‘I’m having to turn away grieving teenagers’
Therapist Vanessa Moulton has seen an explosion in mental health problems during the pandemic – with young people suffering
‘Fun isn’t frivolous – it’s a crucial part of how we build a fit mind’
For the first time ever in my 10 years of working as a psychologist, the number of people coming to me for help has surpassed anything I am capable of coping with. I am turning people away every week – something I’ve never done before – because I’m at capacity. The worst thing is that so many of them are parents of teenagers who are dangerously unhappy.
Not being able to go to school or see your friends might sound small fry, but it isn’t. I have seen a huge spike in the numbers of teenagers seeking mental health support, and if lockdown goes on much longer, I fear it will only get worse.
We talk about loss, but for teenagers, the loss of social interaction is profound, and for many, it is having a huge developmental impact. The teenagers coming through my (virtual) doors are suffering with loneliness, a sense of crippling helplessness, and a total lack of motivation. It all adds up to make life feel relentlessly bleak. For many of these young people, what I’m helping them with is a form of grief.
The parents who contact me are so worried, because it can be hard to tell if your 14-year-old is just “being a teenager” or if they are particularly, notably low. They don’t know what to do, and in lockdown there isn’t a lot they can do anyway. They can’t fashion a social life and a sense of structure and purpose where there isn’t one.
There will be many, many children out there suffering in silence. In many families, the adults are having such a difficult time of it that they may not be fully cognisant of how quiet their teenager has become. In many cases , a child doesn’t feel able to tell someone they are so low, perhaps because they don’t understand it themselves or feel ashamed. I am currently helping one teenager who had never suffered mental health problems before this past year, but they became so low they started self-harming.
The most universal problem behind all this unhappiness is the loss of a social life. In its simplest form, spending time with friends is fun. Fun is too often dismissed, it’s such a crucial part of how we build and maintain a psychologically fit mind. Social interaction stimulates our reward system, which makes us feel happy because it gets the endorphins and happy hormones going. It also gets our soothing response going. When we connect with people in person (not on a screen) it has this very powerful cushioning effect on our psychological health.
Another thing that comes up consistently is the loss of milestones. They might seem small to some people, but they’re huge to teenagers. That loss then turns into low mood, and potentially into depression.
Lack of movement is a big issue. The static nature of having to be inside means there is nowhere for their anxiety to go. If they remain static, they’ll continue to feel stressed for longer. We have this thing called the amygdala, a little structure in the front of our brain that detects threat. In March, that little threat detector was starting to fire up a bit more than normal. The more it was switched on, the more sensitive it became and the easier it was to switch on. Now, it’s going to find more things stressful and overwhelming. So many young people feel disempowered, with no road map out of it.
Life won’t, of course, be like this forever. But in the meantime, we have to make sure young people aren’t left to flounder.