On a less entertaining note, three out of four student awardees sitting at my table had to take anti-anxiety meds to be able to go on stage to receive their awards. They weren’t expected to say anything, only walk across the stage and receive their certificates.
At the same time, my Ukrainian exchange students of the same age who spent the last three years hiding in bomb shelters don’t have anything remotely similar to these issues.
And I know exactly why. The Ukrainian students were never told that the option to freak out over little daily things to the point of needing to be medicated exists. The American students, though, were given this as the primary behavior model. These are all young women. It’s a highly impressionable cohort. If they grow up surrounded by endless manifestations of performative frailty, they accept it as a norm. These are patterns of behavior they perceive as normal.
What’s worse, young men are becoming increasingly coopted into this model of behavior as well. It starts as performative but after a while it becomes real. That’s how we end up with people who grew up in complete safety and comfort yet exhibit the symptoms of a very battered psyche.
This is the opposite of the “talking cure.” People talk themselves into having psychological dysfunction. The anxiety and the other symptoms they exhibit are completely real and very painful. But they are all caused by how we all collectively narrate to ourselves our encounters will small issues of daily life. We value emotional dysregulation so it proliferates. We don’t value resilience, so it fades.
Clarissa's Blog 
These people all need to go on vacation with my dad. Then they’ll look at this stuff and say: “yeah I’ve done way scarier things and still made it home… no big deal”
LikeLiked by 2 people
You exaggerate. But if you don’t, how much do you blame covid, and the ubiquity of screens with the disappearance of public free spaces?
Do you think political leanings also make a difference here?
[FWIW, I did not enjoy being fed exhortations to wipe down every surface when it’s not my inclination in the slightest. Nor some story about…dying potatoes instead of eggs for Easter. Wtf?]
LikeLike
There was the same COVID and the same screens in Ukraine. Or forget Ukraine, let’s say Mexico. There’s nothing of the kind among students from Mexico who are 1/3 of my students.
LikeLike
I don’t think the anxious are self selecting into going to another country for school.
Weird. I thought people who turned themselves into content creators with their faces would be less anxious about being perceived?
Or do the panicking students not do that?
LikeLike
Standing in front of a live crowd and appearing online are completely different experiences. In a live audience, there’s such energy. Besides, who even has a sizable online audience? Everybody thinks it’s their dream but as to actually handling serious exposure, you need to be a high aggression person. People don’t even know what it is like. It’s a childish dream to be an online influencer but it will only come true for a bunch of very particular people.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Interestingly enough, I have observed anxiety problems among students from India more recently (women only).
LikeLike
though it could be propaganda, I was just at a training that reported that anxiety rates are similar cross culturally though symptoms present differently.
Amanda
LikeLike
LikeLike