From this article by Maria Popova:
"Few people today would dispute that chronic stress is a hallmark of our times or that anxiety has become a kind of cultural condition of modernity."
"...anxiety and its related psychoemotional disorders turn out to be the most common, prevalent, and undertreated form of clinically classified mental illness today, even more common than depression."
Popova quotes from Scott Stossel, the editor of Atlantic Magazine and the author of My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind:
"According to the National Institute of Mental Health, some forty million Americans, nearly one in seven of us, are suffering from some kind of anxiety disorder at any given time, accounting for 31 percent of the expenditures on mental health care in the United States. According to recent epidemiological data, the “lifetime incidence” of anxiety disorder is more than 25 percent — which, if true, means that one in four of us can expect to be stricken by debilitating anxiety at some point in our lifetimes. And it is debilitating: Recent academic papers have argued that the psychic and physical impairment tied to living with an anxiety disorder is equivalent to living with diabetes — usually manageable, sometimes fatal, and always a pain to deal with."
Our capability for instant communication via the internet and social media is a photomultiplier of anxiety. Not that we don't have plenty to be anxious about. Everything from gun violence to terrorism to climate change to economic instability, and a lot more.
I read an article yesterday about how the phenomenon of helicopter parenting is an expression of anxiety. People are so afraid that their children will be among the "have-nots", economically and educationally, that they leave nothing to chance. A carefree childhood is a luxury they can't afford.
And of course our political scene right now is an expression of anxiety.
Anxiety can paralyze us, or push us in the opposite direction. An example is the justifiable anxiety about climate change. One reaction is a feeling of hopelessness; that whatever action we take is futile. The opposite is an extremist reaction I read in a comments section (usually a mistake!). This person's opinion was that what we really need is a good hard epidemic. You know, like the bubonic plague in the middle ages which killed a third of the population of Europe.
For the sake of our collective mental health we need to step back and breathe.
I would close with Reinhold Niebuhr's Serenity Prayer:
"God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next."
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next."
I didn't know Niebuhr wrote that. Probably after a good dinner.
ReplyDeleteSeveral years ago, I started getting what I called "weirdo attacks". I would initiate conversation with somebody and suddenly had this strange sensation I could only loosely describe as being screwed into the ceiling. I finally figured it was the stress from my friend Charlie sick from pancreatic cancer. They were panic attacks sans heart rate elevation. Once Charlie went into hospice, they went away.
ReplyDeleteStanley, I can relate to that. I had some "weirdo attacks" after my mom was diagnosed with lymphoma. It was already stage 4, and she only lasted about 6 months after that. We family members were bitter at the time that multiple doctors had not diagnosed it earlier. But I came to believe that maybe that was a mercy, since it wasn't a curable kind, particular in an older person. An earlier diagnosis may have only prolonged her suffering.
DeleteKatherine, and now modern medicine gives us stressful choices we never had to make before.
DeleteCapitalism is an anxiety-inducing economic system. Better jobs in other places break up neighborhoods and scatter families -- the kind of backstops people would have in less profit-driven societies. When you know so many people -- not Wilbur Ross, of course, who can borrow and not pay back, but large numbers of people who are not Wilbur Ross -- are living paycheck-to-paycheck you understand anxiety. Every cough may be an auger of "something more." Getting rear-ended while driving from one job to another can blast a huge hole in the family budget, and it's not going to be the landlord's problem. Start out with student loans, and it's downhill from there unless you make partner quickly.
ReplyDeleteIn the Bible, people were exhorted to care for widows and orphans. But in capitalist American, we had to end welfare as the widows and orphans knew it. And, having done that, we are told by one political party that we haven't ended enough yet.
Yeah, it can make a person anxious.
Tom, yes, I know what you're saying, about families getting scattered. I wish we could have continued raising our kids in our hometown, where our families lived. But the job moved, so we had to move. Three different times. A couple of those times the company went under and we had to find something else. The alternative would have been, I don't kbow, parking a trailer house on my dad's land, my husband working for the implement dealer and me waiting tables at the truck stop. Our kids wouldn't have gone to college, and wouldn't have met their wives. Or probably it would have been different wives. Mobility isn't always bad.
DeleteIan Marcus Corbin has a piece that speaks to the general anxiety/hopelessness/depression in society. It struck me that shame and guilt for not measuring up are at the heart of the matter.
ReplyDeleteAs a lower income person, I was struck with this line, and plan to make it a Lenten reflection:
"No society is decent if it cannot draw a picture of a life well lived in a small, unattractive house."
Whole article here:
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/somewhere-else
I read the article, and agree with the part that, "No society is decent if it cannot draw a picture of a life well lived in a small, unattractive house." However I thought Mr. Corbin painted an overly pessimistic picture of small town life.
DeleteI thought it was pretty accurate from where I stand. But it challenged me to think more about what it means to have a life well-lived and to help others do so.
DeleteI have fought anxiety throughout my adult life. I have never taken meds for it, however, as I saw anti-anxiety and anti-depression meds totally destroy the health of one of my sibs.
ReplyDeleteI fight anxiety with meditation (Centering Prayer) instead, and it works pretty well as long as I keep it up. My anxiety has primarily been focused on my husband,and our children, especially when they were still at home, while they were growing up. Now I worry about them AND about our four grandchildren as well. The fifth is due in July, so I will have another one to worry about.
I especially worry about what kind of country our bi-racial eldest grandchild will face. He has a latte complexion and is seen as African American by society, and even though there is also some discrimination and hate directed towards Asian Americans (against anyone who isn't white), I don't fear for our bi-racial Viet Namese-Euro American grandchildren as much as I do for our Jamaican-American grandson. Fortunately, all of our bi-racial grandchildren live in California, where people pay far less attention to racial differences in general, and are generally far less bothered by mixed-race families than are some in other parts of the country.
My biggest source of anxiety now is Trump - who encourages racism, hyping crimes by mid-east "terrorsits" in the US (of which there have been very, very few), and by immigrants from Latin America (a lower crime rate than native born Americans), while totally ignoring white supremacist terrorists, of whom we have far too many who kill far too many. Thank God the Coast Guard guy planning to attack Trump's enemies in the media and Congress was stupid enough to use his work computer, so another potential tragedy was averted. I am made very anxious also by the Trump administration as a whole - as Margaret notes in another thread, the idiots are in charge. They are idiots indeed.
Anne, I feel for you and anyone suffering from anxiety. I had it myself as a child, and as an adult during the time I worked for a toxic boss. Thankfully I got better when I found a better work situation. Anxiety can literally suck all the joy out of life.
DeleteI also have family members who suffer from it. I know the meds don't work for everyone, and sometimes the side effects are unbearable. But the two people in question are doing a lot better since they found the right meds. It complicates matters that anxiety is frequently misdiagnosed as depression. And then the wrong meds are prescribed, making a bad situation worse.
If people can make things such as meditation work for them, they are probably better off without the pharmaceuticals. And meditation is free.
I think there is a difference between physiological and situational anxiety/depression. I had what I assume was post-partum depression, and meds probably would have helped. I had no concentration ability, so I could not have meditated or prayed my way out.
ReplyDeleteSituational anxiety and depression come from toxic people and situations. I am not all that high on Al-Anon, but I have found that the way I deal with Trump and his works is not a whole lot different from the way a 12-step program taught me to deal with the family drunks.
I suppose there aren't many people that aren't debilitated by anxiety at least a few times in their lives.
ReplyDeleteI don't claim this is a panacea for everyone, but I find that facing my issues with courage and resolve keeps my anxiety manageable. Not that it's always easy to dig up courage and resolve.
When you find out where to dig those up, let me know! I have found that sometimes simply making a decision helps anxiety. I suppose maybe that is part of courage and resolve.
DeleteAnxiety and depression are illnesses in which you cannot muster courage or resolve.
DeleteMichael Gerson gave a sermon at the National Cathedral about his depression recently, which was covered on the NewsHour. His description of what happens in a depressive phase seemed on the nose.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/read-michael-gersons-sermon-sharing-his-struggle-with-depression
I was glad he "came out" because so many Christians seem to feel that depression is tantamount to the sin of despair, an affront God and the miracle of life.
He makes it clear that real, physiological depression cannot be toughed out. Or prayed or meditated out. Depressive phases may pass, but not because you've hit on the right frame of mind.
I had read the Michael Gerson piece. Yes, it took a lot of courage to come out about his condition. There is still a social stigma attached to seeking treatment for mental illness, but sometimes it is literally a matter of life and death.
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