As societies, we don’t care enough to do the hard work required to change it. If we cared, we wouldn’t have years and years of stories like this. We wouldn’t have millions of people having to choose between eating and their mental health or being dumped into a system that offers no help.
But we do, and very few leaders are even talking about making the massive investments necessary to overhaul the system.
Because we don’t care.
Even just the headline made me think of those days when I was in my 20s, dealing with the trauma and shame of my childhood and the major depression that I was not getting proper treatment for. I didn’t take care of myself. I didn’t even meet the basic needs of sleep, food, etc., because, in my mind, I wasn’t worth it. I didn’t deserve to live a healthy, content life. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand what self-care was or why it was necessary; I lacked a belief that I deserved it.
For some people dealing with anxiety and depression, more exercise or time in nature might help. For a cross-country athlete, I doubt that is what they are lacking. The comments from the researchers in the article above made it clear to me that there are a multitude of reasons why the rate among student-athletes has been getting higher. That means the solutions are likely to include various options as well.
That’s not a bad thing. It just means we have to find what works best for us individually.
As I’ve repeatedly said, find what works for you and stick with it. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise or convince you to stop doing something that works for you. Don’t give up if what your friend or an online influencer does that works for them doesn’t work for you. Every one of these lives is worth the effort to find what will make them want to stay. That includes you.
I think this comment is correct: If you’re finding it hard to cope with the news and social media, you’re not alone. It isn’t easy to know when to stop reading the news. The line between being informed and obsessed with it to the point of impacting our lives and mental health is a fine…
Seeking to improve ourselves to catch up on some deficiencies that we believe we have will be a neverending proposition. It will lead to misery because it starts with feeling inferior.
You’re not. Now, go better yourself because you want to be better. Not because you have to catch up.
What I read in this matches what I see in real life. Some people spend a lot of time on social media doing things that are bad for their mental health. (Comparing their lives to the ultra-filtered images they see on social media, filling their feed with information that is bad for their mental health, etc.) while others use social media to connect with an online support network.
Given that, the calls for banning social media use for kids seem odd, but they are based on that being the easy thing. Blaming big tech will never be unpopular, and there is a possibility that some people might be better off not using social media as much.
