Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels

The lovable aphorisms we had for people with character quirks were largely from our original support systems. What no one is talking about is the reason therapy-talk has become so pervasive is because all those support systems: family, friends, and local communities (religious or otherwise), have all degraded so severely for most that therapy is the only option for reaching out and getting help.

> is because all those support systems: family, friends, and local communities (religious or otherwise), have all degraded so severely.

I disagree! There was never a good support system at all. We used to just man up and live with it. Now that stress is reaching it's new heights. We can't cope with it.

I'm very curious as to how you come to the conclusion that 'stress' has increased. I don't suppose it's that the world is more stressful, WWII, cold war, a thousand famines throughout history, what makes us so stressed that we can't cope in some way that we used to be able to cope?

We just suffered at that time and prayed. Today we suffer and work together.

Also people used to smoke and drink a lot of alcohol. So it's possible that stress has objectively decreased, yet subjectively increased, as we are more aware of it.

But yeah it's an interesting question, and with the Internet as well. The 1980s world I grew up in as a kid (in Czechia) was more dangerous than the Internet-focused world of today; yet young people seem to be more stressed by the latter.