Trigger Warning: Contains mentions of depression, self-harm, suicide, and eating disorders.

At some point in the past years, the term mental health has become a term we are now intensively acquainted with. Perhaps this is due to the emotional turmoil that adolescence inevitably lugs, or the loss of innocence that everyone experiences, or each individual’s myriad of emerging plights—all of which amounting simply to inescapable rites of passage. However, studies lay down another contributor, one pervasive and alarming: America’s very own mental health epidemic.

To address the elephant in the room (a very large elephant, at that), COVID-19 is undeniably a colossal factor in the mental health crisis. However, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, America faced a growing mental health crisis among its youth. From 2009 to 2019, the number of high school students experiencing persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness increased by 41%; from 2010 to 2020, suicide death rates among adolescents increased by 62%. The mental health situation only worsened with COVID-19, with this global pandemic bringing death, grief, fear, social isolation, financial stress, and uncertainty along with it. These stressors were not kind to American citizens’ well-being, and unfortunately, multiple research groups have the statistics to prove it. According to the World Health Organization, the global prevalence of depression and anxiety increased by 25% in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. To put it into perspective, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study from October 2022, 51% of adults had experienced a severe mental health crisis in their household, with 28% of families having a family member receive urgent in-person treatment; 26% with a family member engaged in self-harm behaviors; 21% with a family member that experienced a drug overdose; 16% with a family member that died by suicide; 14% with a family member that ran away from home; and 8% with a family member that suffered a severe eating disorder. It is no wonder that America was left struggling to pick up its pieces, beckoned to focus on mental health yet failing to do so adequately. Fast-forward to today: as of May 11, 2023, America has officially exited the COVID-19 epidemic. However, its effects linger, and now, it’s the mental health epidemic that continues to persist.

Besides the COVID-19 pandemic, what are some other factors of America’s current mental health crisis? 

Discussed at large these past years, a controllable component is extensive social media use, which was exacerbated by the time spent in the pandemic. Social media is an excellent tool to connect with family and friends, but it, like all things, should be taken in moderation—a principle that has been inordinately breached. The 21st century is oriented toward technology: this overstep is no surprise, nor was it avoidable. But now we must acknowledge that we reap its consequences. The format, use, and algorithm of social media contribute to mental health issues such as self-comparison, negative body image, anxiety, and depression. Meanwhile, the removal of social media brings just the opposite. In a study at the University of Pennsylvania, 143 undergraduates were restricted to limit social media use to ten minutes per platform, and, when compared to the control group, the results boasted drastic decreases in loneliness and depression. Of course, limiting social media usage isn’t easy, or else it wouldn’t be as big of a problem as it is now; social media platforms are quite literally designed to make addicts. But however addicting social media is, the urgency of its harmful tendencies urges immediate action to start monitoring social media usage, especially as technology is further integrated—for the sake of our mental well-being, and the sake of a healthy future. 

In contrast to the autonomy we have over social media use, the state of our mental health is sometimes not under our control, but under the healthcare system’s. Although life’s predicaments can’t always be changed, mental health services can mediate them by teaching us how to react and by guiding us through turbulent emotions. However, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the majority of the American population does not have access to care and treatment for mental health issues, barred by an overwhelm of factors such as a lack of available providers, inadequate insurance coverage, and lofty prices, among other restrictions. Most American states have less than 40% of the mental health professionals needed, with over half of American counties having no practicing psychiatrists at all. In areas that do have mental health providers, it is often difficult to find a provider within an insurance network, leading to high costs that cause many to forgo mental health care entirely. Furthermore, even when receiving mental health services, there is no guarantee of their quality. According to multiple studies, misdiagnosis and overdiagnosis are unsettlingly common in psychiatry, with one study going so far as to claim that psychiatric diagnoses are scientifically meaningless due to overlapping symptoms and diagnostic inconsistency. Though the mental health service system isn’t necessarily the root of the problem, it is the problematic root of a solution. Thus, to overcome this new and intangible epidemic and supply its people with proper tools, the American government must invest in improvement.

Undoubtedly, the mental health crisis is a complex subject to tackle, especially in just a thousand words. Mental health itself is such an individualistic experience, after all. There will never be a perfect singular reason to explain why an unaffiliated group of people may share a common sadness. However, despite this, it is statistically clear that the mental health epidemic is happening, right now, and has only been intensified by factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic and a new age of technology. And it is unnervingly just as clear that, despite the rise of poor mental health, mental health services are not rising to the occasion. If America truly is for its people, then America must meet the problem for its people. Otherwise, it may risk losing them to none other than itself.