Just over 4 in 10 respondents had talked with a therapist or other health professional about mental health issues. “Oftentimes that’s the biggest thing - to know that you’re not alone.”Īlthough a majority of survey respondents said they found it difficult to talk with others about mental health, nearly three-quarters said they had talked to friends or family about their mental health or well-being. “I know that I’m supported and loved,” Bransfield said. Her friends talk openly about their challenges with depression, anxiety and body image, and share the things they do that help - like writing in a journal. But she feels fortunate to have a supportive family and a close circle of friends with whom she feels comfortable talking about mental health. Terra Bransfield, 22, a student at Sonoma State University, said she has struggled with body image issues and disordered eating. “I know they have counselors,” she said, but “they need actual therapists at schools, like certified child therapists, to help students.” Schools need to offer more support to young people, she said. But I’m still struggling with the symptoms.” Now, as a freshman in college, she said, “my anxiety is a lot better since high school. She would vomit frequently and lost weight. When she returned to campus for her senior year, “it was stressful and overwhelming,” she said. She asked The Times not to use her name to protect her privacy. “At that time, it didn’t seem important to me.” “Your junior year is where you’re supposed to be looking for colleges and figuring out the important stuff,” she said. Thirty percent of survey participants said they felt social media had a negative effect on their mental health, and those who spent more time online rated their mental health less positively. Some days she spent hours scrolling through TikTok videos. She had been a strong student but found it difficult to focus online or feel motivated. Her junior year in high school was entirely remote. Among those young adults who identified as LGBTQ, one-fifth reported their mental health as excellent or good.Īnother survey participant, who is 18 and attends community college in San Diego, said the loneliness of the pandemic left her feeling extreme anxiety. Just over half of men reported their mental health as excellent or good, compared with one-third of women.įive percent of those surveyed identified as gay or lesbian and 17% as bisexual. Overall, the survey found that women and those who identified as LGBTQ were significantly less likely to report positive evaluations of their mental health. “I feel like there’s such a misallocation of money. “The accessibility to therapists or resources that can help is very lacking,” she said. The food was inedible and there was only one bathroom, with no lock on the door, she said.Įventually, she managed to get into intensive outpatient therapy for a year, which improved her mental health significantly.īut getting that help took far too long, she said. At one facility, she was one of the only young women housed with several middle-aged and elderly men. She attempted suicide twice and spent time confined in treatment facilities. “My mental health just declined rapidly,” she said. Suddenly, she was forced to stay home, isolated from friends and the academics at which she excelled and that kept her motivated. When the pandemic hit, she was a senior in high school. She was 11 years old when she started harming herself after having experienced abuse. Young people who participated in the survey and spoke to The Times described mental health difficulties made significantly worse by isolation and loneliness during lockdowns and school closures.Īlejandra Barba, 20, grew up in a home with a family she loves but who is strictly religious and does not accept her being gay. Murthy has said is an emerging mental health crisis among youth. This summer, the endowment helped host a two-day summit aimed at working with young people to find ways to respond to what U.S. In this survey, that interval is roughly 5 percentage points in either direction. Instead, pollsters can estimate the precision of the poll with a different statistical calculation known as a credibility interval. Because such panels are not probability-based samples, pollsters can’t use traditional margin of error calculations to describe the uncertainty that surrounds the results of any poll.
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