Last December, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy announced that we are in the midst of a youth mental health crisis. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 44% of high school students feel persistently sad and hopeless, and emergency room visits for suicide attempts increased 31% in 2020 compared to 2019.
As a society, we’re doing a terrible job of helping. Part of the reason is stigma. Courtney Saunders, a therapist in Massachusetts, says she sees a lot of kids come in whose parents don’t understand the importance of mental health. “A lot of kids feel unheard and unseen, their experiences don’t seem as important as what the adults are dealing with,” she says. Part of the reason is structural — and it is to our detriment because, after all, the kids are our future.
The youth mental health crisis didn’t come from nowhere — it was already simmering in the background prior to the pandemic, Vivek Murthy pointed out during the American Psychological Association’s annual conference this year. To begin with, about half of mental disorders in America go untreated, according to the National Alliance on Mental Health. On average, if a child is diagnosed with a mental disorder, it can take up to 11 years before they receive treatment — if they receive treatment at all.
Read more at FastCompany.com.
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