There’s much to be said on the generational differences in our societies. I don’t think enough weight is properly put on how much different it can be growing up one generation to the next. Especially with the extreme technological advances we’ve had lately. My parents grew up in an entirely different world. People were different, the economy was different, the social and political landscapes were different. I think each generation has different challenges, and I think since the birth of mankind the older generations don’t fully understand or respect the challenges the younger faces (and vice versa). That is to say, I don’t feel like my parents fully understand me and my generation, but they probably had the same feelings towards their parents, and so on.

Mental health is the new thing everybody’s talking about. Everybody’s diagnosed with something, everybody has their own opinions and solutions. The focus on mental health isn’t unwarranted though, the social aspect of living in a first world country has drastically changed in the course of one generation. As I was growing up, home computers were becoming more and more normal, everyone had cell phones, Facebook was becoming a thing in my country while I was in the tenth grade. Contrast all that to when my dad grew up, where they had none of those things. Now, young people are growing up and practically indoctrinated into social media from an early age. Some parents even create instagram accounts for them when they’re born.

There’s this eerie pressure to share everything you do. There’s a social status connected to how many people follow you, to how many impersonal connections you have to people you’ve probably not even met. Our social circles are expanding, but our mental health can’t keep up with it. It affects everyone, everything is shared, everything is spread. Instant news about anything, news doesn’t take any time to produce anymore, so everything is shared, everything is written or talked about. There’s an information overload and everyone’s hooked. Even if you’re not on social media, or not active, the news cycle is a constant, nagging drone reminding you of how much the world sucks. And they lie. They lie about everything, everything is either made up or exaggerated to sell more clicks to sell more ads. Being a journalist used to be a respected profession, now it can be anything from writing Pulitzer-caliber pieces to articles in the form of slideshows for Buzzfeed.

Mental health is crazy. Nobody understands it. Nobody undertands it. Psychologists think they understand it, some of them have some idea, some of them have no clue. It’s impossible to get a clear answer. There’s a million different words, there’s a million different diagnoses, a million different opinions and it’s all just grasping at straws. Nobody knows shit, and the people who say they do are wrong, and if they sincerely believe it theye’re also stupid.
You can get help, but ultimately it’s up to you to try to figure out what it is that’s making you feel a certain way, and why.

Me and so many others in my generation and younger, have struggled or are struggling with some sort of demon. It’s normal, and it’s just something we have to deal with. Over time, change will happen in our society. Either something changes or we adapt, like it always has. Someone has to take the brunt, so the ones who come after can learn. This is our generations main struggle, like every generation has had theirs before us, this is ours. Let’s just hope it’s the only one.