Why Is There So Much Mental Illness in Our Youth Today?

Question by Pixie Chick: Why is there so much mental illness in our youth today?
Is our world too stressful? Are expectations too large (from parents as well as youths themselves)? Does drug use play a part? Is peer pressure and bullying more apparent now than 10-20yrs ago? Or are adolescent and teenage children just more vocal with cries for help or actions of suicidal ideation or escape? Or are parents more in tune to recognizing their adolescent or teenager is not acting right and help is seeked? I live in one of the biggest cities, so perhaps it is different in small cities, but I see a lot of kids, young adults asking for help on Y/A from all over the world. Perhaps the happy, well adjusted kids are outside, playing sports, mingling with friends, hanging out and not at home isolated on a laptop dialed into Y/A’s. That’s what I keep telling myself, so that I don’t think our youth is falling apart, just like when I see the worst of chemotherapy/cancer patients in the ER, I know that a good percentage of people who undergo chemotherapy and are diagnosed with cancer live a full life…I am just seeing the worst working in a Emergency Room, just as I see many kids with overdoses, drug abuse/addiction, suicide attempts, psychiatric illnesses. What’s your thought (outside of my ER arena), are kids coping, does the amount of kids asking for mental health help make you stop and think? Or does it seem normal, normal in the fact that 10-20yrs ago things weren’t open anonymously for public display but mental illness with youth still existed and existed as much as it seems to today?
And please, don’t take this too personally, no, not all kids that hang out on Y/A’s have mental problems…but obviously if you visited “Mental Health” you’d be a bit worried and concerned.
And yes, I spend a lot of time as well on Y/A’s, but It’s not my life, given the choice (daylight, fair weather, I’d be outside)…late evenings, early mornings, I try and help with answering medical oriented questions.

Best answer:

Answer by Cameron
Everything is just addressed and recognised as a problem more now. 20 years ago social anxiety and mild depression was just a personality trait.

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