Anxiety and depression are at unprecedented levels worldwide and the numbers are growing. The World Health Organization (WHO) describes it as an epidemic, and estimates that 615 million people are suffering from one or other of these debilitating diseases. A staggering number, that in all likelihood is an indication only of the depth of the problem; anxiety as documented by the WHO, is primarily a developed nation’s issue. The 800 million living in extreme poverty in India, for example, are not polled, and are too overwhelmed by the daily demand for survival to even question if they feel depressed or anxious; so too the 500 million living on the margins of life in sub-Saharan Africa, or rural China.
Suffocating expectation
What are the factors that create such a fear-inducing, hostile environment; why do so many people regard the world as unkind, intolerant – life as something to be feared?
BBC Radio 4, thought by many of us to be the pinnacle of broadcasting, recently ran a programme dedicated to anxiety. It was a ‘phone in’. Listeners were invited to share their stories of anxiety and those of their family members. Many callers spoke of being reduced to tears, when listening to the accounts being related often by parents: children unable to face school, teenagers who cannot leave the house, middle-aged men too anxious to face the world and women unable to step out of their homes and engage with life for fear of ridicule.
A recurring theme was a lack of…