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genuinely interested in your depression.
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
not so much to help you but for you to educate ME.
there are way to many threads to trawl through.
i read that depression is reaching epidemic proportions ...why?
is it something to do with our modern world consumerism ...environment ...upbringing ...family or lack of ...divorce being so easy and 'normal' these days ...educational pressures ...
lack of self worth ...lack of vision or hope etc etc?
please tell me what you think.
there are way to many threads to trawl through.
i read that depression is reaching epidemic proportions ...why?
is it something to do with our modern world consumerism ...environment ...upbringing ...family or lack of ...divorce being so easy and 'normal' these days ...educational pressures ...
lack of self worth ...lack of vision or hope etc etc?
please tell me what you think.
0
Comments
I had a good family, though when I was very young we moved a lot, which isn't good for stability.
I don't know if depression is actually reaching epidemic levels, because it's only now that depression is recognised as an illness. In the past it was "pull yourself together", and only the truly nutty were ever thought of as mentally ill.
I think for me a lack of self worth is what's at the centre of it all, and I think that the bullying did it for me.
My answer is i dont know.
Bullying has been mentioned and yes i reckon that plays a big part in depression for some people. If you can imagine getting picked on day in day out and then be afraid to go to school then obviously its gonna get you down. Bullying now aint just about nicking someones shoe and having a laugh like used to happen when we were younger, its a lot more violent and a lot more verbal than we used to have....so is it any wonder kids are shitting themselves at the thought of having that on a daily basis.
When about 12 I started working for a riding school where after gaining my trust, the boss started telling me these horrid sexually related things (aimed at me most of the time). Didn't help matters at all.
Sometimes I've also felt it was hard to get my parents to listen. Just general stuff was hard enough so my problems were even worse to discuss. But I must add that my parents have been very helpful after they realised there was a problem.
Perhaps it's also a question about what makes people tough skinned enough to sail through life relatively unscarred. Perhaps something about the causes can be learned from those people.
though none of us have easy lives and we just have to get on with it.
i was just too trusting for my own good and constantly got fucked over by "best friends" and stolen off fo by them as well.
I've always been bright, always expected to be the "straight A" student. the pressure to succeed being even worse in chinese families i have found. constant examinations every year, due to me going to a private school after primary, being sent to a tutor if i fell even slightly behind. god's sake, up til college i was expected by everyone to read medicne at oxford or cambridge!
also having little or no social life as i got older, as most weekends from 15 onwards i'd be working 6-11pm at my dad's restaurant.
parents getting divorced didn't help either and having to be help my mother through it all, working all the time when my sister never had to, etc.
think a lot of my self-worth was tied up in that i ahd to be the best, and when that went wrong and i fucked up i a-levels, things went even more downhill. first bout of depression nicely co-inciding with a nasty bout of glandular fever, the divorce, and starting to fail my a-levels
ah well, things are betetr now most oft he time, shoudl pass uni thsi time round and got myself a great group of mates that i can trust.
you don't want to know exactly what i think. but i think you should take that with a pinch of salt.
I don't have the answers but there is one interesting piece of information I picked up somewhere along the way. There is a doctor somewhere, New Zealand if my memory serves me correctly, who has a very high success rate at treating depression in women. It was in the high 90's percentage, and we're talking about treating it so it doesn't recurr. There was one stipulation he made to every patient before he started treating them - they HAD to stop watching soaps.
Make of that what you will.
what are the barriers to moving on?
but i do ...i'm after some insight here.
As for the "epidemic", I do strongly believe that it is because depression is seen as an illness now, as opposed to being weak or lazy. Twenty years ago only the terminally loopy were diagnosed with depression- I'm talking fruitcakes like Plath or Sexton- and most people didn't believe that it existed in milder forms.
Not believing in the existence of an illness hampers diagnosis, and the figures used to illustrate an "epidemic" do NOT reflect this.
plath's suicide wasnt ever meant to be suicide. it was a cry for help. she stuck her head in that gas oven thinking her freind would save her but he never came
Oh, come on, even Elizabeth Wurtzel says they were nutty.
And she'd know.
if people had to work hard physicaly as in the past ...would they have time to get depressed?
if your fighting in fajullah ...would you have the time?
does knowing more contribute ...as in information overlaod?
i agree with the sentiment, but i think it's less to do with having the time, and more to do with having more pressing things to worry about.
I doubt people were happier, but they had to drag themselves along because they couldn't afford not to.
I suppose the price we pay for comfort is now having the comfort to be sad without starving to death.
elizabeth wurtzel was a whole lot more fucked up than those two put together
Undoubtedly.
But they were still nutcases, especially Plath. I don't buy into the whole "it was all Ted Hughes' fault!" rubbish to be honest.
i think he contributed a lot, but no - it wasnt his fault
i just think we take survival for granted. we forget that it's a priviledge to even be here, and get hung up on the little things.
if we were living in a time when survival was something we had to fight for, i don't think we'd be so quick to throw it away.
"i miss the comfort of being sad"-farmer francis will have her revenge on seattle, nirvana.
look at it that way.....
i think it's also so much down to the way people are so nasty and dismisive of other people.
like beckyboo was saying......bullying used to be a few names flying around and throwing your school jumper round the playground. these days it's escalated to having a knife to your head and having the shit kicked out of you- and i'm sure there is worse, this is just the worst i've ever experianced.
people have no respect for each other anymore. none what so ever. and this can go to anger or fear....
When summer comes everyone seems so much more cheerful, people laughing and joking..........I think so anyhow.
yea SAD is a big problem in this country. damn the winter
Going back to someone mentioned people didnt have time to stop and get down over things years ago- something my therapist said was that when we go through a stressful period, its often after that time ha passed we slow down and reflect on it and thats when depression can get you(which could be a contribution to my own depression)
And i also very much agree with Kermit about the depression and teenage angst.
I do think doctors are far to quick to hand out the anti depressants at the sight of a tear, and quite often not even that, which could then lead to so many people with 'clinical depression'.
I dont believe these 'epidemic' number of depressed people, more so young people, are because of genuine clinical depression.