8 ms·

'Life being stressful is not an illness' – GPs on mental health over-diagnosis

67 points by jnord 11mo ago

bluesky19283746 11mo ago
Diffrent times diffrent problems ,i think this Word say evrythink . We need to help people which have physical problems .
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
functionmouse 11mo ago
Sometimes, you can't tell the severity of someone's needs until they're already dead. We should err towards trusting patients, and informed consent. > Minesh Patel, associate director of policy and influencing at mental health charity Mind, said there was "no credible evidence" that mental health problems were being over-diagnosed. > "What we do know though is that the number of people experiencing mental health problems has increased, with 1 in 5 adults now living with a common mental health condition according to the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey," he said. In an inflationary time, with shrinking social mobility and career prospects, where no one can predict what 5 years from now will look like, and no one can afford to start a family (even more so in places like the U.S.), I don't know why this is such a challenging sentiment for some to wrap their heads around. Of course distress is on the rise.
- dent9876543 11mo ago
  I wonder if we are measuring, and therefore concentrating upon, things that turn out to be only incidental to how much we, or perhaps some of us, feel stress.
nis0s 11mo ago
I think people misunderstand stress and distress, where the latter is personally inflicted on you, like being abused by a family member. In general, I think experiences due to systemic issues are different from experiencing personal issues, i.e., someone targeting you with specific intent and focus to inflict emotional or physical harm on you. Lived experiences can add to stress, but everyone has a stressful nature to their lived experiences, as this article is saying. Being in distress, where you’re the particular target of a person or a group, is different.
- cindyllm 11mo ago
  [dead]
- lazide 11mo ago
  What happens when everyone feels they are being targeted (and has some justification, IMO), and so almost everyone is in distress? But not one wants to acknowledge it, because it’s society doing it to itself?
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - nis0s 11mo ago
    There’s a difference between feeling targeted, and being targeted in actuality. If you can’t tell the difference, then you’re not being targeted.
    - lazide 11mo ago
      Who do you think isn’t being targeted by large scale manipulation attempts right now in the US? Everyone can definitely tell. Even the cult followers. They just can’t get their heads out of their asses enough to do anything but follow with the manipulation, but it’s a very rare person indeed right now that is going ‘oh yeah, everything is actually fine’.
      - nis0s 11mo ago
        Oh okay, that’s what you meant by “target”. I make two distinctions here from my understanding: 1) if group A targets group B, then that’s not a personal attack, but a social or system issue, which I would count as a source of stress, not distress. 2) If group A targets a person, then that is a personal attack, and not a social issue, which is a source of direct conflict, and therefore distress.
        lazide 11mo ago
Simplita 11mo ago
Interesting perspective. There’s a real challenge in separating normal stress from something that needs intervention. The line isn’t always obvious.
oncallthrow 11mo ago
I agree that mental health conditions probably are overdiagnosed and overdiagnosis of this kind is genuinely harmful in many cases (via nocebo effect). But equally I do think it's true that there really are more people with mental health conditions, largely because: * life is genuinely worse today than it was 20 years ago, mostly because of technology * the excessive amount of screen time that the average person experiences is fundamentally harmful to the natural balance of neurotransmitters in the brain
- sallveburrpi 11mo ago
  I don’t think life is generally worse than 20 years ago. Sure some things are tougher and it depends on your class how much you feel the stress - but looking at most metrics like child mortality, literacy, starvation and people dying in armed conflicts those improved compared to 20 years ago. Sure for some there is a recent change (most notably war in Europe and genocide in Gaza) - but overall it’s still positive. That might not be true for the USA but overall it is. What I think is a big cause for my generation (gen-x) is that we were promised this “perfect” harmonious world beginning of the 90s/00s with all kinds of tech marvels and no more wars and oppression and freedom and abundance for everyone. Waking up to the reality of the human condition hasn’t been easy for that generation.
  - gambiting 11mo ago
    The "problem" is that it's all comparative, even if in absolute terms you are right - life is undeniably better than it used to be by every metric. But to give you an example - my grandma had 8 siblings, out of which only 4 survived into adulthood. They mostly died before even turning 1, the typical "one day he was fine, the next day he turned purple and died, the nearest doctor was 2 hours away if your neighbour let you borrow a horse cart, so that's just what it was" case. Her father and her uncle were taken into Auschwitz and miraculously returned but never wanted to talk about the horrors they have seen while there. For the rest of her life she endured living under communism, seeing her peers in other countries have access to riches she could only dream of. So now when you talk to her, how can you blame her for thinking that kids nowadays are spoiled, if they have everything provided for them, they have never experienced physical violence of any kind, but they are all depressed and sad about life being shit and saying how it was better in the good old days. Like, from her perspective, it's impossible to understand. But also, from the kids perspectives nowadays, all they know is a world where the "old" people have houses, jobs, stable incomes, and they cannot even hope for any of it. 50 year mortgages, 700 job applications with no interview, social media blasting images of a life that they know they can't ever have.....of course they are depressed. Just showing them stats that say "you live better, comfier, safer andd healthier lives than pretty much anyone else ever in the history of humanity" is not going to help if all they know is how much "worse" they have it than the people who came before them.
intheitmines 11mo ago
A UK doctor friend mentioned they believed a lot of people being prescribed anti-depressants were suffering from "shit life syndrome" rather than real depression. This wasn't to belittle the issues but rather to highlight the issues they maybe facing, which society doesn't deem valuable enough to fix and the GP is one of the only perceived options they have for help.
- only-one1701 11mo ago
  This is correct. It’s amazing how easy it is to relax when you don’t feel economic precarity etc.
  - carlmr 11mo ago
    This is also why I kind of hate it when rich people say that money doesn't make you happy. It's true, it doesn't but if you don't know how to pay for your next meal or worse your kids next meal, or you're sick and can't afford good care, then money does make all the difference. In mathematical terms money might not be sufficient to make you happy, but it's a necessary condition indeed.
    - only-one1701 11mo ago
      Yeah, and like, a nontrivial amount of it tbqh
    - mettamage 11mo ago
      Ah thanks for putting it into the necessary/sufficient vocab. Makes so much more sense to explain it that way.
    - nlawalker 11mo ago
      “Having money isn’t everything, not having it is” - Kanye West
- voisin 11mo ago
  It’s almost like we are not optimizing society for human flourishing.
strictfp 11mo ago
I've seen work environments that are chaotic, and people are expected to deliver things that they can't deliver without navigating and taming the chaos to do their bidding. If course that's stressful. You can't expect individuals to tame the organization. I think some parts of IT have deteriorated into anarchy with tyrannic leadership. Sure, you can have anarchy. But then don't expect any particular timelines. You can hire armies of people. But then don't expect one corner of the org to be able to deliver something that involves talking to everyone. You can't have the cake and eat it too.
mschuster91 11mo ago
Maybe, just maybe life has gotten legitimately more stressful? Like, even my parents' generation wasn't forced to move away from family and friends (aka their support network) just for career. And on top of that, a single income was enough to afford a decently sized home, stay-at-home spouse, car and children. Compare that to today: more and more adults have to live with their parents due to cost of living, you need until age 23 until you earn your own money because you're effectively worthless without an academic degree, you get saddled with debt from acquiring said degree, when you finally have a job it's usually impossible to afford even a run-down slumlord shack unless you have two (or, worse, three) incomes... and we never had the time to actually reset after the polycrises - 2007 ff financial crisis, euro crisis, refugee crisis (in Europe), refugee crisis 2 (in Europe), Trump 1, Covid, Russian war, Trump 2... Particularly the fact that our generation can't rely on our parents and friend networks for support any more is the largest factor to blame. And obviously, earlier generations were significantly underdiagnosed, partially because medicine literally didn't know better, partially because their parents beat them into submission with sheer violence.
- chneu 11mo ago
  I'm not disagreeing but I do want to point out this is the exact thinking that many people think is responsible for the apathy/victim mindset. Perspective is important. Does life happen to you or are you in control of your life? Are you a victim or do you take control? The idea that life sucks isn't new. It's been around forever. The difference is today we have a global media that reinforces this idea to sell us products. A victim is a much more lucrative customer than someone who is empowered because they can be convinced they aren't capable of doing things themselves. Ever notice the "life is hard, pay us to take this off your hands" advertising? Start looking for the victim mindset or the "life happens to me, I'm powerless" mindset in people. You'll see it all over. Then look at people who are busy and doing things and generally happy, they don't have this mindset. They're more mindful, is one way of looking at it. If ya wanna be a sad sack victim, go for it, but don't be surprised when happiness passes you by because you never bothered to experience adversity and don't have the skills to navigate life or the ability to inconvenience yourself. There is a lot of happiness to be had, just gotta go find it or make it happen. One person's great experience is another person's bad time, perspective is what changes that. If your perspective is victimhood then you're never gonna have a good time. You're always gonna think you're depressed if that's your perspective on life.
JohnMakin 11mo ago
The title is kind of baiting junk takes and misses the nuance here. Life stressors can induce depression or symptoms of it. Medication has shown to improve these symptoms. It does make treating actual chronic pathological mental illness more difficult, because of the exact attitudes expressed here. Hint: mental illness and life being stressful is often comorbid and causal.
- chneu 11mo ago
  You're missing the point. There is a growing movement that says life is too easy nowadays and we're handicapping our ability to develop coping strategies. Life is incredibly easy nowadays. We have more luxury and access to everything than we've ever bad. Crime is at all time lows. We're safer and have an incredible access to just about anything. This leads to self segregation and an atrophy of basic coping skills. But the media convinces us of the opposite. People are told from birth that their lives are hard, the system is broken, etc. This conditions people to not bother. This atrophies skills or they never develop. I recently read an article that something like 25% of Ivy league students have a "disability". They don't, but they think being depressed is a disability which enables them. The author made a good case that they were taking advantage of the system, which cheats themselves out of developing their skills. https://reason.com/2025/12/04/why-are-38-percent-of-stanford-students-saying-theyre-disabled/ https://reason.com/2025/12/04/why-are-38-percent-of-stanford... My friends sex addicts group has also touched on a similar thing lately: emotional comfort is not emotional maturity. People today segregate themselves from people to protect their emotions, then they wonder why they can't handle people who disagree with them. It's easy to avoid things. The main thing I'm saying here is that today's modern life allows us to avoid things we don't like. This leads to a lack of development in many areas. Then we claim everyone is struggling. Then the media reinforces this. Over time it can become difficult to gauge people's conditions and legitimacy of those conditions. therapist friend of mine and I talk about this a lot. "What's an actual condition and what do people think they have?" is a big issue in modern therapy. People Self-diagnose way too much nowadays. The media convinces everyone that they're broken. My life experience also mimics this. In college I thought I had crippling social anxiety. Turns out I just needed to be around people more to develop my abilities. I forced myself to work customer service jobs and voila, after a year or two I became a social person. My stutter went away and I became comfortable in groups. Our perspective is fucked and it creates a cycle of apathy/complacency. Then everyone is "depressed" because they can't handle their latte having soy instead of cows's milk. This is hyperbole but it isn't untrue.
gtowey 11mo ago
Life is so insane right now that mental illness is the only rational response.
- InsideOutSanta 11mo ago
  Yeah, I think it's very easy to say that "life being stressful is not an illness." In reality, life is often stressful in ways that can very much lead to mental illness, particularly in a society that drastically values corporate success over human well-being.
  - lostmsu 11mo ago
    [flagged]
    - Esophagus4 11mo ago
      This seems like a bad faith comment. If you truly wanted data, you could so easily Google (as I did), and find the below sources that back up the comment you're responding to. There are myriad papers and sources. But I think your comment doesn't seek insight so much as it seeks to discredit and dismiss... in, frankly, a pretty lazy attempt. If you're going to be dismissive, put some effort in, man! ;) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10710064/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10710064/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5976254/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5976254/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5137920/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5137920/ https://news.berkeley.edu/2014/02/11/chronic-stress-predisposes-brain-to-mental-illness/ https://news.berkeley.edu/2014/02/11/chronic-stress-predispo...
      - lostmsu 11mo ago
        [flagged]
        Esophagus4 11mo ago
        I only regret that I have but one downvote to give.
KronisLV 11mo ago
It's also entirely possible that life is indeed just messed up in a way that human brains didn't evolve for and can't deal with - all the societal changes, breakdowns of close relationships and communities (e.g. the disappearance of the 3rd place in addition to work and home), as well as most people being stuck in an endless stressful rat race that they will not ever escape due to the state of the economy and the moneyed interests, alongside the daily stress and social media making things worse. All the injustice out there, maladaptive behaviors, normalization of hate and borderline tribal "us vs them" mentality at pretty much every turn (genders, politics, race, everything). Might be a consequence of being too exposed to information out there and not ignorant enough, but go figure.
- chneu 11mo ago
  This isn't new. People have said this for centuries. You can find people wondering this when the steam engine was invented, when the printing press was invented, etc.
echelon_musk 11mo ago
Life being stressful is the first Noble Truth. Perhaps GPs in the future can prescribe mindfulness more often. They do at least have an official NHS web page on the subject: https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/self-help/tips-and-support/mindfulness/ https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/self-help/tips-and-support/...
esperent 11mo ago
Life being non-stop stressful for a majority of the population is not a personal illness, it's a societal illness. Although societal illness can definitely lead back to mental illness which is a very personal affliction. I do agree that it shouldn't be the job of GPs to prescribe away mental illness though, any more than they should be telling you what eyeglasses to wear. Those jobs should go to psychiatrists and optometrists, respectively. The GP should merely refer you to the specialist. It does beg the question though, since society is so clearly sick and appears to be getting worse in many countries, whose job is that to fix? The obvious answers are either "politicians" , or "all of us". But politicians seem just as afflicted as the rest, or even to be adding to the sickness in many cases. And saying we all need to come together to fix it might be a truism but is basically useless.
moralestapia 11mo ago
True. Also, people might not be ready for this but, being able to focus intensely on one thing while being easily distracted when forced to do menial tasks is not a disorder.
stavarotti 11mo ago
Life is stressful (in some respects, overly so), but we’ve dealt with this for millennia by having a strong support system. Not to be reductive over the multitudes of problems people face today, but most can and should be solvable by having a good support system. Family and good friends with whom you can speak frankly can do wonders. It doesn’t solve the affordability or job problems, but having someone to talk to, someone that you can trust and has lived experience, can go a long way. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve solved “problems” or at least lessened their impact, by consulting family and friends.
- cjbarber 11mo ago
  Indeed. I think better "built environments that are conducive to community" are important, and can help things like this. ie things to reverse the "bowling alone" type trends.
- chneu 11mo ago
  We live in a world where one text can end a friendship because one person can't handle any conflict. No wonder we lack community.
Hizonner 11mo ago
So what? "Illness" is not necessarily a useful category or criterion for anything.
cjbarber 11mo ago
The prescription here might be for people to be able to easily afford to live walkable to some of their family and friends. Lots of things come from this: shared resources (less income need, less work stress), shared emotional support, shared childcare (less income need), etc. Instead of single family homes (one family is not the atomic unit of the human species!) it should've been single community developments with 15 homes and a big shared backyard but still private for all the houses. And the landlord + all the tenants can select the residents based on their personal preferences and anyone can veto. I think many challenges stem from the lack of this. I don't know what the fix is though, because housing regulations seem difficult to change.
tkel 11mo ago
Life expectancy for people with chronic stress is far lower. Stress is an excellent predictor of overall health+wellness.
tsoukase 11mo ago
Neurosis (stress and depression) is the only human disease that its cutoff diagnostic criteria change (increase) through time in the last 100 years. The casual level of stress of a random person today would be insane for someone in the '50s. Especially, the stress of a teenager today is similar to a psychiatric hospital patient of the '50s. The empirical criteria of depression, held by most health professionals, are influenced a lot by the mass trend. If all people are depressed (eg during a widespread economic crisis, loss of ambition, hope etc), like it happens today, then depression will tend to be mostly normal. I believe today a large percentage of people suffer from an uncovered, untold stress and depression and we professionals must resist to accept this as normal. Depression is an unbearable but curable disease and is not like house prices/rents where we have to adapt and get accustomed to.
nunorbatista 11mo ago
For reasons that don't matter, I've had to live with a 25-yo since summer that has ADHD and anxiety diagnosed by a therapist. Two main issues I see in her behavior: - She changed therapist twice until she heard what she was looking for. She said she was looking for a compatible "therapist". - The fact that she was diagnosed was a relief to her because now she can just offload any responsibility. Forgot to do something? It's normal, that's my ADHD. Not in the mood to go and work tomorrow? that's my anxiety kicking-in. There's just no hardship anymore and her life is not even that stressful. It's just easy to come with that and give excuses. The issue is: I want to be sympathetic to her condition and help, but it's really hard to don't sound like I'm judging. I can't just challenge a behavior because she is already doing the best she can. It's like there's an invisible ceiling. PS: I'm only 12 years older than her.
- rixed 11mo ago
  I've seen similar behavior. I can understand that the relief that comes with having finaly a label put on the box one feels trapped into; But then the goal should be to climb out of that box. A diagnosis is only good if it helps fight the condition, after all. I believe the issue is more broad than that though. I believe the issue comes from the very strong belief in our modern world that our behavior, our ideas and moods are what we are, what we have always been and always will be. That comes with our global theory of mind that one's character is given once and for all, from birth to death. I insist that this is a belief that is not universal, for some other cultures ideas and moods are transient external inhabitants of our minds. And indeed, people do change along their lifetime, and sometimes immensely; once you have witnessed these changes a few times you start to realize how even conditions that are usually considered impossible to cure, can actually be fixed.
  - em-bee 11mo ago
    the issue comes from the very strong belief in our modern world that our behavior, our ideas and moods are what we are, what we have always been and always will be. That comes with our global theory of mind that one's character is given once and for all, from birth to death. I insist that this is a belief that is not universal i would go a step further and argue that this belief is simply false or bad. it traps us, and makes us unable to grow. we should aim to reject this idea with a much effort as we can. i have commented that about this before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44361344 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44361344 this belief is used to excuse bad behavior. it also takes away agency and hope from those who want to change. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38562701 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38562701 human nature is often used as an excuse for bad behavior https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38300344 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38300344 we risk misusing this belief as an excuse not to support people to do better because we lack the belief that they even could do better this last one is particularly concerning when it comes to an ADHD diagnosis. not that the diagnosis is wrong, but the diagnosis combined with the belief that we can't change. we need to change our attitude and trust that even a person with ADHD can improve. it's just harder. and ADHD diagnosis should guide us in how to best help that person. it should not be used as an excuse to give up.

67 points by jnord 11mo ago

bluesky19283746 11mo ago

Diffrent times diffrent problems ,i think this Word say evrythink . We need to help people which have physical problems .

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

functionmouse 11mo ago

Sometimes, you can't tell the severity of someone's needs until they're already dead. We should err towards trusting patients, and informed consent. > Minesh Patel, associate director of policy and influencing at mental health charity Mind, said there was "no credible evidence" that mental health problems were being over-diagnosed. > "What we do know though is that the number of people experiencing mental health problems has increased, with 1 in 5 adults now living with a common mental health condition according to the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey," he said. In an inflationary time, with shrinking social mobility and career prospects, where no one can predict what 5 years from now will look like, and no one can afford to start a family (even more so in places like the U.S.), I don't know why this is such a challenging sentiment for some to wrap their heads around. Of course distress is on the rise.

dent9876543 11mo ago
I wonder if we are measuring, and therefore concentrating upon, things that turn out to be only incidental to how much we, or perhaps some of us, feel stress.

nis0s 11mo ago

I think people misunderstand stress and distress, where the latter is personally inflicted on you, like being abused by a family member. In general, I think experiences due to systemic issues are different from experiencing personal issues, i.e., someone targeting you with specific intent and focus to inflict emotional or physical harm on you. Lived experiences can add to stress, but everyone has a stressful nature to their lived experiences, as this article is saying. Being in distress, where you’re the particular target of a person or a group, is different.

cindyllm 11mo ago
[dead]
lazide 11mo ago
What happens when everyone feels they are being targeted (and has some justification, IMO), and so almost everyone is in distress? But not one wants to acknowledge it, because it’s society doing it to itself?
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- nis0s 11mo ago
  There’s a difference between feeling targeted, and being targeted in actuality. If you can’t tell the difference, then you’re not being targeted.
  - lazide 11mo ago
    Who do you think isn’t being targeted by large scale manipulation attempts right now in the US? Everyone can definitely tell. Even the cult followers. They just can’t get their heads out of their asses enough to do anything but follow with the manipulation, but it’s a very rare person indeed right now that is going ‘oh yeah, everything is actually fine’.
    - nis0s 11mo ago
      Oh okay, that’s what you meant by “target”. I make two distinctions here from my understanding: 1) if group A targets group B, then that’s not a personal attack, but a social or system issue, which I would count as a source of stress, not distress. 2) If group A targets a person, then that is a personal attack, and not a social issue, which is a source of direct conflict, and therefore distress.
      - lazide 11mo ago

Simplita 11mo ago

Interesting perspective. There’s a real challenge in separating normal stress from something that needs intervention. The line isn’t always obvious.

oncallthrow 11mo ago

I agree that mental health conditions probably are overdiagnosed and overdiagnosis of this kind is genuinely harmful in many cases (via nocebo effect). But equally I do think it's true that there really are more people with mental health conditions, largely because: * life is genuinely worse today than it was 20 years ago, mostly because of technology * the excessive amount of screen time that the average person experiences is fundamentally harmful to the natural balance of neurotransmitters in the brain

sallveburrpi 11mo ago
I don’t think life is generally worse than 20 years ago. Sure some things are tougher and it depends on your class how much you feel the stress - but looking at most metrics like child mortality, literacy, starvation and people dying in armed conflicts those improved compared to 20 years ago. Sure for some there is a recent change (most notably war in Europe and genocide in Gaza) - but overall it’s still positive. That might not be true for the USA but overall it is. What I think is a big cause for my generation (gen-x) is that we were promised this “perfect” harmonious world beginning of the 90s/00s with all kinds of tech marvels and no more wars and oppression and freedom and abundance for everyone. Waking up to the reality of the human condition hasn’t been easy for that generation.
- gambiting 11mo ago
  The "problem" is that it's all comparative, even if in absolute terms you are right - life is undeniably better than it used to be by every metric. But to give you an example - my grandma had 8 siblings, out of which only 4 survived into adulthood. They mostly died before even turning 1, the typical "one day he was fine, the next day he turned purple and died, the nearest doctor was 2 hours away if your neighbour let you borrow a horse cart, so that's just what it was" case. Her father and her uncle were taken into Auschwitz and miraculously returned but never wanted to talk about the horrors they have seen while there. For the rest of her life she endured living under communism, seeing her peers in other countries have access to riches she could only dream of. So now when you talk to her, how can you blame her for thinking that kids nowadays are spoiled, if they have everything provided for them, they have never experienced physical violence of any kind, but they are all depressed and sad about life being shit and saying how it was better in the good old days. Like, from her perspective, it's impossible to understand. But also, from the kids perspectives nowadays, all they know is a world where the "old" people have houses, jobs, stable incomes, and they cannot even hope for any of it. 50 year mortgages, 700 job applications with no interview, social media blasting images of a life that they know they can't ever have.....of course they are depressed. Just showing them stats that say "you live better, comfier, safer andd healthier lives than pretty much anyone else ever in the history of humanity" is not going to help if all they know is how much "worse" they have it than the people who came before them.

intheitmines 11mo ago

A UK doctor friend mentioned they believed a lot of people being prescribed anti-depressants were suffering from "shit life syndrome" rather than real depression. This wasn't to belittle the issues but rather to highlight the issues they maybe facing, which society doesn't deem valuable enough to fix and the GP is one of the only perceived options they have for help.

only-one1701 11mo ago
This is correct. It’s amazing how easy it is to relax when you don’t feel economic precarity etc.
- carlmr 11mo ago
  This is also why I kind of hate it when rich people say that money doesn't make you happy. It's true, it doesn't but if you don't know how to pay for your next meal or worse your kids next meal, or you're sick and can't afford good care, then money does make all the difference. In mathematical terms money might not be sufficient to make you happy, but it's a necessary condition indeed.
  - only-one1701 11mo ago
    Yeah, and like, a nontrivial amount of it tbqh
  - mettamage 11mo ago
    Ah thanks for putting it into the necessary/sufficient vocab. Makes so much more sense to explain it that way.
  - nlawalker 11mo ago
    “Having money isn’t everything, not having it is” - Kanye West
voisin 11mo ago
It’s almost like we are not optimizing society for human flourishing.

strictfp 11mo ago

I've seen work environments that are chaotic, and people are expected to deliver things that they can't deliver without navigating and taming the chaos to do their bidding. If course that's stressful. You can't expect individuals to tame the organization. I think some parts of IT have deteriorated into anarchy with tyrannic leadership. Sure, you can have anarchy. But then don't expect any particular timelines. You can hire armies of people. But then don't expect one corner of the org to be able to deliver something that involves talking to everyone. You can't have the cake and eat it too.

mschuster91 11mo ago

Maybe, just maybe life has gotten legitimately more stressful? Like, even my parents' generation wasn't forced to move away from family and friends (aka their support network) just for career. And on top of that, a single income was enough to afford a decently sized home, stay-at-home spouse, car and children. Compare that to today: more and more adults have to live with their parents due to cost of living, you need until age 23 until you earn your own money because you're effectively worthless without an academic degree, you get saddled with debt from acquiring said degree, when you finally have a job it's usually impossible to afford even a run-down slumlord shack unless you have two (or, worse, three) incomes... and we never had the time to actually reset after the polycrises - 2007 ff financial crisis, euro crisis, refugee crisis (in Europe), refugee crisis 2 (in Europe), Trump 1, Covid, Russian war, Trump 2... Particularly the fact that our generation can't rely on our parents and friend networks for support any more is the largest factor to blame. And obviously, earlier generations were significantly underdiagnosed, partially because medicine literally didn't know better, partially because their parents beat them into submission with sheer violence.

chneu 11mo ago
I'm not disagreeing but I do want to point out this is the exact thinking that many people think is responsible for the apathy/victim mindset. Perspective is important. Does life happen to you or are you in control of your life? Are you a victim or do you take control? The idea that life sucks isn't new. It's been around forever. The difference is today we have a global media that reinforces this idea to sell us products. A victim is a much more lucrative customer than someone who is empowered because they can be convinced they aren't capable of doing things themselves. Ever notice the "life is hard, pay us to take this off your hands" advertising? Start looking for the victim mindset or the "life happens to me, I'm powerless" mindset in people. You'll see it all over. Then look at people who are busy and doing things and generally happy, they don't have this mindset. They're more mindful, is one way of looking at it. If ya wanna be a sad sack victim, go for it, but don't be surprised when happiness passes you by because you never bothered to experience adversity and don't have the skills to navigate life or the ability to inconvenience yourself. There is a lot of happiness to be had, just gotta go find it or make it happen. One person's great experience is another person's bad time, perspective is what changes that. If your perspective is victimhood then you're never gonna have a good time. You're always gonna think you're depressed if that's your perspective on life.

JohnMakin 11mo ago

The title is kind of baiting junk takes and misses the nuance here. Life stressors can induce depression or symptoms of it. Medication has shown to improve these symptoms. It does make treating actual chronic pathological mental illness more difficult, because of the exact attitudes expressed here. Hint: mental illness and life being stressful is often comorbid and causal.

chneu 11mo ago
You're missing the point. There is a growing movement that says life is too easy nowadays and we're handicapping our ability to develop coping strategies. Life is incredibly easy nowadays. We have more luxury and access to everything than we've ever bad. Crime is at all time lows. We're safer and have an incredible access to just about anything. This leads to self segregation and an atrophy of basic coping skills. But the media convinces us of the opposite. People are told from birth that their lives are hard, the system is broken, etc. This conditions people to not bother. This atrophies skills or they never develop. I recently read an article that something like 25% of Ivy league students have a "disability". They don't, but they think being depressed is a disability which enables them. The author made a good case that they were taking advantage of the system, which cheats themselves out of developing their skills. https://reason.com/2025/12/04/why-are-38-percent-of-stanford-students-saying-theyre-disabled/ https://reason.com/2025/12/04/why-are-38-percent-of-stanford... My friends sex addicts group has also touched on a similar thing lately: emotional comfort is not emotional maturity. People today segregate themselves from people to protect their emotions, then they wonder why they can't handle people who disagree with them. It's easy to avoid things. The main thing I'm saying here is that today's modern life allows us to avoid things we don't like. This leads to a lack of development in many areas. Then we claim everyone is struggling. Then the media reinforces this. Over time it can become difficult to gauge people's conditions and legitimacy of those conditions. therapist friend of mine and I talk about this a lot. "What's an actual condition and what do people think they have?" is a big issue in modern therapy. People Self-diagnose way too much nowadays. The media convinces everyone that they're broken. My life experience also mimics this. In college I thought I had crippling social anxiety. Turns out I just needed to be around people more to develop my abilities. I forced myself to work customer service jobs and voila, after a year or two I became a social person. My stutter went away and I became comfortable in groups. Our perspective is fucked and it creates a cycle of apathy/complacency. Then everyone is "depressed" because they can't handle their latte having soy instead of cows's milk. This is hyperbole but it isn't untrue.

gtowey 11mo ago

Life is so insane right now that mental illness is the only rational response.

InsideOutSanta 11mo ago
Yeah, I think it's very easy to say that "life being stressful is not an illness." In reality, life is often stressful in ways that can very much lead to mental illness, particularly in a society that drastically values corporate success over human well-being.
- lostmsu 11mo ago
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  - Esophagus4 11mo ago
    This seems like a bad faith comment. If you truly wanted data, you could so easily Google (as I did), and find the below sources that back up the comment you're responding to. There are myriad papers and sources. But I think your comment doesn't seek insight so much as it seeks to discredit and dismiss... in, frankly, a pretty lazy attempt. If you're going to be dismissive, put some effort in, man! ;) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10710064/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10710064/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5976254/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5976254/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5137920/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5137920/ https://news.berkeley.edu/2014/02/11/chronic-stress-predisposes-brain-to-mental-illness/ https://news.berkeley.edu/2014/02/11/chronic-stress-predispo...
    - lostmsu 11mo ago
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      - Esophagus4 11mo ago
        I only regret that I have but one downvote to give.

KronisLV 11mo ago

It's also entirely possible that life is indeed just messed up in a way that human brains didn't evolve for and can't deal with - all the societal changes, breakdowns of close relationships and communities (e.g. the disappearance of the 3rd place in addition to work and home), as well as most people being stuck in an endless stressful rat race that they will not ever escape due to the state of the economy and the moneyed interests, alongside the daily stress and social media making things worse. All the injustice out there, maladaptive behaviors, normalization of hate and borderline tribal "us vs them" mentality at pretty much every turn (genders, politics, race, everything). Might be a consequence of being too exposed to information out there and not ignorant enough, but go figure.

chneu 11mo ago
This isn't new. People have said this for centuries. You can find people wondering this when the steam engine was invented, when the printing press was invented, etc.

echelon_musk 11mo ago

Life being stressful is the first Noble Truth. Perhaps GPs in the future can prescribe mindfulness more often. They do at least have an official NHS web page on the subject: https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/self-help/tips-and-support/mindfulness/ https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/self-help/tips-and-support/...

esperent 11mo ago

Life being non-stop stressful for a majority of the population is not a personal illness, it's a societal illness. Although societal illness can definitely lead back to mental illness which is a very personal affliction. I do agree that it shouldn't be the job of GPs to prescribe away mental illness though, any more than they should be telling you what eyeglasses to wear. Those jobs should go to psychiatrists and optometrists, respectively. The GP should merely refer you to the specialist. It does beg the question though, since society is so clearly sick and appears to be getting worse in many countries, whose job is that to fix? The obvious answers are either "politicians" , or "all of us". But politicians seem just as afflicted as the rest, or even to be adding to the sickness in many cases. And saying we all need to come together to fix it might be a truism but is basically useless.

moralestapia 11mo ago

True. Also, people might not be ready for this but, being able to focus intensely on one thing while being easily distracted when forced to do menial tasks is not a disorder.

stavarotti 11mo ago

Life is stressful (in some respects, overly so), but we’ve dealt with this for millennia by having a strong support system. Not to be reductive over the multitudes of problems people face today, but most can and should be solvable by having a good support system. Family and good friends with whom you can speak frankly can do wonders. It doesn’t solve the affordability or job problems, but having someone to talk to, someone that you can trust and has lived experience, can go a long way. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve solved “problems” or at least lessened their impact, by consulting family and friends.

cjbarber 11mo ago
Indeed. I think better "built environments that are conducive to community" are important, and can help things like this. ie things to reverse the "bowling alone" type trends.
chneu 11mo ago
We live in a world where one text can end a friendship because one person can't handle any conflict. No wonder we lack community.

Hizonner 11mo ago

So what? "Illness" is not necessarily a useful category or criterion for anything.

cjbarber 11mo ago

The prescription here might be for people to be able to easily afford to live walkable to some of their family and friends. Lots of things come from this: shared resources (less income need, less work stress), shared emotional support, shared childcare (less income need), etc. Instead of single family homes (one family is not the atomic unit of the human species!) it should've been single community developments with 15 homes and a big shared backyard but still private for all the houses. And the landlord + all the tenants can select the residents based on their personal preferences and anyone can veto. I think many challenges stem from the lack of this. I don't know what the fix is though, because housing regulations seem difficult to change.

tkel 11mo ago

Life expectancy for people with chronic stress is far lower. Stress is an excellent predictor of overall health+wellness.

tsoukase 11mo ago

Neurosis (stress and depression) is the only human disease that its cutoff diagnostic criteria change (increase) through time in the last 100 years. The casual level of stress of a random person today would be insane for someone in the '50s. Especially, the stress of a teenager today is similar to a psychiatric hospital patient of the '50s. The empirical criteria of depression, held by most health professionals, are influenced a lot by the mass trend. If all people are depressed (eg during a widespread economic crisis, loss of ambition, hope etc), like it happens today, then depression will tend to be mostly normal. I believe today a large percentage of people suffer from an uncovered, untold stress and depression and we professionals must resist to accept this as normal. Depression is an unbearable but curable disease and is not like house prices/rents where we have to adapt and get accustomed to.

nunorbatista 11mo ago

For reasons that don't matter, I've had to live with a 25-yo since summer that has ADHD and anxiety diagnosed by a therapist. Two main issues I see in her behavior: - She changed therapist twice until she heard what she was looking for. She said she was looking for a compatible "therapist". - The fact that she was diagnosed was a relief to her because now she can just offload any responsibility. Forgot to do something? It's normal, that's my ADHD. Not in the mood to go and work tomorrow? that's my anxiety kicking-in. There's just no hardship anymore and her life is not even that stressful. It's just easy to come with that and give excuses. The issue is: I want to be sympathetic to her condition and help, but it's really hard to don't sound like I'm judging. I can't just challenge a behavior because she is already doing the best she can. It's like there's an invisible ceiling. PS: I'm only 12 years older than her.

rixed 11mo ago
I've seen similar behavior. I can understand that the relief that comes with having finaly a label put on the box one feels trapped into; But then the goal should be to climb out of that box. A diagnosis is only good if it helps fight the condition, after all. I believe the issue is more broad than that though. I believe the issue comes from the very strong belief in our modern world that our behavior, our ideas and moods are what we are, what we have always been and always will be. That comes with our global theory of mind that one's character is given once and for all, from birth to death. I insist that this is a belief that is not universal, for some other cultures ideas and moods are transient external inhabitants of our minds. And indeed, people do change along their lifetime, and sometimes immensely; once you have witnessed these changes a few times you start to realize how even conditions that are usually considered impossible to cure, can actually be fixed.
- em-bee 11mo ago
  the issue comes from the very strong belief in our modern world that our behavior, our ideas and moods are what we are, what we have always been and always will be. That comes with our global theory of mind that one's character is given once and for all, from birth to death. I insist that this is a belief that is not universal i would go a step further and argue that this belief is simply false or bad. it traps us, and makes us unable to grow. we should aim to reject this idea with a much effort as we can. i have commented that about this before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44361344 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44361344 this belief is used to excuse bad behavior. it also takes away agency and hope from those who want to change. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38562701 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38562701 human nature is often used as an excuse for bad behavior https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38300344 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38300344 we risk misusing this belief as an excuse not to support people to do better because we lack the belief that they even could do better this last one is particularly concerning when it comes to an ADHD diagnosis. not that the diagnosis is wrong, but the diagnosis combined with the belief that we can't change. we need to change our attitude and trust that even a person with ADHD can improve. it's just harder. and ADHD diagnosis should guide us in how to best help that person. it should not be used as an excuse to give up.