It was a spectacular “summer of women’s power” with a glittering troika. With pink dream houses, songs and sequins, Barbie, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé have revitalized the economy and soared women’s confidence.
So while talking to friends who are sending their daughters off to college, I learned about the pervasive anxiety, SSRIs (serotonin boosters found in drugs like Prozac and Lexapro) flooding campuses and long waits for treatment. Hearing this made me sad.
This is a hot topic among mothers. Her daughter suffers from anxiety and the effects of anti-anxiety drugs, including weight gain and loss of libido. Many young college girls are ping-ponging between anxiety without medication and numbness and body anxiety with medication.
These young women seem to have it all, but are unable to fully enjoy the period of life that should be full of adventure and promise.
“Back to school has always been an exciting time to see where the future is headed—new notebooks, fresh necessities,” said the mother of a friend of a teenage daughter. “But I feel like people are fading away in grief. Everyone’s looking for shrinks instead of sharpened pencils.”
Sung by Billie Eilish in the Barbie movie, “What Was I Made For?” I’ve talked openly about my struggles, suicidal thoughts, self-harming, and suicidal thoughts. Body dysmorphic disorder.
On the surface, the lyrics are about dolls transforming into humans, but 21-year-old Eilish says they also reflect her own tragic journey.
I used to float, now I just fall /
I used to know, but now I don’t know /
what am i made for … /
I don’t know how to feel /
But maybe someday. … /
When did you finish? all the fun /
I’m sad again, don’t tell my boyfriend /
It wasn’t made by him. /
Youth despair has been analyzed a lot in recent years: Harm from social media, envy and conflict, micro-targeting algorithms fueling divisive politics, endless school shootings, coronavirus quarantines, engulfed in flames and floods. A planet that is “never good enough” and a consumer culture, an anxious adult creating a nervous atmosphere, a digitally connected but emotionally disjointed and mentally unstable society.
“Young people take in a lot of disturbing information, and because of digital devices, they, like many of us, take in that information all day, every day,” says “Teenagers’ Emotional said Lisa D’Amour, author of Life.
It goes beyond youth. The Wall Street Journal ran a front-page story stating: A booming business capitalizing on America’s fears “A Google search for ‘anxiety relief’ will bring up links to supplements such as pills, patches, gummies and mouth sprays. There are vibrating devices that hang around the neck to ‘clear the vagus nerve’, weighted stuffed animals, beaded stress balls, and coloring books that claim to calm the mind. “
the cover of Newsweek magazine said, “Climate fear-obsessed generation, don’t lose hope.”The Calm app now includes meditations and lectures on anxiety, including “Felt Piano for Anxiety,” in which a pianist adds felt between the hammers and strings to create a more soothing sound.
Romantic comedies are also affected. In the trailer for What Happens Later starring Meg Ryan and David Duchovny, Duchovny’s character reveals, “I was diagnosed with anticipatory anxiety.”
Lawrence Steinberg, author of You and Your Adult Child, said anxiety spikes among women in their early 20s, when their brains are still plastic.
She said young women and men were distraught by housing costs, climate change, racism and stigma, and young women were also affected by threats to their reproductive health. (Historian Adam Tooes said the world was in “multi-crisis.”)
“Many of my friends who have grown-up children have had to go to therapy because they are so stressed because of their children’s problems,” Steinberg said.
He said coping mechanisms must be taught. “I don’t think you should just hand out medicine and think that it will work,” he says.
Perhaps women, from hunter-gatherer times to Jane Austen novels to Real Housewives, are more emotionally entwined, with an emphasis on conversation, relationships, intimacy, nurturing, and feminine community. Because it is placed, it will receive a bigger hit.
A friend’s 19-year-old daughter, who was on Prozac for a while, explained: All we could do was indulge in TikTok, which is full of misinformation. The outside world was apocalyptic, but the home world was also a little bit apocalyptic. Because we were losing our sense of ourselves. “
But when she texted her mother on Friday, she said: Women tend to make it happen. – This article was originally published on new york times.
