Secrets of the City

I was just researching this recently, and youth suicides have actually declined steadily since the 90s. I can only find one news source now that suggests the suicide rate is worsening due to the recession, and that one is not focused on youth. That being said, the college years are dangerous ones for depression and anxiety, and the prospects for graduates being what they are, I can see it being worse than usual. But I don’t see any numbers to support that, and don’t know how much worse it is. This is certainly not the first generation to have bleak prospects out of college, though.

It seems like if we’re going to worry about a demographic, it is people in the military. My news search showed that suicide is quite high among young men and women in the service.

The academic pressure can’t be all that great at SCSU. I, too, like Cristina, wonder what is is about the present situation because students have had academic and financial worries for decades. It wasn’t any easier paying for tuition 30 years ago.

@kurtis: Yes, there is much to be worried about our service personnel. Suicides, domestic abuse, etc. exist in the armed forces at serious levels.

I think it is because this is when a lot of mental illnesses, like depression, start and/or intensify. These same kids would have killed themselves if they were working full time jobs or if they were stay at home moms. It is sad, but we often still don’t talk about how help is available and there is no shame in asking for it.

“This is certainly not the first generation to have bleak prospects out of college, though.”

It might be the first generation to have the expectation of being handed six figure salaried partnerships/VP positions handed to them immediately after graduation.

jk.

sort of.

I heard a bit on NPR a few weeks ago that proposed advances in psychiatry and medication may be allowing more young people with mental health issues to attend college than was previously possible.

if it weren’t so insenstive in the current context, I might say that being stuck in St. Cloud would seem to be reason enough to kill oneself. But instead I’m going to show restraint.

@grote: That’s good of you.

@Elizabeth: At what time before now did mental health issues — aside from being a convicted murderer — prohibit anyone from attending college?

Maybe not prohibit, per se, but the new medications and treatments (not to mention the provision of support services at schools) might allow some patients that previously would not have been able to function in such an environment to do so.

For example, newer schizophrenia drugs make it possible for some patients, who 20 years ago might have faced institutionalization, to live a more or less ordinary life.

@mnblrmkr: I thought the doors of institutions were thrown open 25 years ago … which led to a dramatic increase in homelessness, and was among the first indications that Reaganomics was smoke’n'mirrors.

That was a Carter initiative.

A little background from this discussion: http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/EJMontini/63766

“From the Kaiser Commission on Mental Health Care, which is the blue print for Medicare and Medicaid mental health care in the US

“These issues led to plans for major change. President Carter established the President’s Commission on Mental Health, which called for a new national priority for adults and children with serious mental disorders and recommended an orderly phase-down of state hospitals through performance contracts that would integrate federal and state funding. Congress responded by enacting the Mental Health Systems Act, with numerous changes to the federal CMHC program, including, importantly, a shift in emphasis to increase the priority of this population and to expand services beyond clinical care alone.

“It was Carter’s work that led to essentially treating mental health care as an outpatient program at the state level.”

@Rat: Okay, I’m pnwd … but only up to a point.

Carter’s plan would still have provided Federal funding; Reaganomics put the funding onus into the laps of states. How many states were able to keep up with the financial demands of outpatient care once the doors of the asylums were thrown open? Isn’t that one reason why there was a dramatic increase in the number of homeless people on the streets during the Reagan years?

However the long ago it was, nood. The point is, new pharmaceuticals allow many patients to do more things and live more normally than they could have previously.

As for the rat’s comment: It wasn’t the shift to outpatient treatment that was the real problem (given the conditions in many, if not most of the psychiatric hospitals, one might wonder if homelessness was really that much worse). It was the failure to properly fund that treatment that lead to most of the problems. That failure can be shared by Reagan (and every other president that’s followed).

Whiny twats, these children are being. Get over it.

Wall Street Journal has a front page article on the rise of the general suicide rate yesterday.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125892118623059701.html