Is older generation more mentally ill or the same?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. It's always been this way but people went along with things and used denial. There was significant shame around mental illness and addiction so people hid it or lied about it. There was also no language to talk about some behaviors we know more about today (i.e., PTSD) and people "kept it in the family."

People were also ashamed to get divorced so they stayed in marriages they should not have or made up stories. In my family there were great aunts who remarried after they left their husbands or their husbands left them and they moved to different states. They claimed to be widows. My grandmother never uttered a peep about that. I only know from doing genealogy. These husbands were still alive and there were no divorces. I think in many ways society was more sick in the past.

I agree. I think it was the same if not far worse. I’ll volunteer my messed up family as an example.

My family and DH’s family have always had heaps of mental illness, but in the past there were euphemisms, early death, and shame to keep it quiet. His side has a host of distant relatives overseas who sort of disappeared and eft kids with other people’s families and they’d just pretend to be additional cousins. And some people on his side who have been hospitalized after interventions probably would have successfully taken their own lives or “gone missing” way back in the day.

In my side, people who were a bit troubled also went into the army or were sent out west to work in a way that is less accessible to that population now. Drinking as self-medication was also far easier to hide in the drinking culture of the day. A lot of those people in my family (male cousins and siblings of my grandparents) would probably be using drugs and living on the streets now.

On my side you can also find depressed people who drank themselves to death while everyone quietly looked the other way and called it a heart attack or old age at the end. Plus people who may have had schizophrenia or been bipolar and could not work consistently but were a step above indigent because life was cheap enough to live in a 1bdr/1ba house across the tracks with a small garden and occasional family help.

I have a relative who spend years in and out of Hazelden back when it first opened, but everyone talked about it like it had been a fishing trip to Minnesota. As a kid I actually though Hazelden was a fancy resort and couldn’t figure out why no one else in our family got to go there.

[Anonymous]

I think the boomer generation is both hugely entitled and also has never been asked to be accountable for their own actions and emotions for some reason.
eg my therapist sent me a link recently to an explanation on cognitive distortions. I shared it with my mom and said something like 'helpful!' My mom has OCD/ OCPD, black and white thinking, catastrophic thinking, generalized anxiety and possible borderline personality disorder traits. She just said 'oh this doesn't apply to you or i'.
same with my dad who is clearly depressed but would never even consider thinking he is depressed.
It is hugely annoying. Why do you both get to be babies in denial? Grow up and take responsibility for your behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think we are more self-aware with each generation, and are learning to be better humans. But that also means we look back on earlier generations and think, “Whoa, that was actually kinda messed up.”

Huh. I’m not seeing this at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think we are more self-aware with each generation, and are learning to be better humans. But that also means we look back on earlier generations and think, “Whoa, that was actually kinda messed up.”

Huh. I’m not seeing this at all.

probably because you are an older generation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think people, of every generation, have always just been people. More or less the same as the people before them.

The intergenerational comparison/fight that society seems to want to push is really alien to me. It's astrology for boring people.

+1

This is also an example of how many on the east coast have no religious affinity, religious community, or religious understanding.

If you did, you’d know more history of mankind from your Torah, Bible, or Koran studies.

And you’d know that we humans were always messed up and trying to do better for the mentally ill, corrupt, and indigent.
You’d know that basic human nature is power and greed. To combat that and out others first, came religion. You are part of something bigger than yourself, and your power and greed.
So do better and be better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think part of it is the more we talk about mental health issues, the more everyone wants to diagnose their relatives. Calling everyone a narcissist seems like more of a cultural trend than a health phenomenon.

+1

It’s like no here ever actually studied history either, not western civ, eastern civ and definitely not the Three Great Religions in liberal assets core. Or any good books.

The cast of characters, good and bad, and mentally ill, has been the same for 1000s of years.

Even Mice & Men or Laura Ingalls wilder touches on the mentally ill of then. Doomed to a life of crime or living in Mama’s house staying out of trouble….

Almost every regime change in China every 20 years presented a basket case leader up for vote.

[Anonymous]

Ha, * liberal arts core

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are the generation that thinks therapists and meds are for the crazies. My mom's friends who actually got therapy and even took meds if needed have great relationships with their adult children. (I know about their therapy and meds and even their past abortions and far more because my mom has no boundaries). The ones who got help don't expect their children to solve or make up for their problems rescue them. My mother and her friends who don't get help when needed all have varying degrees of estrangement from at least 1 adult child and a lot of dramatics with other family and/or friends and/or spouses.

This. Therapy is for other people not for us was their motto. I feel for them because my anxiety meds and therapy are making my life much better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think we are more self-aware with each generation, and are learning to be better humans. But that also means we look back on earlier generations and think, “Whoa, that was actually kinda messed up.”

Huh. I’m not seeing this at all.

Me either. Seems to be getting worse. I figure there are upswings and downswings, and society as a whole is in a downswing the last few decades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Calling everyone a narcissist seems like more of a cultural trend than a health phenomenon.

Most definitely it is a buzzword of actual narcissists. I immediately disregard and avoid anyone who uses the word in any unironical
and serious way.

[Anonymous]

Mental illness has always been there, of course more stigmatized and hidden (grandma locked up in the attic, etc.) in the past.

What I do think is different now is cable news and social outlets — the Bowling Alone aspect. My grandparents were middle class but had bridge and shuffleboard tournaments and little parties with their friends all the time. My parents, though, basically turned on the TV at retirement and have let their brains atrophy from CNN and Fox News since then. Perhaps it’s not a diagnosable mental illness but sometimes it sure feels like it. They are lonely and angry and don’t know how not to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the boomer generation is both hugely entitled and also has never been asked to be accountable for their own actions and emotions for some reason.
eg my therapist sent me a link recently to an explanation on cognitive distortions. I shared it with my mom and said something like 'helpful!' My mom has OCD/ OCPD, black and white thinking, catastrophic thinking, generalized anxiety and possible borderline personality disorder traits. She just said 'oh this doesn't apply to you or i'.
same with my dad who is clearly depressed but would never even consider thinking he is depressed.
It is hugely annoying. Why do you both get to be babies in denial? Grow up and take responsibility for your behavior.

I agree with this. Few struggles so they don't relate to struggle. They are also on the decline so their behavior is worse than others but also just a stark difference from the generations before them that had to struggle more. I also feel like they are trying to make up for the addictions they exacerbated in their youth by being more conservative now but this time are saying its not them but another generation. Maybe because they were treated that way themselves and are just imitating what their parents did.
. Like they take no responsibility for the hippie times that helped bring about all this change and drugs they now don't like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mental illness has always been there, of course more stigmatized and hidden (grandma locked up in the attic, etc.) in the past.

What I do think is different now is cable news and social outlets — the Bowling Alone aspect. My grandparents were middle class but had bridge and shuffleboard tournaments and little parties with their friends all the time. My parents, though, basically turned on the TV at retirement and have let their brains atrophy from CNN and Fox News since then. Perhaps it’s not a diagnosable mental illness but sometimes it sure feels like it. They are lonely and angry and don’t know how not to be.

Yikes.

Yeah, lack for friends and community so resort to isolation and screens. Not good for society.

[Anonymous]

That might just be money. The people I know are very wealthy and go out all the time with each other but still don't seem to grow in any way.

[Anonymous]

Teenagers are narcissists. It’s up to the parents (and society) to make them grow out of it.