I'm not personally on medication but I understand some people need it, or at least for a period of time. My kids however are both more stressed in their late twenties than I was, despite being raised in a home with parents who get along relatively well - whereas I was an only child in a home with two parents who could barely communicate with each other, and probably should have divorced years earlier.

I think the difference is partly the relentless drumbeat of bad news on social media and 24/7 news outlets. Back then once the nightly news was off, I pretty much stopped worrying about far-flung wars and focused on my job in Tech, moved to California (still then semi-affordable), and soon got married. No worries about AI, robots, Climate change, cyber security, crypto hacking, or even keeping apps updated: no cell phones, no laptops, no autonomous taxis, not even an Internet yet in the early 80's. No DMs, no texts, not even email!

Even once things began to spin up in the early '90s it was a gradual transition not an onslaught.

Now we're bombarded with so much content it's almost overwhelming, and it's expensive. (UHD and OLEDs are grand, but how many hours every day do you want to stare at a flashing box?)

I've found even WFH has its tradeoffs. Now you compete against 1000 applicants for a remote job instead of 50 or less. My last boss was great, but she lives in Amsterdam. Her boss was in Australia. Even an online meeting was a challenge. I basically never met anyone in my area through work I wanted to hang with after 2008.

Of course starting out I benefitted from being white (in USA), male, college-educated, and healthy (oh yeah everyone with any job had good health care). Which pretty much put me among the "elite" unless I really screwed up (which I somewhat did much later).

Life WAS simpler. Yes there were some disadvantages but overall I would argue by the time we reached 2000, societal complexity was accelerating and the overall pace of work was also, leading to a lot of the stress-induced problems people now in their thirties and forties struggle with daily.

Which is part of why my brilliant older kid, age 28, who has an excellent college education and speaks multiple languages - among many talents - works 30 hours/week in a nearby public library, and has no ambition to "move up" or manage people. They disbelieve in the corporate structure and don't value material gain. They get union benefits, and go home and forget about the job entirely.

I do not believe we as humans are "wired" to deal with the levels of complexity and change we are now confronted by in our society. I think some of us are stretching ourselves via medication (legal or not) because we feel trapped in circumstances we can't escape, or often even control; but the long-term results are unknown. My kid was coping with difficult living circumstances by using a lot of pot and playing video games relentlessly. Once they achieved a much better living situation they realized they were addicted and entered a twelve step program. They're doing better but there are other issues for them (besides money being tight) for which they're still on some prescription meds.

In summary I think we've created a bunch of rabbit holes. Some have fallen down them, others are close and just hanging on. Meds can help, but is there a cost? For some I think only a major life change is a valid long-term solution. I understand that's not always a feasible thing. I just hope people realize medication can help but isn't necessarily a "magic bullet"? I think our society and our expectations need to change.