Depends which side of Pax Americana you were on in those 60 years. If you're gay or black (or both!) in the Midwest, being neurotic and avoiding getting lynched or smeared rates a lot higher than if you'd be the one doing the smearing. If your mom was almost the victim of a serial killer, she'd be neurotic as hell! And she wouldn't even be wrong about it. These are corner cases of course, but the past 60 years haven't been all gravy for everyone, so we shouldn't think that it was.