Questions, questions

Someone asked me recently if I felt my life was stressful. Why? I asked, surprised. Because so many of your blogs relate to stress. Interesting, I thought. My shifts really are my very own.

Australia, specifically Melbourne, rated as the number one city in the world to live this year by The Economist Intelligence Unit. For the third year in a row. Yet Australia rates as number 10 on the UN's list of happiest nations. Part of the determinant for this rating is the country's level of mental health. Apparently 10% of the world's population suffers from clinical depression or crippling anxiety disorders. This is the statistic that interests me, rather than the longevity of our lives, GDP etc, because "mental health is the single most important determinant of individual happiness." (page 5 of World Happiness Report.)

And yet our rates of mental health are startling. Not only is suicide the leading cause of death for young people aged 15-24 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2012), but Australian youths have the highest prevalence of mental illness than any other age group (ABS 2009). 14% of them suffer from anxiety disorders, 6% suffer from depressive disorders, and 5% suffer from substance abuse disorders. Despite being tenth on the list of happy nations, thirty people will attempt suicide on average on any given day, and six will be successful. 

One night at work recently I was enjoying some Christmas cheer with some other quilters when a man came storming in. The front door had been inadvertently been left unlocked. His whole body was moving in seemingly different directions, as if each body part had its own music and rhythm, completely separate from the neighbouring body part. He wanted food. Our party food. My boss and I got up straight away and moved towards him. It was way outside our normal hours of giving out food parcels, but as we were there and he needed help, we were prepared to give it. At first he was upset that he wasn't allowed to help himself to the Christmas baking that the quilters had brought in to share, but he calmed when we promised him a food parcel. He had the munchies, and he needed food to calm whatever craziness was going on inside his body.

We took him to the other room, leaving doors open and treating him as if this was a perfectly normal event. He danced around the room, totally unable to relax or stand still, and plucked food from our cupboard and fridge that he could open and eat straight away. We gave him lots of room. I could feel my heart pounding, not so much from fear, but from all senses on heightened alert. His behaviour seemed unpredictable to me. I took my cue from my boss, who remained calm and relaxed. She managed to find out  his story. 

He had been staying at a seedy hotel not too far away. He got into an altercation with two other people, and couldn't handle the stress and stay at the hotel any longer. He scored some ice to settle his harried emotions, carried off his folding metal bed from the hotel room, and wandered off to find somewhere to set up camp. With our bright room lights glowing and delectable food spread visible, he decided he wanted some when he walked by with his bed and whacked out mind. Perhaps it was a good thing the door was unlocked; who knows what he might have done to get inside or how stressed he might have become if we had said no and refused to open the door to him.

With the stomach pacified, a new blanket to warm him and thick new socks to comfort his toes, he jolted and jerked his way back outside, struggled to set up his bed in a doorway a few inches too short for the metal frame, lay down and went to sleep. Ordeal over. I took a very deep breath, debriefed quickly with my boss, and returned to quilting to talk to the others about it. 

I couldn't believe that anyone would willingly do that to themselves, reduce themselves to such a state when reason and logic are flung out the window, never mind physical control. I can't imagine how crappy his body felt the next day when the hangover began. It hadn't been his intention to use ice. It was a reaction to a stressful event. An inability to deal with stress and provoked emotions.

Michael Carr Gregg is a passionate children's and adolescent's psychologist. In one of his blogs entitled, Are We in Danger of Raising Marshmallow Children? he states that current parenting practices that cotton wool our children is not doing them any favours. "The result will be a generation of young people incapable of assuming adult responsibility with no idea how to handle the routine challenges of life, making them risk-averse, psychologically anemic, and riddled with fragility and anxiety."

Do I live a stressful life? No, I have it pretty good. Do I experience stress? Why, yes, I do. And I am concerned about my children's future. And the future of all our children. Why are they living with such anxiety? Why are they killing themselves? Why are they anorexic, addicted to drugs, unable to cope with life's challenges? Why do they turn to ice when they can't handle their emotions? What do they need to learn to handle the bad things that will happen, as they do to everyone? We lose games, break bones, have parents that hit or emotionally wound or abuse, get fired, fail exams, get hurt. What is the difference between those people that get up and shake off their pain, and others that fall apart? Why is 20% of the population in this happy country depressed and anxious? That is what intrigues me. That is what I am passionate about. And that's what I think about. It wouldn't be much of a blog if I wrote about my breakfast and how much I like the little birds that feed in my fejoia tree. This may be my blog, but it is about a much bigger picture that I cannot keep to myself.