Comment by curiousllama | Hacker News Reader

Comment by curiousllama | Hacker News Reader

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Nah this is totally a thing. There's generally two theories I've heard:

(1) US folks are fragile. They pathologize normal thoughts/behaviors to the point that they never actually learn to live with (or fix) them.

(2) Non-US folks are under-informed. They ignore diagnosable mental health issues to the point that they never get appropriate care for a problem that can be fixed.

It's probably a bit of both. I'm American, and its obvious to me that we are great on some dimensions compared to other countries. E.g., Asbergers-type autism is SO MUCH more understood (and addressed!) in the states. At the same time, "diagnosed with OCD thinking" is a nonsense phrase, as far as I can tell, and is probably going too far.

Therapy & medication are powerful tools; the US is learning to use them more than other places; that might be good or bad for any given person - hard to tell.

Option (4) - People are anxious because they are aware of how good they have it and how far there is to fall if you have an illness/accident/bad luck.

I "own" a house but damn I'm anxious because if I lose my job I can't make mortgage payments, etc, etc, etc

Yep. Lack of money can be a much bigger problem in a rich society.

I hate that I cant say “OCD thinking” isnt a real problem and getting prescribed meds doesnt seem right.

My theory is different than yours, there are a lot of certainties provided for in america or even the certainty that u can make it.

So once uncertianty hits, people arent ready to cope and deal with this, people in their 20s after college aka real world.

Whereas where Im from, planning for longer than 2 years is unheard and youre giving it your all to survive in dignity .

(3) America is money-first at the expense of everything else, including the well-being of our own people. Pharmaceutical companies systematically encourage sickness in order to farm us for money.

The subtext of American capitalism is that anyone not born into generational wealth is one major illness or accident away from abject poverty and ultimately death. I’m willing to bet this type of constant background stress leads to general anxiety for a significant number of people. I wonder if anyone has ever done a study on this.

> The subtext of American capitalism is that anyone not born into generational wealth is one major illness or accident away from abject poverty and ultimately death

I was going to disagree with this, and then I thought "but what is generational wealth, except enough money that nobody in your family is worries about that one major sickness/accident"

And now I agree with you

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