Oh my. I knew the problem was bad, but not this bad. The 25% figure is sobering.

We can only hope that the vaccines get us back to normal in time to help these kids.

That’s a tough age. At 21-22 I had to scrape and scrap for everything - education, housing, everything. It felt like I was continually rolling the stone uphill with no end in sight and an uncertain result. Not good for one’s mental state at all. A nonexistent social life would not have helped that at all.

It's a bad time, especially because the supposedly number one mental health help - social ties - is almost absent, especially for youth who ordinarily have an easier time connecting and sharing common experiences IRL.

Older people suffer too (ask me about it! ) but we've had a little more time to develop coping strategies including accustoming ourselves to isolation - not that we love it, for the most part.

But it's almost as if kids are forced to age ahead of their time, including plain missing out on important developmental stages.

I'm not sure that the amount of publicity surrounding suicides is helpful. That said, though, it DOES help that , at least, the shame is dissipating.
One might also suppose that bullying is reduced.

Gosh, I feel so sorry, though, for the kids forced to stay at home, in situations where parents are unusually stressed and whose housing conditions may be extra conducive to distress owing to cramped spaces, eventlessness, with ones co-habitants feeding each others' stresses and sense of despair. Worst off of all, may be those who don't even have internet access.

I sure hope this sorrow and loss ends ASAP with the vaccines. Also that human ingenuity (in this case, for spiritual/mental strategies) finds ways to help the damaged recuperate. Under the most optimistic scenario, though, I have to admit it seems bound to be a matter of years until the ripple effect takes away the hurt and distortions of this period.

I ask myself whether this pandemic is more or less destructive to a generation than an actual war. Some young people have supposed that people "need" a major war every generation or so, to give them something to fight for and a sense of nobility. A sense of tragedy, and the opportunity for heroism.

Why then does this loss which every generation experiences differently, seem so deeply tragic? The loss of our most previous commodity, Time, strikes at the core of our being. That and the awareness of our helplessness in the face of this theft - of events, predictability, relationships, the touchstones of our being. Is there any way to regain our lost years, the sense that we can ever again feel any real mastery of our fates. A belief in the value of planning.

"Why bother?" may be the universal question that is recurring now especially for the young people whose timelines have been so deeply derailed. "Looking forward" - CAN we ever again?

Find myself remembering existentialism's popularity back when I was in my twenties. The key word existentialism's superstars fell back on, to characterize what was the matter with life -

ENNUI.

This is surely the new Age of Ennui. Waiting for Godot all over again.

It’s not just young people. (Both my single kids are having a hard time) But my parents are suffering too - it’s compounding the age related mental issues they already have.

It's a rough time, for sure. I certainly didn't anticipate last March, when we went into lockdown, that we'd be still here almost a year later. I honestly thought it would be a matter of a few weeks while everything got straightened out.

Honestly, when I think of this past year it blows my mind. Politicizing a pandemic.... gaaah.

I'm really concerned about the effects of this isolation on people's mental health.

quote:

I certainly didn't anticipate last March, when we went into lockdown, that we'd be still here almost a year later.

+1.

We are doing mostly ok, for a variety of reasons, including that we have each other, we have a good sized house where each of us has our own work space, we're ok financially, all those things. And even then sometimes we just feel down.

Also, it's harder on Mr. SK because he knows he can't jump on a plane and make a quick trip to Japan if one of his parents were to get sick... He's pretty much trapped in the US and I know that doesn't feel too great