Social media is easy to target, but it’s not likely the most effective change to make for the benefit of youth mental health. The others take more work and get fewer headlines, so here we are.
I needed the ability to go places on my own because I didn’t have the internet. Teens today have much less freedom to go places independently, so we should consider how to keep them connected to society if it’s not online.
If we want to advocate for mental health, we need to advocate against policies that make mental health issues worse for so many people. Prisons do that. Putting more people in jail does that. The number of incarcerated people in the US is the highest in the world. Many of them need mental health treatment, not criminal records, and a felony conviction that prevents them from getting jobs, housing, and care even once they are outside of prison.
It turns out that our environment contributes to the mental health crisis, and improving that environment lessens the suicide risk. If the goal is to prevent suicide, then we need to be looking at the world we create around people.
As I said earlier, we don’t live in an ideal world where everyone has an open mind and is comfortable having conversations about mental health and trauma. We have to make choices. For some, there are serious consequences to being identified as someone with mental health struggles in their professional lives. Others aren’t safe enough to talk about the trauma they are currently dealing with. We all make choices when dealing with different people around us, who we know are safe, versus those we don’t feel safe with.
Your choices are valid. They don’t have to be the same as mine because your life isn’t mine. All I ask is that you be thoughtful about your choices so you don’t find yourself in an unsafe situation. That’s all we can expect of anyone, no matter how much we want to see and hear more voices talking about mental health in the world.
I’ve said it before and I’ll keep repeating it until everyone gets it. Exercise, meditation, resilience, and emotional intelligence are great things to do for our mental health. Still, they will never raise someone out of poverty, eliminate oppression, sexism, racism, etc., or clean up pollution and eliminate climate disasters. We cannot teach kids to be more resilient and do nothing to minimize the amount of trauma they are dealing with every day.
