The US surgeon general speaking to senators this week
about what he has called a mental health crisis for
America's youth Dr. Vivek Murthy his appearance on
capitol Hill comes after December advisory calling
attention to this issue. Both democrat and Republican
Senators on the Finance Committee did signal support
for doing something legislatively. The surgeon gene
says this isn't really just a matter for Congress. You
can't necessarily legislate you way out of sigma.
That's a cultural change we all have to play a role in.
But where Congress can make a big difference is in
focusing on expanding access to treatment, making sure
that we are integrating primary care with mental health
services. That we're expanding our pipeline for health
mental health professionals and we're doing that in a
diverse way. He says we have not just a medical
obligation to address the issue but a moral one as
well. Some of the data released in that surgeon genera
report from December are alarming. In early 2021
emergency department visits in the U. S. For suspected
suicide attempts were 51% higher for adolescent girls
and 4% higher for adolescent boys compared to the same
time period in early 2019. And about 140,000 Childre
and adolescents in the U. S. Lost a parent or caregiver
during the 1st 15 months of the pandemic and globally,
the report found symptoms of depression and anxiety
have doubled Mari Broome joins us now. She's a licensed
clinical social worker and psychotherapist specializin
in adolescent and young adult mental health. Thank you
so much for your time today, Mari how much of a crisis
was this before the pandemic. And in what way
specifically is covid making things worse. So I
definitely think it was a very big crisis prior to the
pandemic itself. When you think about teens and kids
these days and what they deal with social media, social
pressures, um, sexuality, gender injustices, um, school
shootings that were happening prior to the pandemic.
Uh, and then the pandemic itself, interestingly
in my practice, I kind of initially saw a deep decline
A lot of the clients I actually see have social anxi
and, and a lot of social pressures. So for them, it was
a little bit of a bubble. Initially they didn't h
go out, There weren't expectations. And then as time
continued and there were so many unknowns about what
this was going to look like. Then the anxiety started
to spike up again. And I would say even more recently,
it's been more of an issue. Um, the anxiety has, has
crept back in. Kids are having to get back to normal or
whatever that is. And I think a lot of us don't even
know what that is at this point. Um, they have to have
these academic pressures once again and back in school
and where the education system, uh, definitely I feel
suffered not just not just the students, but the
teachers struggled with, that parents struggled with
that. So that now they're back into this kind of weird
place of, okay, we have to try to get back to normal. I
think the other problem that I saw amongst teens and
even adults is social media during the pandemic. And
unfortunately as we both know, it was very much
politicized and no matter what side of the coin you're
on, people really were sharing a lot of their opinions
and a lot of their beliefs and there was a lot of shame
and guilt on both ends and from some of their friends
and even family members. So they leave their homes kind
of going back into this real world situation, not
really knowing their friends anymore. So it's, you
know, it's an interesting kind of trends that I saw
again, initially a lot of mental health challenges and
issues to some kind of relief in a way because not a
lot of expectation to again a spike um coming out of
it. Yeah, it seems like it definitely can be a lot,
especially for younger people. I want to get your
thoughts on something a journalist said back in
december after the surgeon general released a report we
mentioned earlier, referring to the mental health
crisis CBS News Chief legal correspondent said on fac
the nation, quote, if our policies don't reflect a more
measured and reasonable approac for our Children, they
will be paying for our generation's decisions the
of their lives and that to me is the greatest under
reported story of the past year Do you see it this way
too because of our focus on things like caseloads and
deaths from Covid, which are definitely noteworthy. Do
we lose sight of the long term mental health
implications for young people? Absolutely, I actually
couldn't agree more and I think it's unfortunate the
reality is I think the the story of Covid in it of
itself really clouded a lot of that. Um, while I was
seeing clients who actually were in the mental health
field themselves, access to care was was really a
problem trying to get people into treatment and
obviously, you know, everything to be virtual. So I
do think that this is going to have really long term
effects. I think that it is already having that
unfortunately access to care has always been an issue
whether it's cost, um, just, you know, lack of
education on where to find people to long wait lists,
not enough beds. Um, this is obviously a huge issue and
I think that, you know, there are some potential ways
and I'm sure everybody has similar answers. I'm not
sure how to make it happen, but whether it be early
prevention, um, kind of helping with funding and giving
schools enough time to educate kids and families about
mental health. I think a lot of time is taken away
really focusing on academics when there's so much more,
especially when that's where kids spend most of their
time to be able to educate them and kind of decrea
that stigma. Yeah. And it's so important to to be able
to have a sounding board for anyone who may be
struggling and to get people the help they need if
they're dealing with because Co is just such a heavy
burden. Sometimes Mari Broome. Thank you so much for
your time, We appreciate it, thank you and we want to
give you the free resources available if you or someone
you know is struggling. The numbers are on your screen
now. You can call the National Suicide Prevention
Lifeline at 1 802 73 80 to 55. You can also text home
to the crisis text line at 741741.