The worst thing you can tell someone with anxiety to do is to relax and to not worry about it. As a 20-year-old student, I find Zoe Williams’ article patronising (Why generation Z should give up striving to be their best selves, 19 August). She’s applying her own experience of youth to our situation, implying we’re doing youthhood “wrong”. The reality is that we’re doing our best. I know plenty of people who let their hair down by taking drugs, drinking and smoking, but a lot of the time they’re doing it to stave off the anxiety of external and internal pressures.
As someone who has experienced sexual assault and tumultuous mental health, I find the idea that I should just get pissed and go make some mistakes “so regrettable that you’re still laughing in shame 30 years later” insulting. I’m sure there were people of Williams’ age who were self-aware and also scared of the future, but this is the case for most of my peers now. We’re scared of what generation X and the baby boomers have done to our planet and society, and we’re the ones who have to fix it.
