Generation Y: The state of millennials’ mental health
Lately, I’ve been very into psychology and mental health issues. It started when I found out how many of my friends are going to therapy sessions and they aren’t able to handle their problems on theirs own.
“Lonely, burned out and depressed” — this is what I’ve read recently in one of the articles about Millennials’ mental health. And while thinking about all my friends and people around me, I just can’t disagree with this statement.
I’ve noticed we all have different problems, some of us with work, some with studies, some, and probably most of us with our private life. But I feel like it doesn’t matter what is the source of the problem — we all struggle with the same effects of it. We are all tired, burned out, depressed. We drink too much alcohol and take soft drugs just to feel “better” for a while and run away from our everyday problems only for one night. I’m not able to count how many of my mates are taking medications for depression or anxiety. Just because we feel the pressure, to have better job than others, make many projects at the same time, study, learn four languages, work, doing voluntary and besides that have time for our pleasures. But most of us don’t have a moment for ourselves. During my bachelor studies I didn’t read any book besides those for exams, I didn’t watch movies, I stopped spending my Sundays in the art galleries and museums. All the things that I loved before just fade away from my life just because I was too busy to have at least one hour in a week for myself and my pleasantness.
I started to analyze, is it only my environment or my generation is like that? Unfortunately, it seems like it’s a global problem. I can point out the most common reasons of the millennials’ worries, which are longer work hours and stagnant wages, unprecedented challenges including political and economic uncertainty, global warming, rapid technological change — yes, it also counts, smartphone is our third hand. We check social media every two minutes and have high expectations set by social media. When it turns out that our life is not an Instagram post — we’re getting disappointed and sadder day by day. Living far away from family and the lack of community also have an impact. And in my honest opinion, my generation is overwhelmed by too many options and opportunities and we actually can’t decide what we really want to do in our lives, where we want to live and, first of all, how do we want to live.
The effect of this processes is simple: we are depressed, always tired, burnout and we struggle with anxiety. The scale of this phenomenon is enormous. What scares me too, is the fact that it is also related to the kids more and more often. Increasingly you can read articles about teenagers commit suicide because they have too much on their heads in such a young age and the pressure is so high, but their parents usually don’t see their difficulties.
The good thing is that my generation is more likely to talk about this, this is not a taboo subject anymore. Nowadays, especially in big cities, it’s completely normal to see a therapist once a week or talk about various problems out loud. We have to remember that mental disorders is not something to be ashamed about. We can’t only forget to ask for help when it’s not too late.
Paulina Górska
Global Shapers Warsaw Hub
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