CDC: Kids Are in Mental Health "Crisis"
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see political culture's role feeding it
Let’s stop pretending that the continuing, ever-escalating Republican war on women, girls and LGBQ+ kids doesn’t have immediate and real world consequences. It does. Often lasting and even deadly consequences. Republicans nationally - and in Iowa - need to knock off their toxic rhetoric and can their harmful, bigoted legislative initiatives.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a new report last week that found a shocking "mental health crisis” among teenage girls and LGBT+ kids that it attributes to - among other things - “an overwhelming wave of violence and trauma.”
Their findings are based on an every two year survey it conducts of high school students. Its “Youth Risk Behavior Survey” interviewed ” 17,232 kids in 2021. The study found significant increases in mental health challenges for both boys and girls, but teen girls fared worse across all measures.
Among its findings:
Nearly three in five high school girls - 57% - report feeling “persistently sad or hopeless.” That’s double the rate for boys.
Nearly one in three - 30% - said they have seriously considered suicide. That’s up 60% from ten years ago.
Bullying and sexual violence against girls in high school are up, alarmingly so. Nearly one in five - 18% - said they experienced sexual violence within the past year, up 20% since 2017.
Over half of teenagers who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or questioning - 52% -said they often struggle with mental health, and that one in five - 22% - attempted suicide in the past year.
Both boys and girls - more than 40% - report feeling so sad or hopeless within the past year that they were unable to do their regular school activities such as school work or sports for at least two weeks.
If those statistics don’t shock you, break your heart - terrify you, in fact - then you aren’t paying attention. This is not normal.
Being a teen has never been easy, but the normal drama and angst of our high school years does not account for statistics like these - or the trouble behind them.
The CDC survey did not ask the teens why they felt sad or hopeless, but it is not hard to figure out some answers to that question. The continuing Covid pandemic - the increasing isolation, the added stress and grief - that came with living with Covid is obviously a part of this.
But so is our increasingly fractured political culture, in my view:
Trump’s Covid mismanagement: Let’s start at the beginning. It would have been helpful if President Trump had competently managed Covid and the pandemic that followed, instead of focusing on the public relations and the political ramifications of it, minimizing it, and lying about it.
Governments are supposed to keep us safe, as President Obama did when Ebola threatened the United States. Obama acted decisively, promptly, transparently, and professionally. He kept Ebola, largely, out of the U.S.
Trump’s gross incompetence let the Covid virus launch its rampage here. For young people, that failure to keep us safe became the new normal. It does not generate confidence in the government’s response the next time a deadly disease threatens.
Mass shootings: We have an epidemic of mass shooting in this country, like no other country. The shootings often target schools, students, and teachers at every level, elementary, middle school, high school and college. They are now so routine that some don’t even get covered nationally. Yet we do nothing. Republicans act like nothing is happening and continue to push gun agendas that only increase the glut of, and easy access to, guns. Their laws and legislation often allow even people who have no business being at the trigger end of a gun to load up on guns.
Republicans in government even oppose simple, basic safety precautions like background checks.
If you were a school kid, would you see any reason to hope school mass shootings will stop anytime soon? Or that if they don’t, grown ups might ever eventually care?
Normalizing disrespect for women: Donald Trump, the most recent Republican President, bragged on tape as a candidate about routinely sexually assaulting women. Republicans still nominated him and America still elected him President in 2016. He has been accused, multiple times, by multiple women, of sexual assault. Yet, he is arguably the current front-runner for the Republican nomination for President in 2024.
Great example for the kids, Republicans and Mr. Trump. It can’t be a surprise that some high school sexual predators might see that as a green light for their own similar behavior.
Second class citizenship for women: Increasingly, Republicans are criminalizing a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions, even when her own life is in danger. The message of Roe v Wade was clear: the lives of women and their constitutional rights mean nothing.
Do you think women and girls don’t notice understand that? Do you see anything in that message that would give a woman or a girl any reason to think that she matters, deserves respect, or has reason to hope for a future that includes self autonomy?
LGBT+ bigotry as policy: Most disgusting of all is the increasing fixation Republicans have on LGBTQ kids and their efforts to demonize them. They don’t even want to allow people - kids or adults - to check a book out of the library so they might be able to educate themselves about people who are LGBT+.
“Don’t Say Gay” laws are being copycatted around the country in red states, where governors and legislators - often with no professional training or credentials in education at all - want to micro manage (meaning mostly bar) what can be taught in local schools, colleges and universities on gender.
Apparently they like the look of empty library book shelves, government lists of banned books, and the stench of ignorance, which only leads to stereotypes, and fosters bigotry and hate.
Should any of us be surprised, then, that many LGBT+ kids are picking up mental scars left behind by policies and proposals fueled by Republican LGBT+ bigotry?
Normalizing bullying: Again, Trump and his imitators are lowering the bar, this time on how we treat one another. Trump’s entire persona rests on a foundation of bullying people. It has for years. Others have picked up on that and now see it as the path to success.
Bullying powerless refugees who fled severe danger at the risk of their own lives is now, apparently, hilarious and a good way to be considered Republican presidential timber. The Governors of Florida and and Texas lied to refugees, loaded them up by the thousands, bussed them to Washington, DC, New York, and Massachusetts and dumped them there, with no effort to help them, orient them, or to connect them with anyone who could or would help them once they were dumped there.
Why wouldn’t some high school bullies think those examples show that bullying is the new way to roll?
The mental health crisis facing kids, but especially girls and LGBT+ kids is real and no accident. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or Sherlock Holmes to figure out what is contributing to it. This crisis warrants immediate attention by health care providers but also by politicians, specifically, Republican politicians, whose toxic rhetoric and bigoted policies and proposals are hurting kids.
Teens - especially girls and LGBT+ kids - deserve better than this.
They do not deserve governments that have forsaken them and politicians - grown ups supposedly - who hate them simply for being who they are. They deserve governments and politicians who respect them and inspire reasoned hope, not despair, about the future.
*Please Note: Contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline if you are experiencing mental health related distress or are worried about a loved one who may need crisis support. Call or text 988 to talk with a trained crisis counselor. 988 is confidential, free and available 24/7/365
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CDC: Kids Are in Mental Health "Crisis"
“If those statistics don’t shock you, break your heart - terrify you, in fact - then you aren’t paying attention.” Keep raising awareness, Barry! Thank you!
Great article! Besides not protecting older people, many governors let kids simply get covid and even fought mask wearing since young people weren't going to die. The result was covid depression. I saw this when I taught college. The take away: the government is not going to protect you or care about your health. https://www.webmd.com/covid/covid-19-depression