We tend to present everything in our time and place as being new. Some are yes but most have always existed but simply were not reported, documented, labeled, understood.
I wonder if anxiety doesn't fall in the latter category.
So you're not a "10" in every which way. But you're probably pretty spectacular in some way, and definitely good enough in most areas of life. If ever there were a time to stop beating yourself up for being human, it is now.
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The true voice of America – the spirit of the age – speaks from its lowest register; the bottom, where anxiety dwells.
Everyone reading this is familiar with anxiety; it is part of the human condition. We are fragile, we are mortal, and we know it. Loss is inevitable. But occasional existential anxiety does not compare with today’s galloping epidemic of anxiety.
Anxiety disorder affects some 40 million adult Americans. And for every person with a diagnosed disorder, there are so many more who struggle with some of anxiety’s symptoms – sleep problems, worries that won’t cease, fear and uneasiness, or shortness of breath.
As bad as the rate of anxiety disorders is among adults, its prevalence among children is even more worrisome: 38% of girls between the ages of 13 and 17, and 26% of boys have an anxiety disorder, according to the National Institutes of Mental Health. Anxiety is the most common mental health concern on college campuses today. With anxiety so widespread, is it any wonder that we’re seeing college students who demand “safe spaces," and trigger warnings?
The epidemic of anxiety is not just a mental health issue, but it is also cultural pathology. Our way of life promotes anxiety and its consequences. Anxiety makes us fearful. It makes us irritable and therefore easily – and excessively – prone to anger. Fear and anger are powerful antagonists to reason and reflection. They grab us by our primitive brain and urge us to “fight, flee or freeze."
News media, social media and political leaders command our attention with outrage and alarm. The media’s daily reminders to be very afraid and politicians’ apocalyptic rhetoric reverberate throughout the Internet, keeping our anxiety at a constant high level. Today’s drumbeat of anxiety is so effective that 76% of Americans say they fear political violence, according to the latest Rasmussen survey.
The nation’s epidemic of opioid addiction is part of the picture, as well. Facilitated by oversupply and other factors, opioid abuse is also linked to anxiety disorders.
In healthy societies, people maintain their emotional balance within supportive and reliable institutions. Strong families and neighborhoods, religious communities, stable occupations, reliable government safety nets…all these help keep anxiety at bay. They keep us grounded.
Today, all these institutions are weakened. Families are smaller, the divorce rate is higher, mainstream church attendance is down, more people identify religiously as “none." Young people are challenged with a hookup culture in a world of fluid gender identities and roles.
Our work lives are increasingly less reliable as a source of stability. They are characterized by change and disruption which, although they might offer opportunity, do not provide stability. Working people and their families live with the knowledge that if they get sick or injured severely enough to be unable to work, the result can be homelessness for those without a safety net.
The true voice of America – the spirit of the age – must find a way to expand beyond its lowest register where anxiety dwells.
But individuals with anxiety disorders don’t have to wait. You don’t have to struggle alone. Let someone know what you’re dealing with. Confide in a trusted friend or relative. Turn off your screens and walk in the park. Smile at the people you pass.
Consult a psychotherapist for effective treatment.
We tend to present everything in our time and place as being new. Some are yes but most have always existed but simply were not reported, documented, labeled, understood.
I wonder if anxiety doesn't fall in the latter category.
I think people throughout time have experienced tremendous anxiety, but it was simply not studied, reported or talked about much. Life was very hard and experienced in poverty for the majority of the populations.
Imagine living during the years of the bubonic plague where you see mass depopulations, social instability and horrible ways of dying, or in ancient cultures where large parts of the populations were not considered citizens, or where physical torture what part of parcel of life. Where there was no medical services, where one paid tribute to the royalty, and the biggest threat to a woman's life was childbirth. Heck, reading a Charles Dicken's novel makes me appreciate how we live today. Imagine, outside of town you see citizens convicted of sedition nailed to crosses as punishment, left hanging for all the world to see.
When viewed through the lens of bloody human history, living in today's world seems almost antiseptic and quite cushy!
"In healthy societies, people maintain their emotional balance within supportive and reliable institutions. Strong families and neighborhoods, religious communities, stable occupations, reliable government safety nets…all these help keep anxiety at bay. They keep us grounded."
No offense but I think you're conflating past reality with Leave it to Beaver/Mayberry reruns. Life has always been a crap shoot. Personally I think the 'more anxiety' today is simply higher expectations.
Most with this anxiety are well fed, well housed, well clothed, and, well everything. We in the US have never ever had it so good and I think it's quite telling that the loudest 'safe space' voices are also the most privileged, ie students at Ivy League Unis. I mean that should just really be telling us a whole lot right there, dontcha think?
Therefore, there is no 'spirit of the age' but rather a whole heaping lot of entitlement and easy life circumstances paired with a whole lot of 'othering' indoctrination and young people trying to be relevant in a world of 7+billion people.
I mean come on please - when 'poverty' is associated with obesity and outdated cell phones ... ???
Your post is about the privileged. If being privileged in a 1st world country is just too hard for them then that is brattiness gone viral. Nothing more.
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