The massive upsurge in adolescent mental health issues and suicide over the past few years is a product of an increasingly harsh modern world, a world exacerbated by the double-edged damage caused by COVID-19. Until a series of modern problems are addressed, I believe the rising tide of anguish can’t be reduced.
Young people today are not growing up in the same world as our parents. Our days are haunted by social media and the prospect of underpaying yet over-demanding internships and jobs.
Inflation has raised the cost of everything, and wages have not kept up. College, housing, cars – all the big purchases cost more work hours than ever. COVID-19 damaged our economic futures. It also forced the majority of people into a seemingly endless lockdown. Although this aided the public health crisis, it created a mental health crisis at the same time.
A recent “60 Minutes” episode featured Yuval Neria, the director of trauma and PTSD at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, who said ongoing anxiety during trauma was a huge risk factor for PTSD and depression. The lockdowns following the initial COVID-19 outbreak created a situation in which ongoing anxiety was a near guarantee for most Americans, with no reasonable end in sight.
College socializing and parties were demonized and replaced by Zoom calls. Masks obscured everyone’s faces and we became scared to meet and speak with one another. Social media became the major means of interaction. It was often just the highlight reel of our friends’ lives: a smoke screen giving a false impression that others are happy and satisfied – when we are not, we feel as though there is something wrong with us. The pandemic was a blow to our collective psyche. Without the social outlets young people have always relied on, we’ve become isolated, more anxious, and less confident. These can be symptoms of spiraling mental health, and often the only warning signs are expressions of anger – or the deafening silence of withdrawal.
During lockdown, my dad described depression as “the inability to see or create a future.” The combination of lower wages and higher costs, far greater demands on education, competition to secure a well-paying job and the never-ending social media reel of friends living their “best life,” it’s now harder than ever to visualize a personal future where one is happy and secure.
Social programs which help people pay for medicine, school and housing would go some distance toward making ends meet in this expensive world. When people can visualize how they can pursue a career, put food on the table, perhaps even travel and enjoy some luxury in their life, the hopelessness of depression can be replaced by a belief in the future. Depression often arises out of an endless horizon of self-doubt. We need to give people the tools and help they need to see a future they can create for themselves.
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