As a 77 year old geezer, I have some experience with anxiety, being the veteran of three panic attacks, one of which had to do with Bradycardia (having your heart stop for 16 seconds while on the monitor machines at an ER does tend to add some stress hormones to the mix).
However, physiological causes aside, I am of the studied opinion that the majority of these young anxiety suffering folks have a valid NON-MEDICAL, NON-MENTAL DISEASE reason for anxiety issues at a much higher percentage of their cohort than Boomer fossils like me. The DSM is completely out in left field in it's zeal to to try to brand this "epidemic" of anxiety as some kind of "disorder", rather than viewing it as the normal reaction to the systemic wrongs now embedded in our economy because of the business community's enthusiastic embrace, over the last 70 years or so, of Anti-Christian Social Darwinist Ideology. For example, as a Christian I firmly believe that homosexuals are, as anyone who disobeys Scriptural Commands, sinners, period. I remember when the DSM called homosexuality a "disorder", do you? The shrinks like to make up a lot of this stuff along the way. However, decrying social ills caused by the system itself is somehow absent from psychiatric perview. As "agents of control" in society, Mental Health professionals have a duty to do that, but they are adroit at shirking it. I am not holding my breath waiting for them to find fault with the system that provided these "Agents of Social Control" with their Mental Health Expert credentials.
Brother Edwin, even a person with a proper grounding in Christianity will experience anxiety in this "Brave New World of Greed is Good" Dystopia the young are now saddled with. Those without that grounding, which is most of the young in the USA at this time, cannot but suffer in much greater numbers.
I read a comment today that basically lays out, with some well placed satire thrown in at the end, the problem anyone who longs for some sort of job security faces, that my generation never had to grapple with. Eliott Eldrich's comment explains to an objective observer why our economic system is the main cause of the increase in anxiety. People without job security in a world where caring for the health and welfare of others is considered a "weakness" (a basic tenet of Social Darwinist Ideology), are mentally ill if they DO NOT suffer from chronic, debilitating anxiety!
Eliott Eldrich:
QUOTE: '1970's America: "If you work 40 hours a week you'll have enough to buy a house, a new car every couple of years, support a wife and children, and have a nice vacation every year."
1980's America: "If you and your wife work 40 hours a week, you'll have enough to buy a house, a new car every few years, and a nice vacation every year."
1990's America: "If you and your wife work 90-100 hours a week, you'll have enough to rent a decent place, keep your car running while you save for a new one, and maybe a vacation every couple of years or so."
2000's America: "If your household works at least 100 hours a week you'll be able to rent a semi-decent place, buy a decent used car, and a nice staycation every year."
2010's America: "If your household works at least 100 hours a week you'll be able to keep a roof over your head and reasonably edible food in the fridge, and keep your old used car running well enough to be able to go to work."
2020's America: "Forget ever owning a home, forget having a nice place, forget having a nice car, consider yourself lucky to have a roof over your head."
Gosh, and now, for some mysterious reason, people "just don't want to work any longer." Golly gee, I just can't imagine why that is. UNQUOTE
As a Christian, I cannot help but observe that Holy Scripture condemns the morally bankrupt Social Darwinist Worldview so embraced by the business community, some of them (SEE: Orwell) claim to be "Christians".
Isaiah condemned the tenets of Social Darwinism many centuries before the atheist Darwin dreamed up his 'Apex Predator' "justification" for whatevah:
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that count darkness as light, and light as darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! ... ...
who justify the wicked for a reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him! -- Isaiah 5:20 and 23
More Scriptural Light from Proverbs 17:15 and Habakkuk 1:4 on the deleterious effects of the socially destructive ideolgical modus operandi of the morally bankrupt on the populace:
Anyone claiming to be a "Christian" that runs his business and his life according calloused, uncaring, Mammon worshipping Social Darwinism is not now, or ever was, a Christian.
Therefore to him that knoweth how to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. -- James 4:17
It's the Social Darwinism, not our youth. So, if the systemic fault is not corrected, it will get worse. God is not mocked.
Anxiety is a killer for sure....almost got me!
As a 77 year old geezer, I have some experience with anxiety, being the veteran of three panic attacks, one of which had to do with Bradycardia (having your heart stop for 16 seconds while on the monitor machines at an ER does tend to add some stress hormones to the mix).
However, physiological causes aside, I am of the studied opinion that the majority of these young anxiety suffering folks have a valid NON-MEDICAL, NON-MENTAL DISEASE reason for anxiety issues at a much higher percentage of their cohort than Boomer fossils like me. The DSM is completely out in left field in it's zeal to to try to brand this "epidemic" of anxiety as some kind of "disorder", rather than viewing it as the normal reaction to the systemic wrongs now embedded in our economy because of the business community's enthusiastic embrace, over the last 70 years or so, of Anti-Christian Social Darwinist Ideology. For example, as a Christian I firmly believe that homosexuals are, as anyone who disobeys Scriptural Commands, sinners, period. I remember when the DSM called homosexuality a "disorder", do you? The shrinks like to make up a lot of this stuff along the way. However, decrying social ills caused by the system itself is somehow absent from psychiatric perview. As "agents of control" in society, Mental Health professionals have a duty to do that, but they are adroit at shirking it. I am not holding my breath waiting for them to find fault with the system that provided these "Agents of Social Control" with their Mental Health Expert credentials.
Brother Edwin, even a person with a proper grounding in Christianity will experience anxiety in this "Brave New World of Greed is Good" Dystopia the young are now saddled with. Those without that grounding, which is most of the young in the USA at this time, cannot but suffer in much greater numbers.
I read a comment today that basically lays out, with some well placed satire thrown in at the end, the problem anyone who longs for some sort of job security faces, that my generation never had to grapple with. Eliott Eldrich's comment explains to an objective observer why our economic system is the main cause of the increase in anxiety. People without job security in a world where caring for the health and welfare of others is considered a "weakness" (a basic tenet of Social Darwinist Ideology), are mentally ill if they DO NOT suffer from chronic, debilitating anxiety!
Eliott Eldrich:
QUOTE: '1970's America: "If you work 40 hours a week you'll have enough to buy a house, a new car every couple of years, support a wife and children, and have a nice vacation every year."
1980's America: "If you and your wife work 40 hours a week, you'll have enough to buy a house, a new car every few years, and a nice vacation every year."
1990's America: "If you and your wife work 90-100 hours a week, you'll have enough to rent a decent place, keep your car running while you save for a new one, and maybe a vacation every couple of years or so."
2000's America: "If your household works at least 100 hours a week you'll be able to rent a semi-decent place, buy a decent used car, and a nice staycation every year."
2010's America: "If your household works at least 100 hours a week you'll be able to keep a roof over your head and reasonably edible food in the fridge, and keep your old used car running well enough to be able to go to work."
2020's America: "Forget ever owning a home, forget having a nice place, forget having a nice car, consider yourself lucky to have a roof over your head."
Gosh, and now, for some mysterious reason, people "just don't want to work any longer." Golly gee, I just can't imagine why that is. UNQUOTE
As a Christian, I cannot help but observe that Holy Scripture condemns the morally bankrupt Social Darwinist Worldview so embraced by the business community, some of them (SEE: Orwell) claim to be "Christians".
Isaiah condemned the tenets of Social Darwinism many centuries before the atheist Darwin dreamed up his 'Apex Predator' "justification" for whatevah:
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that count darkness as light, and light as darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! ... ...
who justify the wicked for a reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him! -- Isaiah 5:20 and 23
More Scriptural Light from Proverbs 17:15 and Habakkuk 1:4 on the deleterious effects of the socially destructive ideolgical modus operandi of the morally bankrupt on the populace:
https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-170422173054-7752327.jpeg
Anyone claiming to be a "Christian" that runs his business and his life according calloused, uncaring, Mammon worshipping Social Darwinism is not now, or ever was, a Christian.
Therefore to him that knoweth how to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. -- James 4:17
It's the Social Darwinism, not our youth. So, if the systemic fault is not corrected, it will get worse. God is not mocked.