Let’s Cut the Crap About Mental Health in Your 40’s and 50’s

** If you or someone you know is in crisis or distress, please call or text 988 for free and confidential support.

What comes to mind when you hear the phrase “mental health?”

Do you think that mental health only covers people with more serious problems like schizophrenia and bipolar issues?

Do you think that someone with mental health struggles is “unwell,” “crazy,” or “incompetent?”

Do you think that people who are struggling with a mental health issue can just “snap out of it” if they try hard enough? Or that if they can “just see the bright side,” then they’ll feel better?

There are many stigmas and myths surrounding mental health and mental illness, especially in the United States. Our country’s imperialist, capitalist, white supremacist, patriarchal (ICWP) foundations don’t allow much, if any, room for people to exist outside of what that dominant culture deems as “normal.” And what the ICWP deems to be “normal” are people who can suck it up, slap on a smile, do their work, look on the bright side, and stop their bitching and whining (or at least “bitch and whine” in silence so that they don’t make other people uncomfortable).

GenX’ers (folks born between 1965-1980) are pros at trying to uphold these standards of “normal.” And we can thank our Baby Boomer parents for a lot of that. They were the original pros at this “suck it up” mentality. “Mental health” wasn’t even in most Baby Boomer’s lexicon. So, many GenX’ers (myself included) weren’t raised to think about - let alone prioritize - mental health.

Generally speaking, GenX’ers’ mental health needs were deprioritized when we were growing up in the 70’s and 80’s. Values like “independence,” “do it yourself,” and “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” were prioritized instead. Consequently, anything that didn’t reflect those values was deemed weak, abnormal, or unacceptable.

In addition, any discussion about mental health was reserved for people who suffered subjective notions of “really bad trauma.” Basically, if your pain didn’t rise to the level of something really awful, you’d better quitchur bitchin’.

Later, when GenX’ers grew up, we were either siphoned into careers that we thought we “should be” doing (so that we could check the boxes of being productive members of society) and/or starting our own families. Either way, our careers and our families then took priority - once again - over our own mental health.

Then, after GenX’ers spent decades raising their own families and/or working their way up their career ladder, they hit their 40’s and 50’s feeling wrung out, stressed, and lost . . . often wondering “who the hell am I?” and “how did I get here?”

And I'm not just talking about feeling bad for a day or two.  I'm talking about feeling really in a funk . . . sad, depressed, anxious, stressed, you name it . . . for prolonged periods, to the point where it's hard to get out of bed every day or to enjoy the things that you used.  

But, instead of being made to feel like these reactions and emotions are understandable and normal, we are made to believe that there’s something wrong with us and that we’re having a “mid-life crisis” if we feel like we want to burn down what we’ve built, abandon ship, or hide under the covers. Like we should be happy with the lives we’ve built, be grateful, and stop wallowing just because life didn’t turn out like we thought it would.

(Sidenote: yes, I know the value in practicing gratitude, recognizing that someone else has it worse than us, noticing how privileged we are, etc. AND - and that’s a big AND - oftentimes those kinds of perspective shifts can look like taking a pile of shit and spray painting it gold. That pile of shit may look prettier, but it’s still a pile of shit at the end of the day. And it will always stink. When we use gratitude, positivity, or comparison to gloss over the shit that we’re feeling, it gives the message that the shit we’re feeling isn’t valid, doesn’t belong, or is “bad.” We can be both grateful AND depressed, sad, anxious, etc. I’ll talk more about this - along with what not to say to someone struggling with mental health - in the coming weeks).

It’s like we GenX’ers are stuck in this weird in-between world as the forgotten generation. In one world, we have 40 or 50 years of messaging and conditioning telling us that if you can’t slap a smile on your face, there’s something wrong with you. In the other world, we have the emergence of messaging that says “it’s okay not to feel okay.” We don’t know which world to believe or live in. Our lifelong conditioning makes it so freaking hard to recognize that our mental health is just as important - if not more important - than our physical health. Or, more specifically, that mental unhealth is just as important - if not more important - than physical unhealth.

I’ve read statistics that 1 in 4 Americans struggle with mental health issues on a daily basis. My personal, non-expert feeling is that this statistic is low because a lot of people either don’t recognize or want to admit what mental health struggles are or look like. Often people think that mental health issues have to rise to the level of “mental illness” in order to be taken seriously.

I’m not a therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist, or social worker. My layman’s understanding is that there is a spectrum of mental health challenges that generally ranges from things like depression and anxiety to schizophrenia and bipolar issues, with the latter often being characterized as “mental illness.”

And there’s lots of information out there explaining the difference between “having a bad day or two” and having a mental health challenge. (This information from the United Kingdom based non-profit organization, Mind, is a good place to start).

So, I’m not here to provide ways to spot if you or someone you love is struggling with a mental health challenge, what to do about it, etc.

What I’m here to do is put a GenX face on mental health challenges.

It’s the face of someone who, from all outward appearances, has her shit together.

Someone who owns her own house and car. Owns a business to support other GenX’ers in their 40’s and 50's to figure out who they are and where they want to go from here.

Someone who’s had a successful career and lots of accomplishments.

Someone with a lot of privilege - from her whiteness, socio-economic status, ableness, and health.

And yet, someone who has struggled recently and throughout life with deep depression. Depression that often and recently has led her to wonder why she’s even here and whether she wants to continue to be here.

And that someone . . . is me.

Next week I will share more about not only my recent mental health struggles, but also struggles I’ve had all of my life . . . struggles that I was never given permission or knowledge to identify as actual mental health struggles.

What I want to share now is an invitation to look at your own definition or beliefs around mental health. And maybe watch this video from Mind, to get a better sense of the various ways in which mental health issues can show up:

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. So, let’s cut the crap around mental health challenges. Let’s open our minds up to the different ways in which people struggle with mental health. Let’s invite ourselves to raise our awareness around the ways in which growing up in the 70’s and 80’s may have impacted our views of mental health.

Please share below: What comes to mind when you think of “mental health.”