In 1990 nobody I knew went to a therapist or psychiatrist unless they were reeeeeal fucked up. Now it’s so common that 90% of people I know see a therapist on a regular basis and probably 25% are on psych meds.
My family has a history of mental illness and I was first prescribed meds for a number of coexisting issues in 1997. This was pre-Internet and mental health issues were stigmatized, but I was so happy to finally be “normal” that I told everybody about my new meds.
I’m so glad that young adults today don’t feel the stigma that used to come with mental illness and can openly talk about their issues.
Oh there’s still stigma, just it’s much more covert in areas that still significantly affect a person’s life.
In employment, in health insurance cover, and for the generations alive that still carry the social attitudes they grew up with. The shame is still a burden.
Add to that a lot of the research is based on ignoring women and POC.
My dad was a psychiatrist practicing in that time. I can promise you that people you knew went, and not just for severe mental health issues. They just didn't talk about it. I grew up knowing what "the look" was; patients would see me and my mom around (she ran the practice), and either smile a certain way at us, or make brief eye contact and look away and my mom would discreetly do the same. I saw the look a lot.
Part of the equation in America is also the Affordable Care Act passing under Obama. It forced health insurance to cover mental healthcare and prevented them from excluding people on pre-existing conditions. Overnight, tens of millions of people had mental health coverage. Before it passed, I myself was excluded from plans based on having taken antidepressants. After, suddenly I could afford therapy.
And finally, our knowledge of mental health has grown by leaps and bounds since then. One example is schizophrenia. Even in the 80s and early 90s, the cause was still hotly debated, with many prominent researchers and physicians blaming mothers for being cold. (This "refrigerator mother" theory was also used to blame mothers for autism. Mamas, remember to thank Freudian psychology for over a century of being blamed for your kids' problems!) Advanced genetic research finally proved that schizophrenia is genetic.
Imagine the damage all that psychoanalytical, blame-the-neurotic-woman bullshit did to generations of families. No wonder many people hesitated to seek care! They were desperate for help and instead they got blamed and given therapies that were at best useless.
Yeah, I mean if you listen to something like Mother's Little Helper it's preventing the idea that the 'mother' is struggling silently with things whilst relying on tablets to try and get through the day. The issues people had were always there - it's just in the last few years it's so much more talked about and the stigma is practically gone.
Yeah but try getting or keeping a quality job if you explain your social awkwardness and introversion are due to autism. Acceptance in social mental health terms just means "I won't make fun of you for it" meanwhile everyone expects you to behave entirely as though the problem doesn't exist.
I've heard the criterias for autism in women changed a lot in the past decade. And also it used to be that you couldn't be diagnosed with both ADHD and autism.
Sure, the population has grown, but not by 95%. Something else is going on. The internet has consumed us. People log on and get bombarded with every ill society has to offer, and there’s plenty to go around. Tech has been weaponized against us, and it’s crippled a lot of people, especially the young, who are getting hit hardest in this study. Add in billionaires stripping away rights and making it harder than ever to earn a living and prosper, and a doubling in anxiety and depression doesn’t surprise me one bit.
Most likely it is due to greater awareness and acceptance of mental health issues, not some mysterious affliction causing it to double. Look at rates of left-handedness. Left-handedness used to be very rare. Children were being openly punished for being left-handed and forced to use their right hand for everything. When that was finally stopped and lefties were able to just be themselves the rates of LH people grew to about 10% of the population. Archeologists determined that rate was probably the same for ancient people too. Being autistic, having ADHD, depression, whatever, these were all things that people actively tried to hide for fear of being shunned and ridiculed, or worse. That’s not so much the case now since there have been many efforts to raise awareness of mental health issues over the past couple of decades.
Could be both. With the amounts of studies having conclusive evidence that social media and general tech causes mental health issues, and the release of this tech and later social media in 1990. It’s not just that we’re more aware of it and more accepting of it, though that does play a part.
It’s a process chain. As I’ve understood it we may be born with predisposition to certain disorders. While autism isn’t such a disorder (I think), bipolarity is.
These predispositions can be triggered and develop into a disorder by something external, whereas it may have been dormant and gone unnoticed for the entirety of a persons life may they not have been triggered.
So while they don’t directly cause chronic disorders, they may indirectly be a factor to the triggering of a predisposition of a chronic disorder, causing its development. I know there’s studies showing a strong correlation between depression and anxiety disorder, and social media. These disorders are capable of triggering dispositions to other disorders. Eating disorders are another good example.
An example is how someone with a predisposition to schizophrenia may have it triggered by drug use or trauma, and end up with a schizophrenia disorder. Whereas it may have never developed without those external occurrences.
> social media and general tech causes mental health issues,
I don't buy it anymore. 20 years of reading similar claims, seeing the same studies. I don't think the evidence is strong enough to suggest social media is any more dangerous than any other form of media. Proximal cause isn't apparent, attribution error is rampant, personal biases and assumptions are baked in, and a massive spotlight effect is rarely acknowledged; you almost never see studies showing the benefits, such as queer folks and autists finding communities we otherwise wouldn't, because of course you wouldn't.
The reporting is also sensationalized to all hell since "girl commits suicide over MySpace post" generates clicks and said clicks generates interest which fuels the cycle; the scientific community isn't immune to this in its' own way and it's maddening when it happens.
But, these mountains of studies were done, and are now being used to justify mass surveillance and crush free speech and youth rights, and that compels me to point it out. Probably telling you nothing you don't already know, though.
I was actually reading an article that was explaining how what we define as “normal” is actually the minority and the vast majority of humans would be categorized as abnormal; making abnormal the normal..
I wish I could! It was from a paper magazine we used as bathroom material and I can’t seem to remember what it was to save my life. It’s literally been bugging me for years
Edit: the arrival mainly dealt with physical looks but delved into some behavioral traits as well. Basically it was the idea that because each human is unique in their own ways like a fingerprint, there is no absolute normal and instead our “normal” is such a verging range that nobody really fit the standard. The article concluded that because the majority of people are so unique and different from each other the normal with humans is actually abnormal
Many mental disorders are actually from trauma. They get misdiagnosed as schizophrenia or bipolar & people get drugged up to the gills without ever addressing the root cause.
It’s going to get much worse if this isn’t recognized and addressed.
Be curious, not judgmental. Ask questions. See people, not their symptoms.
(FWIW, I have nothing against meds when they’re used judiciously and appropriately. I’m not RFK jr stan)
"It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society"
-Jiddu Krishnamurti
"The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does. They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted."
More people are getting diagnosed with mental illness today than in 1990s. Lots of mental illnesses flew under the radar in the past as personality quirks, instead of being recognized as mental issues.
Just go back to the basics, to the simple life, living in a good environment. It won't solve everything, just make everything infinitely better. The rest you work yourself.
You are either someone who has never had someone close with mental health issues or you’re the pot calling the kettle black & deeply in denial about your own mental condition.
There is value in simple living & nature but if you think it’s a replacement for actual psych med intervention when you have schizophrenia or debilitating panic disorders then you are ignorant to a struggle many families reckon with every week in the US.
RFKJr caught himself recommending black teens be sent to farms to work away addiction & be reparented.
Interesting a legendary failson who spent almost two decades as heroin user who got sober via connections & family money is so keen on being some kind of ultimate authority on addiction.
The “fuck you, I got mine” mentality never fails to disappoint.
Can only speak for myself here. But I find modern life absolutely does fuck with my mental health.
That doesn’t take away from the fact other mental health disorders can originate from someone’s genetics or other internal factors.
Some are mostly internally derived, like schizophrenia, some are mostly externally derived, like PTSD. Some are likely an interplay between internal and external, like depression and anxiety.
Going for regular walks in the woods is unlikely to make any difference whatsoever for someone with schizophrenia. For myself, I find it can help keep depressive episodes at bay, or somewhat abate them if they do strike.
Eledridan | a day ago
Stats I believe.
LVMom | a day ago
In 1990 nobody I knew went to a therapist or psychiatrist unless they were reeeeeal fucked up. Now it’s so common that 90% of people I know see a therapist on a regular basis and probably 25% are on psych meds.
My family has a history of mental illness and I was first prescribed meds for a number of coexisting issues in 1997. This was pre-Internet and mental health issues were stigmatized, but I was so happy to finally be “normal” that I told everybody about my new meds.
I’m so glad that young adults today don’t feel the stigma that used to come with mental illness and can openly talk about their issues.
Lint_baby_uvulla | a day ago
Oh there’s still stigma, just it’s much more covert in areas that still significantly affect a person’s life.
In employment, in health insurance cover, and for the generations alive that still carry the social attitudes they grew up with. The shame is still a burden.
Add to that a lot of the research is based on ignoring women and POC.
I’m sorry, friend. It’s not your fault.
Few-Ambition4072 | a day ago
Thanks for your comment.
Finally something normal among all these declinism posts here.
petit_cochon | a day ago
My dad was a psychiatrist practicing in that time. I can promise you that people you knew went, and not just for severe mental health issues. They just didn't talk about it. I grew up knowing what "the look" was; patients would see me and my mom around (she ran the practice), and either smile a certain way at us, or make brief eye contact and look away and my mom would discreetly do the same. I saw the look a lot.
Part of the equation in America is also the Affordable Care Act passing under Obama. It forced health insurance to cover mental healthcare and prevented them from excluding people on pre-existing conditions. Overnight, tens of millions of people had mental health coverage. Before it passed, I myself was excluded from plans based on having taken antidepressants. After, suddenly I could afford therapy.
And finally, our knowledge of mental health has grown by leaps and bounds since then. One example is schizophrenia. Even in the 80s and early 90s, the cause was still hotly debated, with many prominent researchers and physicians blaming mothers for being cold. (This "refrigerator mother" theory was also used to blame mothers for autism. Mamas, remember to thank Freudian psychology for over a century of being blamed for your kids' problems!) Advanced genetic research finally proved that schizophrenia is genetic.
Imagine the damage all that psychoanalytical, blame-the-neurotic-woman bullshit did to generations of families. No wonder many people hesitated to seek care! They were desperate for help and instead they got blamed and given therapies that were at best useless.
TemporaryElk5202 | a day ago
I can promise you though that way fewer people went than nowadays though, and way fewer people who went were getting diagnosed.
Pandemonium_Fallen | a day ago
Well, we're also simultaneously descending into a toxic Neoreactionary hellscape...
noradosmith | a day ago
Yeah, I mean if you listen to something like Mother's Little Helper it's preventing the idea that the 'mother' is struggling silently with things whilst relying on tablets to try and get through the day. The issues people had were always there - it's just in the last few years it's so much more talked about and the stigma is practically gone.
Gubzs | a day ago
Yeah but try getting or keeping a quality job if you explain your social awkwardness and introversion are due to autism. Acceptance in social mental health terms just means "I won't make fun of you for it" meanwhile everyone expects you to behave entirely as though the problem doesn't exist.
Sea-Word-4970 | a day ago
Stigma still exists. You now have to pretend you can function while being mentally ill
TemporaryElk5202 | a day ago
Yeah absolutely. A lot fewer people had health insurance too.
StuChenko | a day ago
1997 was pre-internet?
FuckYouNotHappening | a day ago
Jfc, you know what they mean 🙄🙄🙄
StuChenko | a day ago
No actually I don't. It's not clear what they're saying there.
ophelia917 | a day ago
The first time I got on the internet was in 1996. It wasn’t widely available or accessible like it is today.
Home computers weren’t as ubiquitous and we didn’t all have cell phones in our pockets.
Stop being a dick.
StuChenko | a day ago
I'm not the one being a dick here. What you said wasn't clear. Internet not being widely available isn't the same as pre internet.
There's absolutely no need for name calling because someone didn't understand when you weren't being clear.
ophelia917 | a day ago
Seems like a lot of people disagree with you on this one, pal.
Have a pleasant day.
Busterlimes | a day ago
Maybe we should realize our system makes people sick. . . . .
pokehustle | 17 hours ago
Easier to profit off you if you're depressed
REXIS_AGECKO | a day ago
Could that have something to do with better testing now than in 1990? Astonishing!
A wise man once said: “if we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any”
Sailor_Propane | a day ago
I've heard the criterias for autism in women changed a lot in the past decade. And also it used to be that you couldn't be diagnosed with both ADHD and autism.
HerbertWest | a day ago
Uhhh, no? Simply because they don't test for the vast majority of psychiatric conditions before treating with therapy or prescribing medication.
RiverRatt | a day ago
Sure, the population has grown, but not by 95%. Something else is going on. The internet has consumed us. People log on and get bombarded with every ill society has to offer, and there’s plenty to go around. Tech has been weaponized against us, and it’s crippled a lot of people, especially the young, who are getting hit hardest in this study. Add in billionaires stripping away rights and making it harder than ever to earn a living and prosper, and a doubling in anxiety and depression doesn’t surprise me one bit.
tvfeet | a day ago
Most likely it is due to greater awareness and acceptance of mental health issues, not some mysterious affliction causing it to double. Look at rates of left-handedness. Left-handedness used to be very rare. Children were being openly punished for being left-handed and forced to use their right hand for everything. When that was finally stopped and lefties were able to just be themselves the rates of LH people grew to about 10% of the population. Archeologists determined that rate was probably the same for ancient people too. Being autistic, having ADHD, depression, whatever, these were all things that people actively tried to hide for fear of being shunned and ridiculed, or worse. That’s not so much the case now since there have been many efforts to raise awareness of mental health issues over the past couple of decades.
Brawlingpanda02 | a day ago
Could be both. With the amounts of studies having conclusive evidence that social media and general tech causes mental health issues, and the release of this tech and later social media in 1990. It’s not just that we’re more aware of it and more accepting of it, though that does play a part.
Sailor_Propane | a day ago
It might cause stuff like addiction, or make stuff like psychosis worse. But it won't cause autism or bipolarity.
Brawlingpanda02 | a day ago
It’s a process chain. As I’ve understood it we may be born with predisposition to certain disorders. While autism isn’t such a disorder (I think), bipolarity is.
These predispositions can be triggered and develop into a disorder by something external, whereas it may have been dormant and gone unnoticed for the entirety of a persons life may they not have been triggered.
So while they don’t directly cause chronic disorders, they may indirectly be a factor to the triggering of a predisposition of a chronic disorder, causing its development. I know there’s studies showing a strong correlation between depression and anxiety disorder, and social media. These disorders are capable of triggering dispositions to other disorders. Eating disorders are another good example.
An example is how someone with a predisposition to schizophrenia may have it triggered by drug use or trauma, and end up with a schizophrenia disorder. Whereas it may have never developed without those external occurrences.
Reagalan | a day ago
> social media and general tech causes mental health issues,
I don't buy it anymore. 20 years of reading similar claims, seeing the same studies. I don't think the evidence is strong enough to suggest social media is any more dangerous than any other form of media. Proximal cause isn't apparent, attribution error is rampant, personal biases and assumptions are baked in, and a massive spotlight effect is rarely acknowledged; you almost never see studies showing the benefits, such as queer folks and autists finding communities we otherwise wouldn't, because of course you wouldn't.
The reporting is also sensationalized to all hell since "girl commits suicide over MySpace post" generates clicks and said clicks generates interest which fuels the cycle; the scientific community isn't immune to this in its' own way and it's maddening when it happens.
But, these mountains of studies were done, and are now being used to justify mass surveillance and crush free speech and youth rights, and that compels me to point it out. Probably telling you nothing you don't already know, though.
Purdue123456 | a day ago
If that were the case deaths of despair would be constant, but they haven’t been (don’t point to recent trends and act like they aren’t a blip)
After_Preference_885 | a day ago
I think the old are getting hit pretty hard too. So many are brainwashed into oblivion.
LKayRB | a day ago
I agree either way everything you said plus, the stigma around mental illness is not what it used to be so more folks are seeking help.
chobolicious88 | a day ago
Its tech, economy and capitalism (competition/vanity).
Even-Buffalo-7179 | 21 hours ago
No I think its just became less stigmatized to seek treatment
Clintax | a day ago
r/emotionalsupportdogs has been growing
Spl00ky | 14 hours ago
And 90% of them are on reddit
jpeetz1 | a day ago
It’s almost as if it’s normal to be abnormal. Everyone else just can’t afford to get diagnosed.
JFISHER7789 | a day ago
I was actually reading an article that was explaining how what we define as “normal” is actually the minority and the vast majority of humans would be categorized as abnormal; making abnormal the normal..
dandy_kulomin | a day ago
Can you link the article? I want to read it.
JFISHER7789 | a day ago
I wish I could! It was from a paper magazine we used as bathroom material and I can’t seem to remember what it was to save my life. It’s literally been bugging me for years
Edit: the arrival mainly dealt with physical looks but delved into some behavioral traits as well. Basically it was the idea that because each human is unique in their own ways like a fingerprint, there is no absolute normal and instead our “normal” is such a verging range that nobody really fit the standard. The article concluded that because the majority of people are so unique and different from each other the normal with humans is actually abnormal
gerningur | a day ago
Could you share it?
JFISHER7789 | a day ago
I doubt it. It was on a real paper magazine I read a few years back as bathroom material lol
I can’t for the life of me remember what it was.
donthate_individuate | 20 hours ago
I like the way this site explains it: https://peripheralmindsofautism.com/presentation/
They pretty much say about 40% of the population would be considered "normal", while the other 60% have "outlier" personalities
Eat_the_radish | a day ago
"Social media."
Willing_Progress_646 | a day ago
Double that for the accurate non reportable numbers
ophelia917 | a day ago
Many mental disorders are actually from trauma. They get misdiagnosed as schizophrenia or bipolar & people get drugged up to the gills without ever addressing the root cause.
It’s going to get much worse if this isn’t recognized and addressed.
Be curious, not judgmental. Ask questions. See people, not their symptoms.
(FWIW, I have nothing against meds when they’re used judiciously and appropriately. I’m not RFK jr stan)
ImBradBramish | a day ago
Only 1.2 billion? This is an underestimate. I think is is closer to 80% of the population. And we all know the reason why.
RestRare3056 | a day ago
I assure you both my parents were also mentally ill In 1990 they just didn’t know it yet.
Massive_Web5709 | 22 hours ago
I am doing my part
Chocolaterationcalls | 22 hours ago
Damn what happened in the 80s which negatively affected western society?
Even-Buffalo-7179 | 21 hours ago
There are probably way more. I think a general re-think about what these disorders “are” is required.
donthate_individuate | 20 hours ago
"It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society"
-Jiddu Krishnamurti
"The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does. They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted."
-Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Successful-Club-8743 | 6 hours ago
Our society is poison to our brains.
dratseb | a day ago
Even POTUS!!
help-its-inside-me | a day ago
The 1.2bn is an estimate, and you alone raise that estimate by over 10 million.
Go touch grass lmao.
Yelesa | a day ago
More people are getting diagnosed with mental illness today than in 1990s. Lots of mental illnesses flew under the radar in the past as personality quirks, instead of being recognized as mental issues.
Sailor_Propane | a day ago
"Autism didn't exist in my time! ... Also, do NOT touch my massive spoon collection."
motorhead84 | a day ago
Is it awareness and acceptance or overdiagnosis and greed?
Think_Dot4246 | a day ago
That's what I think
costafilh0 | a day ago
Modern life 101.
Just go back to the basics, to the simple life, living in a good environment. It won't solve everything, just make everything infinitely better. The rest you work yourself.
Main-Inspection-8605 | a day ago
You are either someone who has never had someone close with mental health issues or you’re the pot calling the kettle black & deeply in denial about your own mental condition.
There is value in simple living & nature but if you think it’s a replacement for actual psych med intervention when you have schizophrenia or debilitating panic disorders then you are ignorant to a struggle many families reckon with every week in the US.
RFKJr caught himself recommending black teens be sent to farms to work away addiction & be reparented.
Interesting a legendary failson who spent almost two decades as heroin user who got sober via connections & family money is so keen on being some kind of ultimate authority on addiction.
The “fuck you, I got mine” mentality never fails to disappoint.
iam-leon | a day ago
Can only speak for myself here. But I find modern life absolutely does fuck with my mental health.
That doesn’t take away from the fact other mental health disorders can originate from someone’s genetics or other internal factors.
Some are mostly internally derived, like schizophrenia, some are mostly externally derived, like PTSD. Some are likely an interplay between internal and external, like depression and anxiety.
Going for regular walks in the woods is unlikely to make any difference whatsoever for someone with schizophrenia. For myself, I find it can help keep depressive episodes at bay, or somewhat abate them if they do strike.