Middle ages were tough. I don't know much about it but, for a start, just living without medications, pain killers and dentistry today sounds rough enough. I am sure people had very difficult lives, there is no doubt about it. However, I am wondering, was depression and anxiety on such high level as today? Were people so apathetic, anxious, sad and lonely as people today? I hope some history research can find that out.
Why people today are so depressed, lonely and sad? As an individual I can only guess, as everyone has their own reasons and their own circumstances. Life is never easy. Problem could be...
We have too much information
We know too much. We know everything about all diseases, we can even search our own symptoms which only provoke further anxieties. Sure, it could save lives, sometimes, but in majority of cases it will cause a lot of unnecessary anxiety and fear. We also have access to all news. A lot of portals, news and tabloids live and feed on scandals and spreading panic, but some also just want to warn us of what is happening, albeit that is almost always fruitless effort. We can approach and read daily doses of dark prognosis for humanity and our planet (some of it unfortunately close to truth), dark numbers of sick people, dark truths about state of ecology of our planet, wars and reportages of what one human can do to another to make you sick in the stomach etc. We can also see dark, dark sides of human nature where people torture other people or innocent animals, where lives are sold as nothing, where people bully some individuals to get them to the edge, and most of all, people hiding behind their internet persona uncovering their worst sides which now we can see. We can clearly see now how much hate is in this world, how much meaningless fights, meaningless hatred, anger and sadness is all around us, how many truly scary or truly sad people are out there. It's not something that is good for our mental health.
We are constantly reminded what we are missing
Of course, there is the other side. People who seemingly have it all. Beautiful people, impossibly great, meaningful lives, happy couples and group of friends that remind us how alone we are, people who did something great and meaningful in life which makes us feel useless and like we didn't try hard enough, even though we did or we don't need to. It constantly reminds us that there are people who are rich, beautiful and lucky, people who are successful and how that all should be most important thing in our lives. This is devastating for most people who feel like they didn't achieve what they wanted. Instead of giving those people more chances in lives, instead of trying to make world better place and giving a chance to everyone to feel achieved and successful, we are forced to think that there are only few ways to be "important" and "achieved" and it sucks! Instagram, tabloids, people showing off in multiple ways, people showing their immense beauty which is now forced upon us as one of the values individual "must have", it all makes us feel "not enough". A lot of people feel unnecessarily "ugly" or "useless" or "not achieved", just because they compare themselves to all internet "stars" who seemingly have it all.
We compare
Socializing is in really bad state
The fact is, people don't socialize as they used to. We see people who are great friends in movies and sitcoms, and it feels like that would be great having in real life, but when you don't have it you can't help but to feel something is wrong with you. Why your life is not like life of influencers or like life in tv shows? Where are your trusty friends? The truth is, most of us are so scared of rejection in real life that we all live online, hoping we will find our group of friends or partner which never happens. Because internet is not life. Because you have to be outside meeting people to have friends, but that doesn't happen anymore, especially for people who are not in their 20s anymore. With aging it just gets more and more difficult. People also have low threshold of what they can tolerate. Most people think they can always "do better", because this world gives us that illusion and people are prone to prejudices to others and judging on the spot without getting into knowing someone for real.
It's exceptionally hard for introverts, because they lack socializing capabilities to start with. You need to actually approach someone and keep their interest and that is too much work. If you have low confidence you won't even try. You will just stay alone and suffer. And others will not help because people now have so many options to keep their interests, so many ways to meet other people, no one needs you. They can do whatever.
People are very lonely, more than ever.
You know too much bad stuff about people and world around us
It's so easy to hide online. It's so much easier to post hateful, ugly messages, to spread hate and to bully others. You can pretty safely be misogynistic, racist, nationalist, hateful and deeply intolerant of everything you personally "don't believe in". You can be really ugly if you want. And everyone can see all that ugliness, hate, prejudices, ignorance, even pure evil. We now know those people exist, and they are all around us, they are hidden between us. You are fully aware there is someone who hates you just because you are, for example, born as a woman. Or born as certain nationality. Or whatever. You are aware more than ever that there are dozens of meaningless wars and fights around the world because everything is online. You are aware of crimes, you degeneracy, everything! More than you want.
We have only illusion of help
Helping someone who is depressed or has other problems should come from friends and family and people who care, a lot. Sometimes, that's not possible and then help should be provided by professional. But that's not always the option. It's not easy to find the right professional, although in theory, every educated person in that area should be "the right professional". But, we all had experience with therapists or psychiatrists that we just didn't feel like it was working for us. And it costs money and our time! So, help is not always easy to find. Sometimes, and maybe this is just my experience, even professionals can't find the way to help you and you are feeling like you are just wasting your time and money. Sometimes, they just make loads of prescriptions for various meds as solution for all my problems. You can reach, ask for help, but in real world, you just might reach into empty space.
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