Why are Millennial Women so... ???

[Srivijaya]

Through friendships, work or where I live I know quite a few millennial women. They are articulate, intelligent, well educated, pretty and confident.

Problem is, I'm discovering more and more of them have issues around depression, self-harm, eating disorders and even attempted suicide.

I can't get my head around it, it's like a plague. Is this just a UK phenomenon and what's causing it?

 

[Quetzal]

Through friendships, work or where I live I know quite a few millennial women. They are articulate, intelligent, well educated, pretty and confident.

Problem is, I'm discovering more and more of them have issues around depression, self-harm, eating disorders and even attempted suicide.

I can't get my head around it, it's like a plague. Is this just a UK phenomenon and what's causing it?

If I had to wager an uneducated guess: social media creates these new norms that women are pressured to conform to. We are perpetually blasted with everyone else's "highlight reel" that we begin to second guess our own purpose, happiness, and path. When that happens, I think some of those side effects can pop up.

 

[Srivijaya]

Could well be a factor.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Through friendships, work or where I live I know quite a few millennial women. They are articulate, intelligent, well educated, pretty and confident.

Problem is, I'm discovering more and more of them have issues around depression, self-harm, eating disorders and even attempted suicide.

I can't get my head around it, it's like a plague. Is this just a UK phenomenon and what's causing it?

That is not enough information to go on to make a conclusion, but I think depression is just as common as ever. We just are currently more aware of it.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

There is a lot of women around the world with mental issues...Most of them just have a tendency to suppress those issues.

 

[Mindmaster]

Through friendships, work or where I live I know quite a few millennial women. They are articulate, intelligent, well educated, pretty and confident.

Problem is, I'm discovering more and more of them have issues around depression, self-harm, eating disorders and even attempted suicide.

I can't get my head around it, it's like a plague. Is this just a UK phenomenon and what's causing it?

Nope, that's pretty much all of them, in my experience.

You know it's bad when your millennial son refuses to deal with them or date them, but admits he's attracted. I think he's hoping it's just a phase or something.

 

[David T]

If I had to wager an uneducated guess: social media creates these new norms that women are pressured to conform to. We are perpetually blasted with everyone else's "highlight reel" that we begin to second guess our own purpose, happiness, and path. When that happens, I think some of those side effects can pop up.

While this site should be all about being against that media thingie across spectrum it tends to exist in it and rather sharply arguing for primacy. I think you hit the nail on the head but how to step out of it is a matter of open discussion.

 

[Quetzal]

While this site should be all about being against that media thingie across spectrum it tends to exist in it and rather sharply arguing for primacy. I think you hit the nail on the head but how to step out of it is a matter of open discussion.

I took a business class last year and they talked about why it is so tough to get away from it. I think they called it the "Cost of Leaving" or something like that. The idea was that so much information that you like to see is tied to these platforms. For me I like knowing when everyone's birthday is and that is tied to my Facebook. I have extended family and the only way we know what is going on is via Facebook. So, for me, it doesn't make sense to cut it. But what I did do was remove anyone who was not a close friend or relative. All of those peripheral acquaintances? Gone. That has helped me quite a bit.

 

[David T]

I took a business class last year and they talked about why it is so tough to get away from it. I think they called it the "Cost of Leaving" or something like that. The idea was that so much information that you like to see is tied to these platforms. For me I like knowing when everyone's birthday is and that is tied to my Facebook. I have extended family and the only way we know what is going on is via Facebook. So, for me, it doesn't make sense to cut it. But what I did do was remove anyone who was not a close friend or relative. All of those peripheral acquaintances? Gone. That has helped me quite a bit.

It's the plague! What if we find ourselves living in close quarters, and everyone is getting sick because of the close quarters yet no one realizes it? What if the close quarters was efficient but also at an extreme cost as well, with no one realising the cost?

It's easy for me to see it's really hard to explain. That'd why I personally have retreated back or advanced into or stepped back or stepped forward into music. That's a language that can cut through the noise to a degree.

 

[Srivijaya]

Nope, that's pretty much all of them, in my experience.

You know it's bad when your millennial son refuses to deal with them or date them, but admits he's attracted. I think he's hoping it's just a phase or something.

I wouldn't want to be in his position nowadays.

 

[Srivijaya]

I have extended family and the only way we know what is going on is via Facebook. So, for me, it doesn't make sense to cut it. But what I did do was remove anyone who was not a close friend or relative. All of those peripheral acquaintances? Gone. That has helped me quite a bit.

Same thing for me with the family etc. I think us older generation are no so entirely immersed. One of the girls I know posts quite revealing, sexy, pouty selfies then got very upset when someone on Linkedin messaged her to connect and used capital letters, which she said was like shouting at her. The biggest surprise for me was the outraged reaction from all of her friends - they were genuinely livid and said it was out of order and that she should report it. It had nothing to do with what was messaged, it was the capitals that did it????

At that point I realised that there was a gulf between her world and mine; they live and breathe it in a way I can't comprehend. Found out from her father that she had been self-harming for a few years.

 

[ajay0]

Through friendships, work or where I live I know quite a few millennial women. They are articulate, intelligent, well educated, pretty and confident.

Problem is, I'm discovering more and more of them have issues around depression, self-harm, eating disorders and even attempted suicide.

I can't get my head around it, it's like a plague. Is this just a UK phenomenon and what's causing it?

I have read statistics of depression and suicide being high among young american women as well.

Why are suicides among American women rising? | Jamieson Webster

It's sad and surprising because I thought women were emotionally more resilient than men.

It could perhaps be the old issue of not being able to obtain happiness of a permanent sort from material achievements inspite of all the painstaking efforts put into it, along with the preponderance of desires fed into one's mind by a consumerist society that equates being a winner with satisfaction of numerous and seemingly never-ending desires.

As an ancient saying goes...

With peacock feathers light, you load the wain;
Yet, heaped too high, the axle snaps in twain.

 

[Stevicus]

Through friendships, work or where I live I know quite a few millennial women. They are articulate, intelligent, well educated, pretty and confident.

Problem is, I'm discovering more and more of them have issues around depression, self-harm, eating disorders and even attempted suicide.

I can't get my head around it, it's like a plague. Is this just a UK phenomenon and what's causing it?

I noticed similar phenomena among Gen-X women, too. I don't know what the percentage is or whether it's increased with younger generations. It could come from unstable, dysfunctional, and/or abusive family situations. Drugs/alcohol may also be a factor. Financial pressures, academic pressures, keeping up with the Joneses, and (as others noted) trying to keep up with peers on social media - all might be considered factors.

Some of it may also be the result of unrealistic expectations, coupled with media-inspired narcissism and amplified through internet technology. It seems that every other social page or other blog out there is someone who's got it in their head that "I'm wonderful! I'm special! Look at me!" Nobody wants to settle for being ordinary, but when they realize that they are just ordinary, average humans - and that there's nothing special about them - then it's kind of a real downer.

Men may go through similar difficulties, so it's not just something that happens to women. Men may have different areas of anxiety and express their feelings in different ways. Men tend to be more hostile, aggressive, angry, and violent. I can't recall the stats offhand, but I believe the suicide rate among men is much higher than for women.

 

[Quetzal]

At that point I realised that there was a gulf between her world and mine; they live and breathe it in a way I can't comprehend.

I am 31, so we are pretty close in age and I don't get it either. The whole social media fad just dwindled for me. I use Twitter to help network with industry professionals on a more casual level, but that is about it outside of family.

 

[Srivijaya]

Financial pressures, academic pressures, keeping up with the Joneses

Work pressure too I guess. One girl I know who has a successful career holds it together with prozac, as I discovered at a work's function when chatting to a friend. She works for an absolute b*d but he pays well and has promoted her right up. She drives a top car and looks stunning. The list goes on. It seems I've been running into this issue a lot lately.

 

[illykitty]

Nah, it's everywhere. I don't think it's just women either, men too, just that it's invisible because they're told to not show their emotions. "Man up!" is probably a familiar sentence for some.

I personally have depression and anxiety. It's not financial related. I just feel a void inside and I don't know what to do. I can't work because even though I've been through therapies, I can't reason with my emotions. They get overwhelming. I know logically it makes no sense, but I still feel that pain and I can't find a way to make myself ok. Nobody wants a hyperventilating crying mess serving customers. But that's not the only problem, even at home I get overwhelmed and leave things undone. Anyway, not wanting a pity party, just stating blunt facts.

I've noticed some people are unhappy about materialistic or superficial things. Our consumerist culture coupled with social media showing artificial "perfect" lives and that creates dissatisfaction. What they need is good people around them and have fun experiences. Maybe get out and also do some good once in a while too. Nice memories are priceless, no amount of stuff is going to replace that. With things, less is more.

And then of course there's cases like mine with chronic stubborn mental illness, burdens, poverty, abuse, health problems, being worried for loved ones or putting too much on one's shoulders, and so on. I honestly don't know if things will get better for me, but I do have things to look forward to, and my life is pretty good overall. I just have "demons" inside of me.

 

[M83]

Men tend to be more hostile, aggressive, angry, and violent. I can't recall the stats offhand, but I believe the suicide rate among men is much higher than for women.

I can agree with this. In my experience, most suicides I've responded to has been mostly men. The suicides also tend to be more violent in nature then women.

 

[Orbit]

I can agree with this. In my experience, most suicides I've responded to has been mostly men. The suicides also tend to be more violent in nature then women.

Men and women attempt suicide at the same rate; however men succeed more because they use firearms to do it, while women favor less lethal methods.

 

[Quintessence]

Not sure what this has to do with being a human female, specifically. Western culture as a whole is about putting forth a presentable facade to most and making any self-perceived (or socially-perceived) flaws and defects as invisible as possible. It shouldn't stand as any surprise that once you get to know a human better - male, female, or intersex - that the facade drops away.

 

[LuisDantas]

It seems to me that for the most part previous generations simply did not have to deal with quite as many conflicting uncertainties and pressures as millenials do.

Between simple increased awareness of many complexities of existence and the demographic growth that creates considerably harder environments, it is very much a more complicated world. It does not help either that their own parents suffered to a measure of the same lack of firm grounding for much the same reasons.