Is It Everyone?
On the not-so-quiet epidemic of mental health struggles — and what it means when no one feels okay.
I don’t know anyone who isn’t struggling right now.
Everyone I talk to is either in therapy, on medication, burnt out, anxious, or operating in some version of survival mode. My group chats sound like support groups. We trade psychiatrist referrals like book recs. It’s normal to casually mention Lexapro dosages or depressive spirals before lunch.
I’m not exempt. I’ve been on medication for years. I’ve done therapy. I’ve tried cutting caffeine, walking more, meditating, supplementing, sleeping better. Sometimes it helps. Sometimes it doesn’t. Even at my best, there’s a steady, low-level hum of overwhelm I can’t quite shake. And I know I’m not alone.
In fact, I’m statistically not alone.
Anxiety and depression are at an all-time high globally. In the first year of the COVID‑19 pandemic, the World Health Organization reported a 25% increase in anxiety and depression worldwide (source). Among teens and young adults, rates of depressive and anxious symptoms doubled, with emergency department visits for suicidal ideation spiking more than 50% in adolescent girls (source). Even before the pandemic, one in three U.S. high-schoolers reported persistent sadness or hopelessness—40% higher than a decade earlier (source). The U.S. Surgeon General has since declared mental health a national crisis (source).
So what’s going on?
Keep reading to explore why we’re all feeling like life is too much and why maybe the answer isn’t just a diagnosis.
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