The bottom line? We can all play a role in enhancing mental health outcomes for ourselves and those around us. We change the world one solid relationship at a time, and we build those through effective communication.
To believe we can solve the teen mental health crisis by forcing kids off social media and doing nothing about all these other things is foolish.
Child depression rates are skyrocketing – but social media isn’t to blame. Here’s why– Correlation is not causation, the relationship between mental health and social media is much more complicated than some would lead us to believe.
Movies that Matter: Resilience: The Biology of Stress & The Science of Hope
ake describes the risk of these kids growing up to be people pleasers. I’d go one further. Not only did I grow up as a people pleaser, but I also had zero sense of self. Without someone to react to and to become the person they wanted me to be, I was no one. I tell people this often but I spent more time in therapy figuring out who I am than I spent trying to process childhood trauma and that was a direct result of growing up as this chameleon kid. My entire personality was based on fitting what was needed by other people, starting with my alcoholic father and the person who sexually abused me, right through to friends and my first wife. I was what I thought they wanted me to be. When my therapist started asking about what I wanted to be, I was blank. There was nothing there.
What we see there is that mental health problems can create debt. When we cannot work, our healthcare costs skyrocket, and we can find ourselves in a poor financial situation. That poor financial situation creates more stress and emotional labor, contributing to mental health issues.
Whether the mental health problem or financial struggle came first doesn’t matter. Once we are in the cycle, it will continue round and round.
That’s what cycles do.
