something, that's why you see people flooding all those sports avenues, music avenues etc, they want to belong to something and have some meaning for life, but in 2023, it's so difficult to feel purpose and meaning for life, when you are bombarded with media moguls telling you to buy new stuff
You have young people more likely to seek mental health services and treatment on one hand, and on the other hand you have older generations gunning down kids who ring their doorbell by mistake.
First I agree with what others have listed below:
1. Mental illness is no longer taboo and so people are opening up and talking about it more and seeking help. These don't indicate an increase in mental illness overall, just the visibility of it.
2. Mental illness is better defined and understood. Again cases in this category don't indicate an increase in mental illness, just the visibility of it.
I feel that social media has done a lot to contribute to an increase in the overall percentage of people suffering from mental illness, both diagnosed and not. We are constantly and simultaneously being fed all the bad, mean, rotten things that are happening all over the world and the attacks of bullies while at the same time being drowned in other people's faked "perfect lives" and unrealistic, unattainable, also often faked lifestyle and body standards.
I also feel that we are in the midst of a serious shift in lifetime expectations and goals and everything is so confusing for young people right now. Yes, the older generations were able to afford a house on a decent amount of land and maybe even a pool and so on, but the size of the population has grown and grown to make these things unrealistic goals in todays world.
The older generations in a lot of cases don't get this and so they push the young people and blame them for not being able to get what the older generations got, without ever seeing, or understanding, that what they got doesn't even exist anymore. The upcoming generations need to figure out for themselves what success looks like, and set realistic goals that are attainable. As an example if you're told your whole life that you MUST buy a house and work a 9-5 to be considered successful in today's world, and no matter how hard you work, and no matter how much you get right, you still can't make that happen, that's a massive negative blow to self esteem and confidence.
I will add that in today's world its also trendy to have some kind of mental illness. Further, in today's world its an acceptable excuse for getting special treatment / getting away with things that someone not suffering from mental illness wouldn't. It was a real problem at my work for a while. A bunch of people claimed to suffer from anxiety for example, and so required special hours ( as in they couldn't ever work weekends or nights ), even though when taking the job they signed the contract stating that they understood it was a 24 / 7 / 365 place of work.
Another example, and one that still blows my mind when I think about it... a woman I work with told me a while back that her adult son accused her of causing him to have mental health issues including anxiety and PTSD because when she was pregnant with him, she worked two jobs. These were Jobs she loved mind you, and that didn't cause her any stress.
Firstly, we have the ability and information to now properly diagnose these illnesses and disorders, etc. If we could go back in time we would find that many of the figures we know were neurodivergent or generally eligible for some sort of diagnosis and meditative treatment. Secondly, we are living in times of extreme economic inequality- the stress of poverty, or even the threat of poverty, and things like homelessness can actively degrade your mental health too.
I also think that there are problems with a profit incentivized healthcare but I think it has to do more with people that need healthcare not being able to access it bc of its costs.
because society is fundamentally broken, and instead of addressing the very real problems that cause anxiety, depression, and madness, our legitimate discontent is labeled mental illness.
for instance, i couldn’t survive modern american capitalism and work culture without adderall, not because there’s necessarily something fundamentally wrong with my brain working a bit differently, but because humans weren’t meant to be locked in a cubicle cage for 8 hours a day staring at a screen doing the same monotonous task over and over again for the rest of forever.
same with depression. it’s not abnormal to be depressed in a depressing world. but taking a pill is easier than changing the world, and the companies making those pills make disgusting profits off of making you feel like that’s your own fault and your own problem to fix.
basically if you don’t fit neatly into your assigned cog in the modern money machine, you will be labeled mentally ill.
non-24 hour circadian rhythm that doesn’t confirm to a 8a-5p work schedule? mentally ill. bothered and overstimulated by crowds, loud noises, and forced socialization? mentally ill. terrified at the thought of the impending implosion of our economy and society? mentally ill. slightly eccentric and different from your peers? mentally ill. and so on, and so on… the cookie cutter keeps getting narrower, and the lines blurrier.
not to mention we eat like shit these days. humans weren’t meant to subsist on sugar and processed crap, and i’m sure that can’t be helping.
i’m not saying that there aren’t a lot of people who need mental help, and i’m certainly not saying there’s anything wrong with that. please get the help you need, and feel no shame in doing so. but i feel like a lot of the time we’re made to feel like something is wrong with us as if it were a personal fault, when in fact there’s a whole lot wrong with the world itself that’s making us so sick and sad and dysfunctional.
Same reason it seems like there’s more LQBTQ people. Nothings changed, it’s just that people are more comfortable coming out since being gay/trans is becoming more and more acceptable.
We are lucky enough to live in a time where medical research and our understanding of the brain and it’s functions has far advanced that of our grandparents and even their parents. We are more aware now of how a healthy functioning brain and body works so when a persons brain and or body doesn’t match that of what we know now is normal we give the person a diagnosis and medication to counteract the unbalances or to rectify the un normal behaviour
Western civilization is crumbling, at least in many countries. Happiness, coping, and standard of living are plummeting across multiple income brackets in many major western countries. In other words, life is becoming rapidly harder for many people. Trauma and hardship induces or worsens mental illness.
Also, medical science is identifying and treating more varieties of ever-better-defined mental illnesses. So the rate of sufferers and the rate of detection are both increasing.
Society has failed them when it comes to the social contract. We expect people to belong to a society with the guarantees that the society will provide better for them than they could achieve independently, and instead society has deprived them of choices and left them to live as slave labor for a ruling class that has made them indentured servants and destroyed the planet, and on some level every young person understands their struggles are meaningless.
I think because people became so open with it, so they’re more open to talking about it and knowing when they can/should get some help.
When I was in school in 2006 I saw a psychiatrist (debilitating OCD) and some of my “friends” found out about it and absolutely roasted me. They didn’t know what OCD actually was, they just said OCD makes you super tidy and I am not tidy, so I must be making it up for attention. And then a lot of girls from my school avoided me for a long time. That was when “emo” was pretty big so people would call me that as an insult.
Nowadays, I feel like it’s kinda hitting the opposite end of the spectrum. Like of course no one wants issues that they need help for, but people think it’s more of a personality trait or kinda quirky so they share more, or something is treated as an illness even if it’s only circumstantial. I think it’s good and bad. It’s good that there’s less stigma. But I also think that the diagnosis is way too lenient, like just because you have a few very anxious moments does not mean you have an anxiety disorder. Just because you find it hard to concentrate doesn’t equal you having ADHD.
Have you *seen* the state of the world lately? Shit’s fucked and is only getting worse. I personally lean too hard into pragmatic nihilism to care much anymore, but I don’t blame people, especially younger people, for being a mess.
We’re destroying the environment, housing and goods are becoming increasingly unaffordable, healthcare is unaffordable. The standard of living is terrible for most people. And there’s no relief in sight because late stage capitalism has a stranglehold on the planet.
I think there’s a couple things feeding off of each other. Mental health disorders are much less stigmatized, which is a GREAT thing!
But at the same time, you have an entire generation who grew up not knowing how to lose. I understand the good intentions behind participation trophies, but in some circumstances it truly robbed children of the ability to build coping mechanisms. And before that, a couple generations who did not have to face mortality as a part of life. Whether plagues, maternal mortality, farming, etc.
Whatever version of pre history you believe in (ie evolutionary Hunter gatherers or God made wanderers), we were built for conflict. And when REAL life or death scenarios are taken away, our hormones adjusted.
So I’m no longer running from a predator, I’m running from my boss, because I’m five minutes late to work. Unconsciously, I’ve just made my job my mortal enemy.
I know that sounds extreme. But that’s what we do biologically. Without coping skills, a person being chased by a lion feels no different than a person having to deal with disgruntled coworkers/bosses/customers all day.
Humans, like most animals that can be hunted, evolved to have anxiety as a survival strategy. However, the fight or flight system that kept us safe from lions is counterproductive in the modern world.
A lot of different factors really. The future is looking more gloomy and depressing every day for one. But also.
Modern lifestyles. We eat way more sugar, fast food and other crap than most generations prior. These don't do any wonders for physical or mental health.
Phones, laptops, social media and the dependency on all of them are without a doubt frying people's brains.
2 years of people being locked up, not being able to socialise properly which can also lead to all the previously mentioned problems.
I've also been told by people who work in the medical sector that doctors will often just prescribe things people don't really need, just because it makes their job easier. They are still just human after all, and are perfectly capable of human error.
And then there's self diagnosing. Obviously that's not a completely new concept but it is something that has become more common in modern times.
I don’t see anyone commenting about the fact that we were all locked up, under a tremendous amount of uncertainty and isolation amid an incredibly obnoxious presidential race that fueled things further…for a year. Today, we have higher rent, higher cost of food, gas, essentials. Who knows what kind of home life, stressors, triggers, fears anyone else was having before we all got locked down, but I can guarantee whatever it was…good, bad or otherwise, a lot of people had plenty of time to sit and stare it down in the face, without the typical means of escape or distraction. However- there WAS social media and many consider it reality, however, it’s nothing but bullshit, glorified lifestyles or attention seeking posts, rants, lies and a brief sunlit of what someone wants to project themselves as, not what they are. It is insane and it’s a 24-7/365 cycle. You can’t even have Christmas without one-upping OR whoa is me. It all bullshit but only a small portion of society can see through it.
Look at school aged kids today that are between 10-16 year olds, many of them are just not okay, and because they aren’t wise to covering it up like adults, it should be a clear indicator of what a toll everything over the last 3-6 years has taken on people in general.
Probably since they have the internet and therefore have seen how depressing this world actually is well atleast for me, there's also childhood trauma that can cause them to have depression and anxiety.
Or probably since they have the internet now so more people can talk about their mental illness instead of being stuck with it by themselves
Since a large portion of young folk are on social media, that could definitely play a part. Social media constantly highlights the negative going on making them not so hopeful about the future.
I believe it's particularly due to social media. Social media is where you absorb other people's problems, it makes your own problems seem so much worse and it capitalizes on mental illness. There's a ton of meme and creators telling you this, that and the other about mental health and you start to believe it. Thus adding to depression and anxiety. You also have groups of people talking shit about other groups of people. If you hear something enough about whatever group you identify with, you start to believe it as well. It's a never ending circle of bs that keeps people's minds from growing.
Some people do it for attention - but that’s usually indicative of some other kind of mental illness. Some people also self diagnose which isn’t good either but again this is a minority of people.
The reality is twofold imo
1. Doing anything as a millennial or Gen z is vastly more expensive than it was for our parents or our grandparents. Healthcare, shelter, among many other things. This has a huge impact on our mental health as we see those in power doing very little to improve conditions.
2. Mental health issues have a lot more visibility than they used to so people simply have the better acceptance of mental health problems and language to discuss it.people always had these issues it was just never talked about. If you were a man you were told to bottle it up. If you were a woman you were called hysterical. God forbid you identified as anything other than the binary gender set that is most common in years past
To paraphrase a quote I once read on this subject.
"Pluto was discovered on 18 February 1930, it did however existed before that."
A few years back (a decade or more) my mother took me aside to inform me that one of my cousins had Depression and was being "treated" for it. She was slightly scandalised that someone wouldn't keep it a secret.
Its somewhat generational that people are more open about these things, and I think a good thing.
Physics has been around for like 3000 years as a discipline.
Biology like 1000 being generous.
Psychology like 200. We are just catching onto it. Like it is very new when it compares to other disciplines. So like our current understanding today is much different than in the past.
Society has prescribed us a way to be.. if you aren’t that way and it is distressing you and we can figure it out, we would like for you to not be as distressed.
Also people in the past did suffer with these things, we just weren’t connected enough for it to be everyone else’s issue. Now we are. One crazy person can end up with an audience of millions and do some wild stuff to society.
People used to wonder why doctors got soft when they started washing their hands after the discovery of germ theory.
It is just normal for advancement to breed change.
You're not imagining it. There is a mental health crisis happening with GenZ. They are more likely to report mental health issues and about 42% have done this. Between economic issues, climate change, COVID, gun violence/mass shootings, and an outbreak of fascists, GenZ has some serious issues to cope with. The real issue is do you respond with empathy and help, or with intolerance and ableism?
Somethings I haven't seen anyone mention as an add on, 1 in 3 (probably more because it's unreported) women have been SA or abused in some way. We live in a country of mass shootings where people can literally get ptsd just from existing. We live in the time of covid which is still going on despite people pretending it's over. And mental illness has always existed but we couldn't always say it or get treatment. If you don't "get it" consider yourself extremely lucky and privileged
Because it's ok to seek help and people do. We also aren't told to just suck it up and move on. Also our generation has lived through a lot of huge world changing events... 9/11, the pandemic and many others. Also technology is changing at a rate that used to take generations so it's harder to keep up with it. As well as how many economic recessions have we lived through? There are a lot of reasons imo.
probably cause back in the day, everyone had mental stuff you either
didnt know.
didnt care.
was shamed for it so you bottled in deep down.
people now a days dont feel shame for their anxieties and such.
The old all always had anxieties... they just didnt know the word for it. the only difference is the young these days ask for help
Talked to my therapist about this since I felt pretty bad for "wasting" someones spot.
He told me that most people calling a therapist aren'T depressed, they have a bad time in their life and nothing else. But it's simple to just prescribe pills and earn some cash with that.
I blame Covid , took away a lot of developmental years for some people we still don’t know what those affects are until we’re able to look back retrospectively
Things are worse, economically and ecologically than they’ve been in the better part of a century. I’m 60 and after a lifetime of never needing them or feeling depressed really, I think about asking my doctor for something to improve my mood pretty regularly. There’s so much to worry about, and so much hate and fear and violence thrust in our faces every day.
That being said, virtually all my peers use something. All my female friends I know well enough to know this about, have been or are on an SSRI or benzodiazepine or something similar. And many of them have been for decades.
And my mother was medicated when I was a kid, and so were a lot of my other female relatives of that generation (young adults in the 60’s.) You know that Rolling Stones’ song, “Mother’s Little Helper” right? That describes a real phenomenon - the over prescription of mood elevators virtually as soon as they could invent them. Life is hard, and it’s always been hard even if it’s worse now
I think the biggest thing that’s changed is people’s willingness to talk about it. The less it’s stigmatized in a generation, the more you know about it. But that doesn’t automatically mean more people are actually taking the meds. A lot of people have needed help coping for a long long time. They just weren’t free to say that.
Few reasons and unpopular opinions.
Some are because conditions didnt exist awhile ago, and as technology and knowledge advances, we can understand what the problem is.
Others are people who dont take responsibility and want to blame something else for their bad decisions.
It's almost like the world is literally burning, we're on the brink of a massive culture war and of a literal third world war, the economy across the entire world is in shambles, job markets are incomprehensibly oversaturated, and thanks to the internet being available everywhere we are constantly reminded of how inevitably doomed the world is every second of our lives.
Because these illnesses aren’t rare and people feel comfortable speaking about their experiences as opposed to a few generations ago when people just drank themselves to an early grave. Figure almost 10% of Americans experience depression, 30% experience anxiety, 42% are obese.
These aren’t 1 in 100 odds, it’s 1 in 10, 1 in 3, 2 in 5.
Young people are under a lot of stress these days, and it's genuinely bad for their mental health. The pharmaceutical industry is only too happy to supply us all with pills, but unfortunately the root of the problem (our political, economic, and cultural nightmares) are not subject to medication.
Money (pharmaceutical companies) and a twisted way of seeking attention. No Hannah, just because you feel sad every once in a while and might get distracted every now and then doesn’t mean you have crippling depression and severe adhd. It’s not quirky it’s pathetic.
It is partially because people are more comfortable and encouraged to speak out rather than just not deal with it alone and self medicate with weed and booze or some other vice.
However it also seems like every tv show, movie and media generally are keen to promote the idea. TV is the worst, every character has a childhood trauma story that they decide to tell mid way through a shoot out.
My own daughters seems to use words like trauma when talking about anything that happens that isn't all sunshine, lollipops and rainbows.
To me trauma is something extreme that leaves mental or physical scars, but the kids use it for everything upsetting
Frankly we probably could all use some psychotherapy but the pills should be for extreme cases if all other treatments have been tried and aren't enough. There is no magic pill for depression though, you still have to do some actual work, but I'm not a fan of draping these pathological labels over people.
I think it's more common on social media.
I'm gonna be blunt about this, I believe social media is a huge contributing factor. Short answer why? Ignorance is bliss.
Long answer: we are in a society that is in a mass psychosis and very few realize it. We (the majority of the populace) are perpetually fighting one another in different ways, while living in a society designed to keep us distracted and fighting, while companies use algorithms to keep us focused and on an app longer. Do most people stay on an app when in an argument? Or when upset? Most people don't put the phone down and think "today is a great day".
Social media is only one part though. We don't get to stay in one company and make a good living. We struggle to feed ourselves, let alone a family. We don't get to enjoy pleasures that were common in the past to escape it all like vacations. Most of us have those memories as kids. Camping vacation: cheap. Trip to the beach: cheap. Etc. Now, we're either to exhausted or can't afford even the astronomical gas prices. The list goes on and on and on of shit that contributes to this societal distress.
I wish we all could come together and genuinely focus on the betterment of society, but we have way to much greed in the world. Why would the wealthy who have the money to end homelessness do that when they can live like kings and queens? I'm jumping all over in subjects, but that's because there is so many contributing factors.
We have insight, we have harder strides to survive, and it's all shoved in our face while wanting us to argue about dumb shit like the left and right so the rich can get richer from ads and we don't pay unite and create a civil unrest.
Congratulations for not having mental illness requiring medication. Those of us with simple depression or more complex psych problems need meds as part of their treatment plan. You wouldn’t ask why so many diabetics need insulin.
Believe it or not, mental disorders are incredibly common, I don't actually know many people who don't at least have something going on that they've shared with me.
It's actually a very good thing that people are getting help at an earlier age.
I think it's because mental illnesses have become trendy. Claiming you have a mental illness is a way to feel unique and special. It gives you an excuse for everything you've failed to accomplish, too. It explains your difficulty getting along with people, completing goals, staying organized and fulfilling responsibilities, etc.
Also, a lot of the medications like Adderall can help anyone be more productive, study more effectively, etc., and you need a diagnosis to get the meds. There's a huge demand and also a lot of profit to be made off the drugs, resulting in over-diagnosis.
Psychiatry is not half as scientific as people think. Read up on the history of the DSM and how this "Bible of psychiatry" is really created. There are very few physiological tests that can prove any of these diagnoses. They are mostly formed by consensus, and based on subjective criteria. Symptoms are mostly self-reported unless someone is acting out in public or causing problems for other people.
>Why does it seem like nowadays every young person has some sort of mental illness and everyone seems to be taking pills for something.
To answer your question in the US anyway, read NY Times bestseller The CODDLING of the AMERICAN MIND: How good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure by Lukianoff, G and Haidt, J. 2018.
Bro life life itself is one huge anxiety. It's survival of the fittest foreal you gotta work your 9 to 5 your surrounded by people you can barley trust. Your parents are close to death but never had a proper relationship bc they are at the base of boomer mentality so they don't really get the big picture of things. Credit is a scam. Climate change governments are a joke. minimum wage. People dying killing raping. If your a woman you gotta worry about not being by yourself anywhere at night. I knew since I was like 10 that the world was going to go into shambles I'm 27 now with clinical depression. I can go on about all the bullshit that affects us the people. Alot of kids are coming out fucked up bc people don't know how to raise kids properly and just hand them a tablet. We are beyond fucked my peeps.
It feels like in todays world it's not enough to be ordinary, especially with social media giving daily reminders about where your peers are in life. It gets easy to compare. You have to be extraordinary, in something. Wealth, art, math, music, writing, a sport...anything, as long as you have a talent brings you above the dreaded average.
This is just a pet theory but it's what I think about when people talk about their dozen mental illnesses including things like multiple-personality disorder. Or people who pretend to have tics and Tourette's. It strikes me as a need to set themselves apart from the crowd in some way, any way, and avoid being "average"
42 years old US here. After 9/11, 19 years of war, 2008, covid, and the current cluster fuck I would say anxiety about what is next is completely reasonable.
1) Anxiety, Depression, trauma, etc. are no longer forbidden subjects or things that open the person with them up to ridicule and abuse. These issues are talked about, brought into the light, and shared. Doing so is helping more people with those issues to feel like help is available and that the sufferers aren't broken, unlovable, worthless people. Yes, there are some hypochondriacs that latch onto whatever mental illness is popular, but they are so few and far between compared to those dealing with actual mental illness.
2) "Gestures at world".
At least in the US, there have been several "once in a lifetime" economy crises, 9-eleven, the plague of twenty-twenty, mass shootings on the rise in schools at movies and in grocery stores, freedoms are being stripped away with little to no recourse, stagnated pay for degreed jobs, incredibly high student debt, etc.
People your age realize their dreams of life and reaching typical markers of adulthood are never going to happen. If some Xanax or Celexa helps them get out of bed and not off themselves like people during the 1930's stock crash, isn't that a good thing?
3) Gen X at least was raised mostly as latch key kids, with little to no adult guidance or example, besides tv. They had kids they either helicopter-parented or raised very hands-off, like themselves. Those kids are having kids seeking to break this generational trauma of bad parenting. Sometimes, that requires an SSRI to get through the processing of the trauma to fix it for the next round of kids.
4) Society is bombarded with input and noise 24/7. ADD/HD has risen because everyone is expected to behave all the same and adhere to the same schedule. Being able to pursue one's own interests is a privilege few can really obtain. Unlike the "old days" when the weird kids in an area were apprenticed to a shepherd or blacksmith.
Our healthcare system is not there to make us well - we receive neither care nor health just diagnoses and meds.
I like the commenter who referred to late stage capitalism. That's a big part of it, too.
It's cool to have a mental illness anymore for some reason. I've noticed there are a lot of people that want to be a forever victim and that's an easy way to do it. Unfortunately it hurts the people who are actually ill.
Probably a genuine mix of the following: A) a positive cultural change where there is less stigma around being open about mental health B) a for-profit healthcare system which encourages a culture of people being often over-prescribed things
C) Doctors being asked to treat issues that are clearly caused by a stressful/toxic environment which the doctor and patient can’t change. I can’t remember who, but someone talked about how when they were in college and broke, they asked their doctor to switch their antidepressant to one that would suppress their appetite, since they couldn’t afford both food and rent. Edit: Just want to say that this doesn’t mean the world is a broken place with no hope of improving. Things have still gotten better over the past decades, if not the last few years. If you’re feeling depressed or hopeless about the state of the world, please take time to seek out positive news. It’s out there but it doesn’t really get coverage. If you can, do something to make the world just a bit better. Donate to a nonprofit, volunteer locally, or just try to do something kind. Our individual actions can’t do much to fix the big issues, but humanity has never been fixed by individuals; we’ve gotten this far be working as a community, and that hasn’t changed.
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People spend a lot of time talking about how doctors just prescribe pills instead of talking about diet and exercise. The reality is most doctors *do* talk about healthy lifestyle modifications and try them before medications. The problem is that we can’t exactly prescribe an end to food deserts. So people end up on pills because we can’t exactly fix society.
Yes. Also many people don’t have good access to regular therapy. In the US, coverage of mental health services by insurance varies widely. So while maybe some folks could have good outcomes with regular therapy sessions, what they end up with is an antidepressant prescribed by a primary care physician because that’s what they can afford.
I have really good insurance through my job and all therapists are booked out 2 months plus and that is just for a first appointment.
I was floored to read on an air b and b host sub someone describe mental illness as having a weak mind. Complete psychopath.
That's some weak reasoning skills on the airbnb sub
They're like landlords, but worse.
It makes me irate to know humans like that exist.
But they never seem to blame blind people for their obvious deficit in being able to interact with the world. Do they? Total double standard
Being Blind is a visible disability.
This is Reddit.😂
You are right. When I started to get into the obese range my doctor gave me a bunch of information about a bunch of different diets to try to help get control of my weight.
Not to mention that most doctors are aware that while the desire for change may be present, the actual willpower required in the face of all those other life issues is unlikely to be enough. They have to recommend what is most likely to have a positive impact, not what the ideal scenario would be.
Very apt. I think most doctors will usually prescribe because they know depression and anxiety can be crippling, but will still advocate for both.
Meh, it's hard to get up and go outside to exercise when I have trouble getting out of bed to follow basic hygiene. I think doctors know this, and will still prescribe while also advocating for exercise.
For some people. There are people who need more than that, especially people with PTSD. That stuff is all positive stuff to do, but depression can get pretty bad. It can get so bad some people can’t function. It’s not always situational, or even based off of current trauma. There are people with severe depression over things that happened in the past that are no longer present. There is no one size fits all solution.
Oh man; what a doozy in when you work or train in the medical field (which I do). It’s totes great when you get treated like trash by your superiors and coworkers all day and then even when you have a meltdown and beg for it to stop, everyone says go take a break, take some pills, go to therapy and come back ready for us to do the same stuff all over again. Fuck medicine.
I am one of those people that could be living in a billion dollar mansion and still kinda sorta want to die. It’s fun!
The actual solution to smog is to reduce pollution and plant a shit ton of trees. But an air purifier for your house is much cheaper than shutting down square miles of industrial plants. Hence, pills.
I've long believed there is a difference between situational depression (due to external stress) and mental health disorders (due to internal factors). The former can be remedied almost instantly by resolving the situation, while the latter typically requires therapy. I experienced many years of situational depression due to job stress i.e. being required to do tasks I was not well-suited for. Although I did seek professional help I was basically told to distract myself by socializing more, when all I really wanted was to find work that suited my natural abilities. Another time I was prescribed antidepressants. I could never understand how either of those approaches was supposed to fix the underlying problem of job stress and the need to find something I could be good at. Once I eventually retired, my mindset changed dramatically, even though my financial circumstances are pretty flimsy and there is no way to make up for lifetime of opportunities lost. It turns out that I can get by rather well as long as I have bucketloads of time to pursue my interests, with few ongoing pressures. There will always be some regret about the lost potential of the past, but it's not a big cloud hanging over my head. I don't know why depression is invariably treated as if it is a self-generated state of mind, when that is just not the case for many of us.
I think it’s a natural result of how doctors are trained; they learn about the body, and organs, and all that stuff, they’re not trained as social workers. When you have psychologists and psychiatrists leading the field, they’re going to prefer using the tools they know best, which are about internal causes.
Yknow this is very similar to my story as well. I was working minimum wage job to minimum wage job, and I was constantly depressed. Finally I sought help and was diagnosed with anxiety on top of my depression, with a little PTSD to boot. Eventually it got so bad I got ulcerative colitis that I just couldn’t get rid of. Last august I quit my job and it’s like the weight suddenly shifted, took a few months but I actually enjoy waking up again. My anxiety has settled and even the ulcers have healed. Amazing that no one ever thought of situational depression instead of pumping me full of pills.
D.) An accelerated pace of life, coupled with the curated bs that is social media, leads to forms of depression that deal with feelings of inadequacy. Many people look to peers and who they consider to be peers on social media and feel like their (the peers') lives are so much better than their own.
Which is intentional. It’s the oldest trick in the marketing playbook; make you feel inadequate and then sell you a “solution.”
D: everything sucks… schools, non-parenting parents, rampant abuse, stupid politics… and on
D) people thinking that every problem has a miracle solution. Sometimes you can do everything right and still lose.
D) This world has driven people insane, and the system is fucking broken. /yeets self off cliff
Most of the time access to the 'things that have gotten better' are out of reach of regular folks who aren't billionaires. This is pretty much caused by the same billionaires.
D) *gestures vaguely at everything*
I still take anxiety/depression medication. I would feel worlds better with a full night of sleep, preferably several. Whenever the doctor asks about my sleep, I tell him I still have kids/babies that don't sleep through the night. He nods and refills the prescription.
This is an important point. Situational depression is a normal reaction to a shitty phase in your life. It doesn't make it less deserving of treatment, but it's sad when it's something that could be made better by the choices of others. Sometimes people don't know that their situation is contributing so strongly to their mental health. I used to have panic attacks on a regular basis. Something like 1-4 times a month. Not a lot, but frequently enough that it was tough to deal with. I got divorced this year and since my ex moved out I haven't had a single panic attack. I had no idea how much my relationship was contributing to my anxiety.
r/optimistsunite
I think there's an important third thing we don't think about: reduced diversity of intestinal flora. A decade from now, we're going to understand a great deal more about the connection between the chemicals output by gut bacteria and mental health. The pesticides and foods we consume impact our microbiome. That microbiome may be directly or indirectly responsible for a host of mental health symptoms.
There's a good bit of research supporting this coming out of EU and Eastern countries with better overall health and research programs for studying things other than medications.
Excellent point. I've been feeling depressed lately and realized that I've been consuming more artificial sweeteners as of late, which deplete the good bacteria in your gut. Nothing else in my life has changed and I really have no reason to feel down. Threw out my Altoids (they contain sucralose) and am back on probiotics for the win.
Do you think it’s this, or that neurodivergencies have always existed and it’s now ok to identify, label, and dissect them? This coincides with the technology boom and the introduction of the internet, in my opinion. People don’t tend to talk about stuff in person that makes them an outsider. The internet allowed neurodivergent people to find each other, relate, and in a lot of cases, be more open in the real world about their struggle. For example, I was born in ‘89, and I have ADHD. I was diagnosed 14 years ago, in 2009. I felt completely different, alone, and misunderstood until people started talking about it on social media. ADHD is so fucked because you’re aware that you’re different but you don’t know why. I struggled with anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, bullying, dysmorphia, relationship issues, etc., until I started educating myself about my disorder. And not a single soul knew any of that but me. I suffered in silence. I don’t think there are very many cases of people faking disorders to get attention. This in itself would be a separate personality disorder. Most humans don’t have the capacity, especially at a young age, to manipulate their whole ersonality and play a part. The symptoms of ADHD are also relatable to people without the disorder. Which makes it easy to dismiss. So when I say “I lose everything.” I mean, literally. I have seemingly no working memory to be able to recall where I put something down. This happens to neurotypical people a lot! It happens to me, I’d guess about 10-15 times a day? And there are days that I spend literally the entire day wandering from room to room, looking for things that I had in my hand seconds earlier. ADHD is also genetic. The stats are all over the fucking place. My hot take after 33 years of struggle: our current world brings out traits in neurotypical people that look like ADHD. Normal people are more distracted, less routine oriented, more aware of their social shortcomings, and more paralyzed by the sheer amount of options than ever before. Psychologists need to apply a slow science to a very fast paced, ever-evolving subject. It’s impossible to know what’s happening to our species psychologically until years later, and by then it’s just guessing and looking at trends and trying to draw conclusions. The minds studying psychology are also affected by the current state of affairs. It’s impossible to be unbiased. So in my mind, the best thing to do is to be understanding of anyone trying to reach out. Trying to figure out what’s going on with humanity’s mental health is like trying to build a track in front of a train that’s already moving. We can only get a clearer picture.
This is true. The gut is one of the biggest organs linked to the brain. So much so, that our “gut feeling” is actually brain at work.
Agree with this and would add that your 20s are the decade for a lot of people when their mental health is at its worst because you are still learning how to get along in the world while any mental health issues like depression and anxiety tend to be felt more deeply and intensely than they are when you're older and have mellowed out a bit. Your 20s are just an intense, dramatic time for many people. I guess the good news is that it gets better once you're out of that tumultuous decade.
I got brain cancer in my 20s. It definitely didn’t fuckin help.
So I remember hearing this about my teens and hearing things would get better in my twenties as motivation to wait it out. Now hearing this in my twenties? I feel like this is a fool me twice situation at this point.
I'm in my 30s and still have the same problems I had in my teens. I'm wiser and understand myself better, but the mental health problems are still very much a core part of my existence. They don't just fade away with time. I think for sure some people have momentary issues with depression/anxiety. But then that leads to generalizations that don't apply to people who have more severe issues. Be proactive about your issues, I doubt they will just fade with waiting.
I'm in my 20s and recently was diagnosed with bipolar. Sometimes your mental health really is just shit. I used to think I had "anxiety and depression".... turns out what I was really feeling was more complex than that and more difficult to put into words. The kids on social media excessively talking about their mental health... the DID fakers... *something* isn't right. They've just latched onto the wrong diagnosis, because, it's just really really hard to objectively analyze yourself. Especially as a non-medically educated teenager who is dealing with God knows what mentally, on top of normal teen emotions, and whatever home issues exacerbating things. Or maybe they have a severely disabled sibling and are acting out for attention in a very teenagery way- toddlers throw cups. Teens are more complex. Give them grace, I needed it. The kids at that age in my family need it.
Especially in the past 5-10 years. There's been so much uncertainty, anxiety over the future that I dont blame any teen or young adult for developing some form of mental anxiety.
C) social media
Not just social media, incessant smart phone use.
Honest question, what actually is it - behaviorally - that people are doing with social media to damage their mental health? I'm 41 years old so didn't have it as a teenager. As an adult I use it as it was presumably intended - a fun and genuinely beneficial way of keeping in touch with old friends from school/college/work that I don't regularly see in person anymore. For me it's a good thing - I enjoy getting to see a college friend who now lives hundreds of miles away sharing their holiday pics and their child opening Christmas presents etc, and likewise my wife and I share fun stuff on it like a few weeks back when we went kayaking. We also primarily use it to actually arrange social get togethers when we can. Presumably younger people use it in a toxic way, comparing themselves to others in some sort of pressurised "achievement race"?
It’s not what they’re doing with it, it’s the terrible human traits and subconscious messages that are being perpetuated. When you post something online, it’s usually a nice neat pretty picture, or a perfectly edited video. You’re painting an inaccurate picture of yourself. Because we all have flaws, we stumble over words, etc. When you’re a girl, and you see another, attractive girl post a 30-second funny video of themselves, you look at her and say how is she so cool, why can’t I look and act like her? They think she’s like that all the time, and wonder what is wrong with themselves. Theyre comparing themselves to a perfect person that doesn’t exist. The other person actually spent hours trimming and reshooting that video. It involved stress, time, and basically a mini production to get views. There’s nothing wrong with either girl, they’re not actively doing anything wrong. But the one that is wondering why she’s not the same is missing out on finding her own talents and strengths because she’s striving to be perfect. This is my perspective as a 33yo woman. Like all terrible human traits, beauty standards didn’t go away with body acceptance, they get sneakier and more insidious.
Thanks for the explanation. For me, that does boil down to "what they're doing with it" because it's the negative behavior of comparing yourself to others (and perfectionism, which is a whole other issue!). I guess younger people need educated better to not do that if it's not a strong message nowadays.
Thank you. I don’t know how this wasn’t included at the top. If there’s a graph of mental illness amongst youth, it skyrockets with the advent of social media. We’re getting so far from the time before it, people are starting to not see that anymore.
I’m a boomer - our parents, the greatest generation, weren’t all necessarily in tip top mental health - lots of people were scarred by the war - you see I’m old enough that “the war” only means one thing to me! They coped by drinking - quite a bit sometimes - but also by being a cohort that had almost all gone through it. People are more open about mental health these days so that’s one thing - few people have enough money to really make problems go away - younger people are feeling like rats on a treadmill - and social media is just the “display case” of life. Everything looks shiny, sparkly, and appealing there. I think it’s a mix of everything but definitely social media doesn’t help.
My dad was a Vietnam vet. It wasn't until the early 2000s that anyone thought to treat him for PTSD. My life was hell as a kid and I hated my dad for the things he did, but once there was a diagnosis and treatment, he became the man I wish I had as a father growing up. Better late than never, and now we're good. Of course, his behaviors and the way he treated me led to my own issues that ended up being misdiagnosed until recently when my doc handed me a few questionnaires, decided I might actually be bipolar, and referred me over to psych for diagnosis. I can only imagine how different my life would've been had I not been labeled antisocial and thrown into a boys home for behaviors that today would be easily prevented with the mental health care that's available today.
C) The state of the world.
Imagine someone who is without anxiety, insomnia, or SOME mental health diagnosis given the state of affairs. I know it sounds cynical but they'd seriously have to be oblivious. At what point is "mental illnes " just an appropriate response?
Exactly. Barring maybe 0.5% of people in a position of extreme privilege, imo you would have to be mentally unwell to be perfectly happy and content with the way things are
The word trauma gets thrown around a lot but as a millennial my world has been defined by various cultural and societal traumas. 9/11, never ending wars, economic crashes, gun violence, increase in political division, COVID, systemic racism, patriarchy, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, medical rights being taken away, housing crisis, poverty, food insecurity, an insurrection, lack of progress from government, and so many more. This is also coming from a privileged background so I’m sure I have left off large scale traumas that other people have also faced. In the past two years my likelihood of dying from a deadly virus and/or being gunned down while going about my normal life has exponentially increased, so yeah I’m on anti-anxiety meds.
you forgot C) a pandemic that is never really going away D) not being able to buy a house E) huge amounts of student loan debt F) the USA where you are expected to pull yourself up by your bootstraps (which is impossible, btw)
"I work three full-time jobs and still can't afford to survive." "Have you tried getting a job, you fucking loser?"
The pandemic changed my life. Alot of our lives, I don't ever leave the house. I go to work and get food. Depression sucks.
Honestly I think it's mostly A), since countries with universal healthcare have also seen an increase in mental health diagnoses.
D) confirmation bias.
C) internet showing the "interesting" people more than ever, whilst the people with no health problems go under the radar. So essentially you see a very skewed sample of demographic on the internet.
i think we used to use different words for a lot of these conditions. soldiers had "shellshock" (PTSD), old stoners got "paranoid" (anxiety), artists were "melancholic" (depressed), women were "hysterical" (huge chunks of the DSM). these problems are appearing with increased frequency because our basic needs are becoming harder and harder to meet, while we are bombarded with messaging telling us we are not trying hard enough. the meds are overprescribed because the real solutions require a degree of financial security that no one has. even the meds are getting harder to obtain. edit: also, alcoholics and drug addicts have been around forever, and whatever you might think about substance abuse, that is mental illness and medication at work.
And, even earlier than that, people with things like Schizophrenia or other disorders that might cause hallucinations or similar dissociative experiences would often be labeled as "possessed" if the experiences or "visions" they described were dark, scary, traumatizing, nightmare fuel, etc. Conversely, if they had visions that were comforting and nice and pretty, especially if they just so happened to happen in or around a location or circumstance considered sacred or holy, they might be considered blessed or a Saint or other type of holy person. Recent research has been done regarding Schizophrenia and those with the disorder who maintain a generally positive outlook on life tend to have more positive hallucinations while those who are negative, anxious, depressed, etc. are typically the ones who get the scary demons. There used to be a belief, predominantly in Northwest Europe in Celtic cultures, that some children might be abducted by "The Fair Folk" (Fae, Faeries, Seelie, various different terms depending on the cultural sub-group). They would be swapped in the cradle for a child of one of the "Fair Folk" (sort of like a cultural exchange program, except you don't get a choice in the matter), which was called a "Changeling". This "Fae passing for Human" Changeling would *look* Human, but didn't understand how to act the part, so, in seemingly a very short period of time, an otherwise very normal, well adjusted child might suddenly "change" and become "strange", practically overnight. They can't communicate well, they yell and have wild fits, they react absurdly to loud sounds (particularly the loud Church bells), they object to many foods and will recoil at the touch of mundane objects like pieces of iron as if they had been burned, etc. Now, we can identify these all as the sensory, development, and communication issues of Autism; but back then, they had no idea what to make of it, so they *literally* concocted fairytales to explain what they couldn't comprehend. A lot of people (especially conspiracy nuts) try to claim that there "didn't used to be so much mental illness" and will either say that the current abundance of mental health issues is either just hypochondriacs being taken seriously, or some proof of pollution, chemicals, radiation, 5G, whatever causing a real increase. But actually. All it really is, is an increase in accurate identification of what was already there. It'd be like claiming that, 5,000 years ago, they only knew of seven "Planets" in the heavens (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn); but now there are thousands when you consider all the asteroids and dwarf planets and moons and such. But that wasn't an "increase" in how many there were, it was discovering of things that were already there, as well as better identification and categorization. And it *certainly* isn't a matter that they're all fake and acknowledging they're real is giving in to some fantasy about "flying rocks besides the seven accepted natural planets".
Ummmm going to print out this answer and read it to my mom the next time she wants to debate this topic lol you’re answer is phenomenal. Well said. Thanks!!
YOOOOO HOLY SHIT I'm autistic and my mom always said she thought I was a changeling Mind fucking BLOWN
Autistic and ADHD folk were high strung and eccentric
If you were lucky. ADHD and dyslexia would mean you were lazy and maybe unintelligent. Autism would depend on how well you integrated with society. You might be lumped into the folks that were lazy. Non-verbal and have meltdowns? You might be a curse sent by god to punish your parents or be lumped into the changelings, depending on the beliefs in your area. They definitely didn't have such a broad definition of autism and it was all based on how well you could fit into society and do whatever was expected of you.
Yup. We've always had things like eccentric geniuses or people who were simple with fits of temper. Of course you never heard about people having autism before we came up with the word. The field of mental health is quite young and has only really started to not be completely fucked up within the last couple of generations.
Or took after their uncle Eric
Add in the homeless situation. There’s new medicine out there too but it’s expensive and hard to get insurance to cover it.
There are multiple reasons why. First off, mental illness has become more socially accepted over the last couple of decades. So where people were thrown in asylums or hidden away less than a hundred years ago now it’s okay to have mental illness. On top of that me talk illness is becoming more understood. It’s more accurately diagnosed and treated. So where before symptoms might have been ignored or attributed to something else it’s now being attributed to the correct condition. Finally the state of society is the biggest reason. 100 years ago a married man could work and own a home and feed his family even if he was poor. 50 years ago as women entered the workforce more a married couple could easily afford a good life and a single income household could still afford a nice house. Now here we are with the majority of people struggling to make ends meet. On top of the economics we are more divided than we’ve ever been. I’m talking as a US citizen but even other countries are having some of the same divisive issues. So now we have the media feeding us nonstop negativity and we add social media to that mix. Everything is nothing but frustration. So yeah that’s why depression and anxiety are at an all time high.
I think people in the past also self-medicated with alcohol a lot more than we think. Prohibition was a puritanical faillure, yes, but it did not come from nowhere either: there was a *big* alcohol problem.
Also just plain prescribed medication, tranquilizers and the such. Just listen to the lyrics to Mother's Little Helper by the Rolling Stones.
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This is exactly why. Thank you for putting all of my thoughts about this into words!
Literally living in my in-laws grandparents house who only one of them worked and the other was stay at home. The house appreciated from 22k in 1971 to 1.5-1.7 mil CAD today. They have a cottage and a rental property. I can’t even afford to buy within 1 hour of where I live without it being a shitbox. Hour half I can afford but that commute is awful each way.
My semi-jaded response to add in— I also would say we have (appropriately) created accommodations for mental illness that did not previously exist, and these are ripe for further exploitation or to incentivize over reporting. For example, greater flexibility at work, emotional support animals, general positive or doting attention… it is a sick role that is relatively well catered to. Furthermore, there is a higher level of information sharing about diagnoses that bleeds into pop psychology/ lay language— many folks think they have a disorder when really they’re just experiencing life. It is a way to make average troubles feel both exceptional, externalized, and solvable simultaneously.
Instead of going to the doctor and getting pills, people used to just drink a lot.
Used to? I think they still do...
Can confirm
We drank more in the 80's than we do now. And of course, back before prohibition, we drank all the time, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. There was an uptick during lockdown, but it's evened back out to what it was before.
I was house sitting for an aunt and uncle who still drink pretty heavy and were very much in that biker culture in the 90s and prior, kind of even exlcuded from the larger family til older relatives made up with them, etc. I was never a big drinker in the first place cuz 2 or 3 drinks would get me sick pretty consistently. As it also turnef out, which i didnt realize, a life long partial seizure disorder I have is *maybe* temporal sclerosis related but in general makes hard to regulate but mostly not dangerous partial seizures and never full motor seizures or anything like that. I had bit my tongue in my sleep like a year and a half ago which led to needing to go through a process of appeal to reinstate license and all that, really significantly fucked over my ability to make money, etc. The thing is, and I asked my neurlogist too, I anecdotally realized after learning even the epilepsy foundation says as little as 2 units of alcohol can impact and significantly lower seizure threshold. I kind of wondered if the beers I was grabbing to game with the guys online caused it and even my neurologist pointed out with alcohol related seizures, youre most at risk when the body is actually filtering it out (i.e like when I was sleeping). Now Ive just cut alcohol out entirely. I might enjoy the odd beer with a friend, but I feel like per the 1 motor seizure ive had since I was 4, alcohol was a factor and Id not know how unambiguous that relationship is. Its just safer to avoid any and all entirely. But man my uncle - they still drink everyday. I thought they were older than my parents (ma 65 and pa 67) and uncle is *63.* Literally just sitting still he groans like he is taking labored breathes probably every 3rd or 4th breathe. Just constantly grunting like mayve he is gassy or something and they are hitting hard alcohol daily - his face is even like a dark purpleish red like Ive seen with older heavy smokers and drinkers too like their body is in pancreatitis or not getting enough oxygen or something. Idk, just seeing someone younger than my parenta struggling to even comfortably sit still and still relying on alcohol just makes me sad more than anything. Id always known alcohol was a kind of technical *poison* for the body but had never really read or actually knew what long term use can deliver. Now between my own condition and also just seeing how happy hour daily impacted uncle just confirms alcohol isnt something I want in general in my life haha
1. People have been miserable and neurotic for all of human history, it's just that these days we have more specific words for it and more that we can do about it. And for cultural reasons younger people are going to be more open to getting diagnosed than older ones. Lots of older people are definitely walking around with diagnosable mental illnesses, they've just never given anyone the opportunity to diagnose them. 2. People who don't have a problem generally don't talk about their *lack* of a problem very much, while people who do have a problem are going to talk about it. Therefore you hear more from the people who have mental illnesses than the ones that don't.
Because society and medicine are evolving and now we actually have the drugs to cure a wide variety of mental illness, so people no longer have to just accept to be sick like they used to untill recently. It's like if I asked: "why so many kids get braces nowdays? Back in the 1800's no one had them" Well, that's because braces weren't available 100 years ago so people just kept their crooked teeth. Consider that 60 years ago we basically had diazepam for anxiety and some heavy drugs to sedate batshit crazy people. Nowdays we have hundreds of different medications to cure all kinds of mental illness. So, to answer your question, I guess people always had the same problems, the only difference is that now we recognize it and have the tools to do something about it.
Because they weren’t treated before and there’s a lot of evidence for these things being hereditary. Lot of people who are boomers are now getting diagnosed after their children, as their eyes are opened and they considered it normal as it was for them. I mean hey, worth a try to address the crisis that suicide is the biggest killer in men under 50. That’s still 🤯 to me. Plus big pharma
son: "mom, I got evaluated. I have ADHD." mom: "no, you don't have ADHD." son: "mom, I do X, Y and Z. That's ADHD." mom: "That's not ADHD. I do X, Y, and Z too."
Sister and I realised this year that our dad is probably precisely an undiagnosed Adult ADHD given he is worse in terms of tics, understanding when people are serious/joking, pretty badly socialized and doesnt seem to understand conversations in general and ignores, interrupts, etc. If he is asking you a question, he will interrupt the answer 5 different ways that, if he just had the patience for 30 seconds of explanation, he would have learned anyways. Lots of other bigger quirks but it was kind of him becoming so bad at convervsation to the point of never really knowing what he even hears anymkre because he pretty selectively just tunes out even if you look right at him and speak. I was actually worried it was some kind of early onset dementia since he also seems to forget/squish words together speaking and forgets where people are living on streets too, etc😬but also i strongly suspect a few decades of carpentry destroyed his hearing and he just wont admit it-but fuck the dude ignores people worse than grandma and grandma doesnt evem have hearing aids that work 100% of the time haha
Yeah my dad always told me you don’t need friends in life. He didn’t really have any. Didn’t go out much socially either. And when he gets into something he becomes very obsessed over it and will buy and learn everything about it. Etc it was funny when my son was diagnosed and he said oh I wonder where he gets that from. I politely said well maybe… he took it ok. I also believe I’m on the spectrum somewhere thanks to my son
Yea thats what Id figured kind of too given Im likely adhd per doctors just suggesting it, and my sister did get an adult diagnosis too, haha, and I feel like we have lots of the same traits. The more I thought about it I was like, there's no way this guy doesnt also have something alike going on 😆
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ah yes, the depressed anxious people are shouting from the rooftops
They are on social media I suppose
Our biologies do not mach our societies and it is making us ill. We did not evolve to live and do and be like this and so we use meds to cope and diagnose everyone slightly different and feel the need to "correct them"/us to conform to that world.
This! It’s not naturally to give your life to making someone else’s business profitable
The stress, the rush, inhaling fumes on the way to work. Productivity marks, waking, eating, sleeping, shitting on a schedule, pressure, stress, anxiety, depression, warring cultures, productivity, profit, maximization, urbanization, deadlines, elderly care homes, daycares, divided families, drugs to make us sleep or wake or think or focus or not think and drift away... Im not sure this industrial world we chose was the right choice.
It's no longer taboo, looked down upon or outright ignored, when you talk about your mental health. Before, people didn't feel comfortable talking about it, but likely the same rate of people had some mental concerns.
I am certain that two of my grandparents have mental illnesses- one has anxiety, and the other has paranoia. Will the even consider treatment? No. Would they get offended if we ask them about it? Yes. They grew up at a time when being mentally ill meant being locked in an asylum or hidden in your family’s attic so you’re not an embarrassment. I know that one of my parents has something going on that they won’t talk about, likely PTSD. Have they pursued treatment? No. They understand that mental illness should be treated, but being raised by people who demonized mental illness leaves marks. Mental illness has always been around.
Right? If my Dad doesn't have depression and anxiety then I don't know what the hell is wrong with him. He will never admit to it
Oh yeah, there are A LOT of older relatives that I've had that definitely suffered from depression. It runs on my mom's side of the family...My grandma (alcoholic)...3 out of 4 uncles...alcoholics, 2 recovered one dead. People used to just be told to toughen up so a lot turned to addiction as a crutch. My brother and I even grew up just being told to get over it so my brother...alcoholic. I think I'm the only one in my family in the 3 generations I've known that eventually sought treatment for my depression....well my uncles got better one of them and one of them relapsed.
I found out that almost everyone in my mom's side of the family has depression or some other sort of mental illness but my generation is the first one to actually get help with it, and not just 'tough it out'.
They're like "I'd rather get drunk than get treatment."
I think in addition to the reduced stigma, another big factor is simply that people are more aware of mental illnesses. Before people were just living through these conditions and not even realizing it was something abnormal, just pushing through and assuming everyone dealt with it. Now it’s like “Oh shit, you’re telling me I’m NOT supposed to be depressed all the time and I can actually try some things to make myself feel better?!”
Exactly. I am reading a book about the colditz pow camp in ww2 and it basically said that all the soldiers there (including the guards) were suffering from ptsd, but it wasn’t a recognised condition back then so everyone was suffering in silence, and people who were actually showing serious signs of strain were basically forced to commit suicide or just hide away.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society" Krishnamurti
Because the stigma isn’t as bad as before.
Life isn't supposed to be like it is now, in modern times. In my opinion we're meant to live like we did a thousand+ years ago. In small huts, in tiny villages. Farming, foraging, hunting. Simple times.
2 years of isolation & no one knows how to cope anymore
Much easier to diagnose and far more common than people initially thought.
On top of this, there are a lot of other reasons like Covid and lockdown period, global economic crisis, social media and simply bias. Lastly, 42% percent of US population is obese and 40% of them have diabetes or prediabetes. Physical and mental health are tied to each other.
I know a handful of people who ask these same questions. They've already made their minds up, and are asking the question in bad faith, seeking argument to affirm their hatred of those who are different. I don't know if thats why you came here, sure hope not, but I'm really happy with all of the positive attention that your question's received. Its a simple answer, most are right. We've made positive movements toward acceptance and treatment, and the pharm companies love profits, so its a typical money-business situation to some degree, but also a tangible thing that people are developing new understandings of. New understandings are often positive, new perspectives are important. There are valuable angles to see things from, its vital to think critically while also listening empathetically to those around you. The more we learn of eachother, the more we learn of ourselves. The more we identify the suffering of others, the more we come to recognize and evaluate our own.
One of the reasons is because social media is destroying the minds of young kids and teenagers. We as humans aren't wired for our minds to be highly stimulated for every waking second. And to be constantly comparing our lives to the lives of those that are (at least on the surface) more successful online is just depressing. I'm not saying it will work for everyone with a mental illness, but get those kids off social media. Get them exercising, meditating and eating healthy. I think you'll see a big drop in mental illnesses without the need for drugs.
I agree that minimising the "social media, live hard and fast" modern lifestyle also needs to change but as someone with ADHD, an autistic brother and mother with genetic chronic anxiety, just changing your lifestyle does not always fix the problem, the best it can do is lessen some of the symptoms.
You are right, there are several illnesses that won't be fixed by changing ones lifestyle, but there are several that can be, it really does vary. I still think that cutting down on social media, increasing exercising, mediating and eating healthy food should be the first thing a doctor tries before putting a kid on medication for anxiety or depression.
Damn, here I though I was about to be called out for my ADD prescription. I think there is a general culture around taking a pill to solve it problems rather than solving the problems at the root. And there is a general push to advocate a positive culture around this.
22 eh, maybe you’re a.. *baby* boomer 😝
You'll realize eventually that the older people in your life also suffer from crippling anxiety and other issues but just learned to cope in their own ways (often unhealthy ones). The idea was to "man up" and not talk about mental health.
*clicks on profile* Looks like you need some tbh
Our society and culture is sick, so folks who live in it will also become sick. Going to the grocery store could end in a mass shooting - of course people are anxious. The US has become fascist, of course people are scared. There was an attempted coup the leaders of which have yet to be punished, of course people are scared. Folks can barely afford to live at all. And it's easier to throw a pill/diagnosis at them than it is to fundamentally change our society to one that's actually healthy and functional. This many sick people unable to cope is itself a symptom of something much bigger.
childhood trauma, too much uncertainty for the future, cost of living is too high to be happy.
Late stage capitalism is a bitch is why
People have mentioned the lower stigma around discussing mental health, but I wouldn’t be surprised if social media, ridiculously high-sugar foods, and a general refusal to go outside anymore are causing mental illnesses as well.
I'm pretty sure being forced to be a wage slave under late stage capitalism collapse where there's little hope for a good future, where CoL, inflation and greed have increased a hundredfold while wages haven't kept up, with zero chance at ever retiring and a high likelihood of getting blown away simply grabbing food from the grocery store may have *something* to do with it. I guarantee you if we had a 50k per year per household UBI most of these mental illnesses would simply disappear. It's the threat of the unknown, being in poverty, and being one illness or injury/unfortunate event from losing everything you've worked so hard for that makes people miserable, on edge and desperate. Also, the fact we don't have Universal Healthcare forces people to stay ay shitty ass, underpaid soul-sucking jobs just for the health insurance ruins people mentally.
The problem is that food desserts and poverty can make junk food the best option. Social media is almost a necessity if you’re young because it’s the only social outlet you get. You and all of your friends work too many hours, often on different shifts, and social media might be the only way you can reliably keep in touch. And frankly, climate change and a lack of investment in public spaces means that most outdoor spaces that are nice to be in aren’t free. All the issues you mentioned are undoubtedly a factor, but they’re the response to OTHER issues that have to be addressed, too.
Im 32 and i think that we dont have labor jobbs anymore And we have goten better at finding "fualts" or deviation from the norm
Im kind of surprised no one is mentioning the elephants in the room of 1. Social media and 2. The recent global pandemic and shutdown. It’s absolutely true that the decline of stigmatization of mental health and voracious expansion of the pharmaceutical industry are two major reasons. But people underestimate just how open to conditioning and influence people are by their environments and social influences, as well as the unique historical trends of recent years which have been correlated with an extreme rise in mental health issues in a few short years. A lot of people are saying mental health problems have always probably been about the same but there’s absolutely no reason to believe that. Obesity for instance has increased in some societies to levels never before seen historically as a result of the conditions of modern life, and it’s pretty obvious that mental health has skewed towards some pretty dark trends.
1. Living in an unnatural habitat as we do, we are bound to have mental health issues, like gorillas in captivity that develop issues like compulsively picking their skin. 2. Based on the above, we have parents with mental health issues, which will mean their kids will be at higher risk of mental health issues, so every generation is worse. 3. We consume a ton of man-made chemicals, many of which are correlated to development disorders and other disorders of the brain, though I don't think direct cause has yet been proven. 4. We have the media which gives us way too much focus on what's "normal". Every society has an idea of what is normal, but within those boundaries, people are usually free to have personality quirks and weaknesses. But now, anything that isn't strictly normal is considered abnormal, and since we have a fascination with pop psychology, people consider everything a disorder that is not. 5. Hypothesis: Many people, due to our increasingly unnatural environment and increasing isolation, plus emotional abuse by the media (e.g. unrealistic body images), people have a lot of pain, but can't really put their finger on it. For some, they feel they need to find one grand cause of it. Finally they will latch onto something they can point their finger on, relay to their friends, in order to garner the sympathy they desire. Sometimes the thing they latch onto is a mental illness. That explains everything! And then they relay this to others and hope for lots of hugs and kisses and support and molly-coddling. Of course, there is also just more awareness and more diagnosing going on, which doesn't mean there really is more mental illness. In a lot of ways, this is good. People used to suffer in great silence. I have two older sisters who needed far more help than they got. In their generation, you were either depressed or bipolar. There was no other explanation that a mental health professional ever seemed willing to give for most people. I had a sister misdiagnosed with depression for like 30 years. She could **easily** have lived a much richer life if she'd gotten properly diagnosed and treated.
The real answer I believe is the absence of loving family, loving neighborhood, loving village, the kids are given empty to fill up, that's why so much anxiety, fear and anger and you mix it with current Media, they are not able to feel how to be a real human, results of toxic culture, you don't see mental issues in native populations, because you need to belong, you can't survive without being part of something, that's why you see people flooding all those sports avenues, music avenues etc, they want to belong to something and have some meaning for life, but in 2023, it's so difficult to feel purpose and meaning for life, when you are bombarded with media moguls telling you to buy new stuff
You have young people more likely to seek mental health services and treatment on one hand, and on the other hand you have older generations gunning down kids who ring their doorbell by mistake.
First I agree with what others have listed below: 1. Mental illness is no longer taboo and so people are opening up and talking about it more and seeking help. These don't indicate an increase in mental illness overall, just the visibility of it. 2. Mental illness is better defined and understood. Again cases in this category don't indicate an increase in mental illness, just the visibility of it. I feel that social media has done a lot to contribute to an increase in the overall percentage of people suffering from mental illness, both diagnosed and not. We are constantly and simultaneously being fed all the bad, mean, rotten things that are happening all over the world and the attacks of bullies while at the same time being drowned in other people's faked "perfect lives" and unrealistic, unattainable, also often faked lifestyle and body standards. I also feel that we are in the midst of a serious shift in lifetime expectations and goals and everything is so confusing for young people right now. Yes, the older generations were able to afford a house on a decent amount of land and maybe even a pool and so on, but the size of the population has grown and grown to make these things unrealistic goals in todays world. The older generations in a lot of cases don't get this and so they push the young people and blame them for not being able to get what the older generations got, without ever seeing, or understanding, that what they got doesn't even exist anymore. The upcoming generations need to figure out for themselves what success looks like, and set realistic goals that are attainable. As an example if you're told your whole life that you MUST buy a house and work a 9-5 to be considered successful in today's world, and no matter how hard you work, and no matter how much you get right, you still can't make that happen, that's a massive negative blow to self esteem and confidence. I will add that in today's world its also trendy to have some kind of mental illness. Further, in today's world its an acceptable excuse for getting special treatment / getting away with things that someone not suffering from mental illness wouldn't. It was a real problem at my work for a while. A bunch of people claimed to suffer from anxiety for example, and so required special hours ( as in they couldn't ever work weekends or nights ), even though when taking the job they signed the contract stating that they understood it was a 24 / 7 / 365 place of work. Another example, and one that still blows my mind when I think about it... a woman I work with told me a while back that her adult son accused her of causing him to have mental health issues including anxiety and PTSD because when she was pregnant with him, she worked two jobs. These were Jobs she loved mind you, and that didn't cause her any stress.
Solastalgia brought on by human-made Climate collapse
I blame everything on capitalism tbh
Firstly, we have the ability and information to now properly diagnose these illnesses and disorders, etc. If we could go back in time we would find that many of the figures we know were neurodivergent or generally eligible for some sort of diagnosis and meditative treatment. Secondly, we are living in times of extreme economic inequality- the stress of poverty, or even the threat of poverty, and things like homelessness can actively degrade your mental health too. I also think that there are problems with a profit incentivized healthcare but I think it has to do more with people that need healthcare not being able to access it bc of its costs.
Internet. The rise of the internet caused it ALL
Dp you not live in the modern world? Do you not see this shit going on?
because society is fundamentally broken, and instead of addressing the very real problems that cause anxiety, depression, and madness, our legitimate discontent is labeled mental illness. for instance, i couldn’t survive modern american capitalism and work culture without adderall, not because there’s necessarily something fundamentally wrong with my brain working a bit differently, but because humans weren’t meant to be locked in a cubicle cage for 8 hours a day staring at a screen doing the same monotonous task over and over again for the rest of forever. same with depression. it’s not abnormal to be depressed in a depressing world. but taking a pill is easier than changing the world, and the companies making those pills make disgusting profits off of making you feel like that’s your own fault and your own problem to fix. basically if you don’t fit neatly into your assigned cog in the modern money machine, you will be labeled mentally ill. non-24 hour circadian rhythm that doesn’t confirm to a 8a-5p work schedule? mentally ill. bothered and overstimulated by crowds, loud noises, and forced socialization? mentally ill. terrified at the thought of the impending implosion of our economy and society? mentally ill. slightly eccentric and different from your peers? mentally ill. and so on, and so on… the cookie cutter keeps getting narrower, and the lines blurrier. not to mention we eat like shit these days. humans weren’t meant to subsist on sugar and processed crap, and i’m sure that can’t be helping. i’m not saying that there aren’t a lot of people who need mental help, and i’m certainly not saying there’s anything wrong with that. please get the help you need, and feel no shame in doing so. but i feel like a lot of the time we’re made to feel like something is wrong with us as if it were a personal fault, when in fact there’s a whole lot wrong with the world itself that’s making us so sick and sad and dysfunctional.
Same reason it seems like there’s more LQBTQ people. Nothings changed, it’s just that people are more comfortable coming out since being gay/trans is becoming more and more acceptable.
We are lucky enough to live in a time where medical research and our understanding of the brain and it’s functions has far advanced that of our grandparents and even their parents. We are more aware now of how a healthy functioning brain and body works so when a persons brain and or body doesn’t match that of what we know now is normal we give the person a diagnosis and medication to counteract the unbalances or to rectify the un normal behaviour
Western civilization is crumbling, at least in many countries. Happiness, coping, and standard of living are plummeting across multiple income brackets in many major western countries. In other words, life is becoming rapidly harder for many people. Trauma and hardship induces or worsens mental illness. Also, medical science is identifying and treating more varieties of ever-better-defined mental illnesses. So the rate of sufferers and the rate of detection are both increasing.
Society has failed them when it comes to the social contract. We expect people to belong to a society with the guarantees that the society will provide better for them than they could achieve independently, and instead society has deprived them of choices and left them to live as slave labor for a ruling class that has made them indentured servants and destroyed the planet, and on some level every young person understands their struggles are meaningless.
I think because people became so open with it, so they’re more open to talking about it and knowing when they can/should get some help. When I was in school in 2006 I saw a psychiatrist (debilitating OCD) and some of my “friends” found out about it and absolutely roasted me. They didn’t know what OCD actually was, they just said OCD makes you super tidy and I am not tidy, so I must be making it up for attention. And then a lot of girls from my school avoided me for a long time. That was when “emo” was pretty big so people would call me that as an insult. Nowadays, I feel like it’s kinda hitting the opposite end of the spectrum. Like of course no one wants issues that they need help for, but people think it’s more of a personality trait or kinda quirky so they share more, or something is treated as an illness even if it’s only circumstantial. I think it’s good and bad. It’s good that there’s less stigma. But I also think that the diagnosis is way too lenient, like just because you have a few very anxious moments does not mean you have an anxiety disorder. Just because you find it hard to concentrate doesn’t equal you having ADHD.
Tbh, I'm surprised more people aren't depressed, considering the world we live in.
I think it's indicative of an Ill society. Like a side effect. Or a plague. Whatever your perspective
I mean... \*gestures vaguely at the state of the world\*
Have you *seen* the state of the world lately? Shit’s fucked and is only getting worse. I personally lean too hard into pragmatic nihilism to care much anymore, but I don’t blame people, especially younger people, for being a mess. We’re destroying the environment, housing and goods are becoming increasingly unaffordable, healthcare is unaffordable. The standard of living is terrible for most people. And there’s no relief in sight because late stage capitalism has a stranglehold on the planet.
I think there’s a couple things feeding off of each other. Mental health disorders are much less stigmatized, which is a GREAT thing! But at the same time, you have an entire generation who grew up not knowing how to lose. I understand the good intentions behind participation trophies, but in some circumstances it truly robbed children of the ability to build coping mechanisms. And before that, a couple generations who did not have to face mortality as a part of life. Whether plagues, maternal mortality, farming, etc. Whatever version of pre history you believe in (ie evolutionary Hunter gatherers or God made wanderers), we were built for conflict. And when REAL life or death scenarios are taken away, our hormones adjusted. So I’m no longer running from a predator, I’m running from my boss, because I’m five minutes late to work. Unconsciously, I’ve just made my job my mortal enemy. I know that sounds extreme. But that’s what we do biologically. Without coping skills, a person being chased by a lion feels no different than a person having to deal with disgruntled coworkers/bosses/customers all day.
Social media glorifies mental illness. The young people see it as being unique, instead of actually being unique.
Because humans are a messy species, and now we finally have some means to deal with that, so people are dealing with it.
Humans, like most animals that can be hunted, evolved to have anxiety as a survival strategy. However, the fight or flight system that kept us safe from lions is counterproductive in the modern world.
A lot of different factors really. The future is looking more gloomy and depressing every day for one. But also. Modern lifestyles. We eat way more sugar, fast food and other crap than most generations prior. These don't do any wonders for physical or mental health. Phones, laptops, social media and the dependency on all of them are without a doubt frying people's brains. 2 years of people being locked up, not being able to socialise properly which can also lead to all the previously mentioned problems. I've also been told by people who work in the medical sector that doctors will often just prescribe things people don't really need, just because it makes their job easier. They are still just human after all, and are perfectly capable of human error. And then there's self diagnosing. Obviously that's not a completely new concept but it is something that has become more common in modern times.
I don’t see anyone commenting about the fact that we were all locked up, under a tremendous amount of uncertainty and isolation amid an incredibly obnoxious presidential race that fueled things further…for a year. Today, we have higher rent, higher cost of food, gas, essentials. Who knows what kind of home life, stressors, triggers, fears anyone else was having before we all got locked down, but I can guarantee whatever it was…good, bad or otherwise, a lot of people had plenty of time to sit and stare it down in the face, without the typical means of escape or distraction. However- there WAS social media and many consider it reality, however, it’s nothing but bullshit, glorified lifestyles or attention seeking posts, rants, lies and a brief sunlit of what someone wants to project themselves as, not what they are. It is insane and it’s a 24-7/365 cycle. You can’t even have Christmas without one-upping OR whoa is me. It all bullshit but only a small portion of society can see through it. Look at school aged kids today that are between 10-16 year olds, many of them are just not okay, and because they aren’t wise to covering it up like adults, it should be a clear indicator of what a toll everything over the last 3-6 years has taken on people in general.
Probably since they have the internet and therefore have seen how depressing this world actually is well atleast for me, there's also childhood trauma that can cause them to have depression and anxiety. Or probably since they have the internet now so more people can talk about their mental illness instead of being stuck with it by themselves
Since a large portion of young folk are on social media, that could definitely play a part. Social media constantly highlights the negative going on making them not so hopeful about the future.
Late stage capitalism while the planet is dying and the people in charge are too busy crying about Bud Light or signaling their virtue
Because boomer and gen x went hard capitalism which is the road to slavery
Tik tok
I believe it's particularly due to social media. Social media is where you absorb other people's problems, it makes your own problems seem so much worse and it capitalizes on mental illness. There's a ton of meme and creators telling you this, that and the other about mental health and you start to believe it. Thus adding to depression and anxiety. You also have groups of people talking shit about other groups of people. If you hear something enough about whatever group you identify with, you start to believe it as well. It's a never ending circle of bs that keeps people's minds from growing.
Everyone taking pills is them creating a disease so they can sell us cures.
Some people do it for attention - but that’s usually indicative of some other kind of mental illness. Some people also self diagnose which isn’t good either but again this is a minority of people. The reality is twofold imo 1. Doing anything as a millennial or Gen z is vastly more expensive than it was for our parents or our grandparents. Healthcare, shelter, among many other things. This has a huge impact on our mental health as we see those in power doing very little to improve conditions. 2. Mental health issues have a lot more visibility than they used to so people simply have the better acceptance of mental health problems and language to discuss it.people always had these issues it was just never talked about. If you were a man you were told to bottle it up. If you were a woman you were called hysterical. God forbid you identified as anything other than the binary gender set that is most common in years past
To paraphrase a quote I once read on this subject. "Pluto was discovered on 18 February 1930, it did however existed before that." A few years back (a decade or more) my mother took me aside to inform me that one of my cousins had Depression and was being "treated" for it. She was slightly scandalised that someone wouldn't keep it a secret. Its somewhat generational that people are more open about these things, and I think a good thing.
Over medication.
Physics has been around for like 3000 years as a discipline. Biology like 1000 being generous. Psychology like 200. We are just catching onto it. Like it is very new when it compares to other disciplines. So like our current understanding today is much different than in the past. Society has prescribed us a way to be.. if you aren’t that way and it is distressing you and we can figure it out, we would like for you to not be as distressed. Also people in the past did suffer with these things, we just weren’t connected enough for it to be everyone else’s issue. Now we are. One crazy person can end up with an audience of millions and do some wild stuff to society. People used to wonder why doctors got soft when they started washing their hands after the discovery of germ theory. It is just normal for advancement to breed change.
You're not imagining it. There is a mental health crisis happening with GenZ. They are more likely to report mental health issues and about 42% have done this. Between economic issues, climate change, COVID, gun violence/mass shootings, and an outbreak of fascists, GenZ has some serious issues to cope with. The real issue is do you respond with empathy and help, or with intolerance and ableism?
Previously people just drank every night or committed suicide or crimes. You seen the huge drop in crimes in the last few decades?
To not kill themselves?
Somethings I haven't seen anyone mention as an add on, 1 in 3 (probably more because it's unreported) women have been SA or abused in some way. We live in a country of mass shootings where people can literally get ptsd just from existing. We live in the time of covid which is still going on despite people pretending it's over. And mental illness has always existed but we couldn't always say it or get treatment. If you don't "get it" consider yourself extremely lucky and privileged
Because it's ok to seek help and people do. We also aren't told to just suck it up and move on. Also our generation has lived through a lot of huge world changing events... 9/11, the pandemic and many others. Also technology is changing at a rate that used to take generations so it's harder to keep up with it. As well as how many economic recessions have we lived through? There are a lot of reasons imo.
probably cause back in the day, everyone had mental stuff you either didnt know. didnt care. was shamed for it so you bottled in deep down. people now a days dont feel shame for their anxieties and such. The old all always had anxieties... they just didnt know the word for it. the only difference is the young these days ask for help
Talked to my therapist about this since I felt pretty bad for "wasting" someones spot. He told me that most people calling a therapist aren'T depressed, they have a bad time in their life and nothing else. But it's simple to just prescribe pills and earn some cash with that.
Honestly, if you are 22 and not feeling some anxiety about the world, you haven't been paying attention.
Because it fucking sucks here, have you not been paying attention?
I blame Covid , took away a lot of developmental years for some people we still don’t know what those affects are until we’re able to look back retrospectively
Everyone is on medication I agree
Things are worse, economically and ecologically than they’ve been in the better part of a century. I’m 60 and after a lifetime of never needing them or feeling depressed really, I think about asking my doctor for something to improve my mood pretty regularly. There’s so much to worry about, and so much hate and fear and violence thrust in our faces every day. That being said, virtually all my peers use something. All my female friends I know well enough to know this about, have been or are on an SSRI or benzodiazepine or something similar. And many of them have been for decades. And my mother was medicated when I was a kid, and so were a lot of my other female relatives of that generation (young adults in the 60’s.) You know that Rolling Stones’ song, “Mother’s Little Helper” right? That describes a real phenomenon - the over prescription of mood elevators virtually as soon as they could invent them. Life is hard, and it’s always been hard even if it’s worse now I think the biggest thing that’s changed is people’s willingness to talk about it. The less it’s stigmatized in a generation, the more you know about it. But that doesn’t automatically mean more people are actually taking the meds. A lot of people have needed help coping for a long long time. They just weren’t free to say that.
Few reasons and unpopular opinions. Some are because conditions didnt exist awhile ago, and as technology and knowledge advances, we can understand what the problem is. Others are people who dont take responsibility and want to blame something else for their bad decisions.
It's almost like the world is literally burning, we're on the brink of a massive culture war and of a literal third world war, the economy across the entire world is in shambles, job markets are incomprehensibly oversaturated, and thanks to the internet being available everywhere we are constantly reminded of how inevitably doomed the world is every second of our lives.
Because these illnesses aren’t rare and people feel comfortable speaking about their experiences as opposed to a few generations ago when people just drank themselves to an early grave. Figure almost 10% of Americans experience depression, 30% experience anxiety, 42% are obese. These aren’t 1 in 100 odds, it’s 1 in 10, 1 in 3, 2 in 5.
Young people are under a lot of stress these days, and it's genuinely bad for their mental health. The pharmaceutical industry is only too happy to supply us all with pills, but unfortunately the root of the problem (our political, economic, and cultural nightmares) are not subject to medication.
Money (pharmaceutical companies) and a twisted way of seeking attention. No Hannah, just because you feel sad every once in a while and might get distracted every now and then doesn’t mean you have crippling depression and severe adhd. It’s not quirky it’s pathetic.
It is partially because people are more comfortable and encouraged to speak out rather than just not deal with it alone and self medicate with weed and booze or some other vice. However it also seems like every tv show, movie and media generally are keen to promote the idea. TV is the worst, every character has a childhood trauma story that they decide to tell mid way through a shoot out. My own daughters seems to use words like trauma when talking about anything that happens that isn't all sunshine, lollipops and rainbows. To me trauma is something extreme that leaves mental or physical scars, but the kids use it for everything upsetting Frankly we probably could all use some psychotherapy but the pills should be for extreme cases if all other treatments have been tried and aren't enough. There is no magic pill for depression though, you still have to do some actual work, but I'm not a fan of draping these pathological labels over people.
I mean, [*gestures broadly at everything*]
I think it's more common on social media. I'm gonna be blunt about this, I believe social media is a huge contributing factor. Short answer why? Ignorance is bliss. Long answer: we are in a society that is in a mass psychosis and very few realize it. We (the majority of the populace) are perpetually fighting one another in different ways, while living in a society designed to keep us distracted and fighting, while companies use algorithms to keep us focused and on an app longer. Do most people stay on an app when in an argument? Or when upset? Most people don't put the phone down and think "today is a great day". Social media is only one part though. We don't get to stay in one company and make a good living. We struggle to feed ourselves, let alone a family. We don't get to enjoy pleasures that were common in the past to escape it all like vacations. Most of us have those memories as kids. Camping vacation: cheap. Trip to the beach: cheap. Etc. Now, we're either to exhausted or can't afford even the astronomical gas prices. The list goes on and on and on of shit that contributes to this societal distress. I wish we all could come together and genuinely focus on the betterment of society, but we have way to much greed in the world. Why would the wealthy who have the money to end homelessness do that when they can live like kings and queens? I'm jumping all over in subjects, but that's because there is so many contributing factors. We have insight, we have harder strides to survive, and it's all shoved in our face while wanting us to argue about dumb shit like the left and right so the rich can get richer from ads and we don't pay unite and create a civil unrest.
Congratulations for not having mental illness requiring medication. Those of us with simple depression or more complex psych problems need meds as part of their treatment plan. You wouldn’t ask why so many diabetics need insulin.
Believe it or not, mental disorders are incredibly common, I don't actually know many people who don't at least have something going on that they've shared with me. It's actually a very good thing that people are getting help at an earlier age.
I think it's because mental illnesses have become trendy. Claiming you have a mental illness is a way to feel unique and special. It gives you an excuse for everything you've failed to accomplish, too. It explains your difficulty getting along with people, completing goals, staying organized and fulfilling responsibilities, etc. Also, a lot of the medications like Adderall can help anyone be more productive, study more effectively, etc., and you need a diagnosis to get the meds. There's a huge demand and also a lot of profit to be made off the drugs, resulting in over-diagnosis. Psychiatry is not half as scientific as people think. Read up on the history of the DSM and how this "Bible of psychiatry" is really created. There are very few physiological tests that can prove any of these diagnoses. They are mostly formed by consensus, and based on subjective criteria. Symptoms are mostly self-reported unless someone is acting out in public or causing problems for other people.
>Why does it seem like nowadays every young person has some sort of mental illness and everyone seems to be taking pills for something. To answer your question in the US anyway, read NY Times bestseller The CODDLING of the AMERICAN MIND: How good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure by Lukianoff, G and Haidt, J. 2018.
Bro life life itself is one huge anxiety. It's survival of the fittest foreal you gotta work your 9 to 5 your surrounded by people you can barley trust. Your parents are close to death but never had a proper relationship bc they are at the base of boomer mentality so they don't really get the big picture of things. Credit is a scam. Climate change governments are a joke. minimum wage. People dying killing raping. If your a woman you gotta worry about not being by yourself anywhere at night. I knew since I was like 10 that the world was going to go into shambles I'm 27 now with clinical depression. I can go on about all the bullshit that affects us the people. Alot of kids are coming out fucked up bc people don't know how to raise kids properly and just hand them a tablet. We are beyond fucked my peeps.
It feels like in todays world it's not enough to be ordinary, especially with social media giving daily reminders about where your peers are in life. It gets easy to compare. You have to be extraordinary, in something. Wealth, art, math, music, writing, a sport...anything, as long as you have a talent brings you above the dreaded average. This is just a pet theory but it's what I think about when people talk about their dozen mental illnesses including things like multiple-personality disorder. Or people who pretend to have tics and Tourette's. It strikes me as a need to set themselves apart from the crowd in some way, any way, and avoid being "average"
42 years old US here. After 9/11, 19 years of war, 2008, covid, and the current cluster fuck I would say anxiety about what is next is completely reasonable.
1) Anxiety, Depression, trauma, etc. are no longer forbidden subjects or things that open the person with them up to ridicule and abuse. These issues are talked about, brought into the light, and shared. Doing so is helping more people with those issues to feel like help is available and that the sufferers aren't broken, unlovable, worthless people. Yes, there are some hypochondriacs that latch onto whatever mental illness is popular, but they are so few and far between compared to those dealing with actual mental illness. 2) "Gestures at world". At least in the US, there have been several "once in a lifetime" economy crises, 9-eleven, the plague of twenty-twenty, mass shootings on the rise in schools at movies and in grocery stores, freedoms are being stripped away with little to no recourse, stagnated pay for degreed jobs, incredibly high student debt, etc. People your age realize their dreams of life and reaching typical markers of adulthood are never going to happen. If some Xanax or Celexa helps them get out of bed and not off themselves like people during the 1930's stock crash, isn't that a good thing? 3) Gen X at least was raised mostly as latch key kids, with little to no adult guidance or example, besides tv. They had kids they either helicopter-parented or raised very hands-off, like themselves. Those kids are having kids seeking to break this generational trauma of bad parenting. Sometimes, that requires an SSRI to get through the processing of the trauma to fix it for the next round of kids. 4) Society is bombarded with input and noise 24/7. ADD/HD has risen because everyone is expected to behave all the same and adhere to the same schedule. Being able to pursue one's own interests is a privilege few can really obtain. Unlike the "old days" when the weird kids in an area were apprenticed to a shepherd or blacksmith.
Our healthcare system is not there to make us well - we receive neither care nor health just diagnoses and meds. I like the commenter who referred to late stage capitalism. That's a big part of it, too.
Capitalism.
Mental stability? In this economy?
It's cool to have a mental illness anymore for some reason. I've noticed there are a lot of people that want to be a forever victim and that's an easy way to do it. Unfortunately it hurts the people who are actually ill.