Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says • Hacker News Board

Re: Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says

#101

Post by elil17 » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 5:08 AM UTC

cultofmetatron wrote: post #14

paperwasp42 wrote: post #10

I'm not even a parent, but I've been incredibly distressed by this trend. Several of my good friends have had their daughters attempt suicide (luckily, none have succeeded, although 2 extremely close calls). It's been utterly gut-wrenching to watch these talented, kind, ambitious girls spiral into shells of their former selves. Luckily, all my friends are fellow techies who are upper-middle class, and can afford medi…

medication isn't going to fix that. our society is infected at every level. Urban planning is setup so you can't get anywhere without a car so kids are stuck online all day. We don't have public spaces where you aren't expected to spend money. Our food is tainted and industrialized to have less nutrition. We spent decades digging this grave

To me this is honestly more depressing than climate change and just as depressing as global poverty. We can make sure civilization keeps existing, we can stop exploiting the global south, but even then the best-off people in the world will still often feel that life is not worth living.

I’m glad there are people for whom medication and therapy works. I hope more people can get access to medication. I’m also sad that there isn’t more being done to address root causes.

Re: Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says

#102

Post by pdimitar » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 5:08 AM UTC

I'll join the chorus of the other sibling commenters here by expressing skepticism that any medication will at all help with anything.

Psychiatric medication often simply numbs your brain so it stops being worried about things that legitimately and truly torment it. It reduces your sensitivity, it knocks off your normal brain chemicals balance, and it turns you into a robot. I've had a family member go through this a long time ago. It was soul-crushing watching them when I visited. They were almost turned to vegetables with chemical means.

Doing all this does NOT solve the underlying problems that make people reach for suicide. Those problems are societal and very deeply ingrained at this point.

We must look for the reasons that younger people start attempting suicides more than before and try and cure the illness, not the symptoms.

I even started finding it offensive when I see people offering medication. It comes across as: "Here ya go champ, let's again deceive your brain that everything's alright when it really isn't, now off ya go and be a good worker bee, and oh by the way that'll be $2000 for the 10 minutes session". Could it be that we just treat people worse and worse with time? I say yes, yes we do.

But judging by a lot of other replies in this thread, I'd venture to say that many people are not ready to hear it, sadly, and are still in denial, and will shout anybody thinking otherwise away from their platforms (whichever they might be, virtual or in the meat space). And until that changes, the problem will only deepen.

Re: Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says

#103

Post by throwawayyear22 » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 5:09 AM UTC

blooalien wrote: post #68

Of course nothing that happened before the pandemic could have contributed at all to any feelings of hopelessness. The absolute despair required to want to "end it all" just suddenly happened because of this one situation. The constant 24/7 barrage of "doom and gloom" and just general insanity in the news and "social" media couldn't have laid any groundwork for anyone to feel like there's just no point in even trying…

In regards to the media, parents could be more dismissive of the doom and gloom. Instead I watch parents repeat in front of their children that corporations are evil, sea level will rise by 10's of feet soon, racism everywhere, reverse racism everywhere, the China Communists will take over the world, that the U.S. doesn't manufacture anything, etc.

I recall one adult in my entire childhood that laughed off a doom and gloom discussion and one other that said "relax you'll be fine". It immediately paused my chronic anxiety as calm is contagious.

Re: Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says

#104

Post by unityByFreedom » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 5:09 AM UTC

qbasic_forever wrote: post #79

It would be truly fascinating to compare this increase in suicide to any changes in suicide for children in China or other countries which weathered the pandemic much better than the US. If it really is the case that harsh lockdowns create more suicides then surely China and its much more swift and drastic entire lockdowns of million person cities would generate more of them per capita, no? I suspect though that we'd…

I wouldn't trust such numbers from China. Their death rate has looked like this [1] [2] since April 2020. Coincidentally, that is when covid cases began to take off in the west. China stopped adding to their death toll after they revised their numbers upwards exactly 50% (1290/2579) [3].

[1] https://i.imgur.com/SnwqNsd.png

[2] https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/china

[3] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/4/17/chinas-wuhan-revise...

Re: Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says

#105

Post by xyzzy_plugh » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 5:10 AM UTC

fny wrote: post #41

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bad take. At most, Covid was a wealth transfer from governments and middle-class to many lucky corporations and wealthy investors. But in reality, everyone is suffering. Let's say the opposite reaction happened and we prioritized heathy youths over vulnerable seniors. There would have been orders of magnitude more deaths by now, society would have collapsed in some places temporarily or permanently as healt…

There is no evidence society would have collapsed. Many countries do not have the health infrastructure the US has and have not undergone societal collapse. Yes more elderly would have died. More people with comorbities would have died. But societal collapse? The shutdown lasted for far too long. Mock Florida all you want, but they weathered the pandemic far better than many states with strict lockdown regimes (Calif…

Why do you assume I am referring to the US? Maybe for you it's normal for there to be looting and rampant crime in the face of crisis or emergency scenarios but I don't think that speaks for the rest of the world.

> Many countries do not have the health infrastructure the US has and have not undergone societal collapse.

What does this mean? We have universal healthcare and in my city emergency services are so overwhelmed and overworked the wait time for the past day is over an hour. You could probably rob a storefront in open daylight and get away with it right now.

The US is the highly developed country poster child for fucking up handling Covid. Other countries don't need whatever impressive health infrastructure you're alluding to because they responded better in the first place.

Finally, I don't have a horse in this race besides not letting people die, but I'd like to point out that Florida current situation looks like hot garbage to me. You couldn't pay me to go there right now.

Re: Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says

#106

Post by dagmx » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 5:11 AM UTC

gsinclair wrote: post #57

dagmx wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This shows a gross misunderstanding of viruses. 1. Children don't exist in a vacuum. Even if they don't become symptomatic, they can still be a carrier and they can still infect adults that they're in contact with. Should teachers be sacrificing themselves? Should families isolate their children within the house? 2. It's a low risk to healthy children. What do you do for children with other health complications? Amer…

A gross misunderstanding of viruses in January of 2022 is indistinguishable from a troll. I applaud your patience in replying so well, or even at all.

Thank you and agreed

Re: Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says

#107

Post by fennecfoxen » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 5:13 AM UTC

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #99

colordrops wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. There should have been and were lockdowns early in the pandemic. Once vaccines were available teachers should be ready to teach, just like every other worker that interfaces with people. At least teachers see the same people every day unlike grocery store clerks. 2. It's low risk to almost ALL children. The hospitalization rates of children have been around 1 per 1 million at peak infection periods. This is no wor…

> 2. It's low risk to almost ALL children. What do we do if their parents end up unable to work due to long term COVID or worse their parents die? https://data.cdc.gov/widgets/9bhg-hcku?mobile_redirect=true 30-64yo are a significant percentage of total deaths. 30-55 is probably a reasonable age range for parents with dependent children. > 3. Please present evidence of long term effect in a non-negligible percentage o…

> What do we do if their parents end up unable to work due to long term COVID or worse their parents die?

Indeed. Parents should also be vaccinated. It would be reasonable to delay school until that point. (This is an additional delay over those previously mentioned in parent comments in this thread.)

However, we should also expect that all parents will be exposed to the virus sooner or later, as we have been told from the earliest days of the pandemic, and thus we should limit further delay.

Yes, parents will get COVID from kids who go to school. Yes, unfortunately, there will be children orphaned as a result of that exposure. No, there won't be substantial numbers of net orphans -- certainly not such that crippling public education for years or even decades is the more humane response.

Re: Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says

#108

Post by simplestats » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 5:15 AM UTC

fny wrote: post #32

awb wrote: post #8

> Researchers, though, cautioned against drawing direct lines between these spikes and conditions brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, which disrupted nearly every aspect of U.S. life starting in the middle of last March. > A heightened appreciation about mental health in 2020 might have prompted parents to get their children mental health treatment, they said. > “Conversely, by spending more time at home together…

What a classic HN response. Humans are social creatures. How are lockdowns and social distancing not causal? There's a reason long distance relationships fail and solitary confinement is an ultimate punishment. Add to this doomsday news on loop, confusing messaging on vaccines. I also have too, too much anecdata to counter this. I spent time helping families during the COVID crisis. The amount of confusion and uncert…

I think the poster's point was about general data reporting, not specific to the situation. If you're going to use data to argue something, you need to be careful not to overstate what the data says. And the worst misuses of stats are when they fit intuition or anecdotal experience. The vaccine-autism argument that won't die is not the result of a bad study, but of autism symptoms typically arising right at vaccination age. Then people did a study looking for this commonly-believed "causation" and misused the data they got to make a case they wanted.

Re: Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says

#109

Post by xyzzy_plugh » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 5:17 AM UTC

danhak wrote: post #83

simplestats wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assets going up in value isn't really a wealth transfer by itself. The buyer is just exchanging a lot more cash for an asset worth a lot more. Their wealth doesn't change overall. Rents are a different story perhaps. The unfair property taxes in California and similar states is certainly wealth transfer though, which got vastly more unfair.

Could you please elaborate on what’s unfair about property taxes in California? From what I understand California has some of the lowest property taxes in the country and Prop 13 let owners lock in their tax basis for life.

You just described what's unfair. Prop 13 means new owners pay for their neighbors disproportionately. That's wealth transfer.

Re: Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says

#110

Post by usrusr » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 5:18 AM UTC

simplestats wrote: post #42

fny wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both are true. Fiscal and monetary stimulus drove financial assets owned mostly by 40+ and retirees to the moon. House prices have become more unaffordable just as millennials (already saddled with college debt) are getting ready to buy their first homes. Inflation has eaten into real wages even with increases. We also locked up an entire generation of zoomers in a house for two years. I was all for lockdowns in earl…

Assets going up in value isn't really a wealth transfer by itself. The buyer is just exchanging a lot more cash for an asset worth a lot more. Their wealth doesn't change overall. Rents are a different story perhaps. The unfair property taxes in California and similar states is certainly wealth transfer though, which got vastly more unfair.

It's a transfer from those who have a high fraction of their net worth in cash equivalents to those whose cash fraction is low or even negative. Nobody actually has a million dollars (well, maybe except for some who have a lot of laundering ahead of them?), but plenty of smallish "emergency funds" or "future downpayments" in deprecating savings accounts.