Live data from Hacker News

Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says

nbcnews.com

281–290 of 695 posts

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

#281
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case though a user has tried to link something as obvious as "hospitals don't know on admission that you have covid, they just know you're sick" to try to claim that there's some conspiracy. It's a clear attempt at misinformation and should not be tolerated.

Huh? These people went to the hospital and were admitted for X. X being any number of medical conditions requiring hospitalization. You can be admitted for the reason “person is sick”, you need some diagnosis or complaint, however vague They later tested positive for Covid. How is that misinformation? If people come to the hospital with complaints of fever or breathing difficulties, they can do a covid test prior to…

> they can do a covid test prior to admission to determine if they are positive.

No they don't. Admission is done immediately. No doctor is going to wait for a test result before admitting a patient suffering respiratory problems.

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

#282

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…

Per capita COVID deaths in the US were similar to those in the EU.

This partisan left-wing reaction to this news, which is implicitly about absolving the massive violation of the entire population's civil and economic liberties of blame for the socioeconomic and non-COVID health deteriorations seen during the COVID era, is the real problem.

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

#283
It’s pretty sad to read all the handwaving about how we shouldn’t be so quick and blame this on lockdowns. When a leaf turns and it can be used as an argument for lockdowns, it’s immediately justified and if it later turns out false, how could we have known?

But if a lot children kill themselves it shouldn’t be used as an argument against lockdowns.

Lockdowns have become a very dangerous religion.

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

#284
post #259

This pandemic is very strange mental-wise, all my doctors note that. The US, as far as I understand, has huge lockdowns and that may be the factor, but in my country it's called "an advisory self-isolation" and everyone basically lives their life like before, except wearing masks in public places and mandatory vaccination to visit a mall or a restaurant (also "manageable"). I'm not a social person (age almost 40), an…

It might just be different for different people. Like, my lifestyle and mental health got better and people like me can offset people like you (and I do have relative that had issues too).

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

#285

There are lots of attempts to explain this in the comments: lockdowns, lack of socialisation, pre-pandemic poor mental health, etc. But is not it not much more simple? We were and are in the midst of a global pandemic. A once is a lifetime catastrophic event. The kind of life changing event not experienced in the west since World War II. Of course that's going to cause mental health issues in almost everyone (to vary…

> A once is a lifetime catastrophic event

This is one point of view.

A different point of view is this is comparable to bad flu year, and all hysteria is caused by msm.

> It has affected our lives in so many ways

It has. But not the pandemic, but government and media overreaction to it.

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

#286
post #276
post #259

This pandemic is very strange mental-wise, all my doctors note that. The US, as far as I understand, has huge lockdowns and that may be the factor, but in my country it's called "an advisory self-isolation" and everyone basically lives their life like before, except wearing masks in public places and mandatory vaccination to visit a mall or a restaurant (also "manageable"). I'm not a social person (age almost 40), an…

I went to the emergency room after working from home for ~6 months when the pandemic hit. I was having severe chest pain, shaking uncontrollably, and feeling very uneasy. I thought something was really wrong, and ended up going to the emergency room, where they told me it was a panic attack, and everything was okay physically. Like you, it was also the first time I had experienced a panic attack and learned what it f…

I thought something was really wrong

Yeah, the fear of death as they call it. I really didn't understand this phrase before, thinking it was something abstract. It's unlike any other feeling I've had, just off the charts. And I'm (was) not particularly the guy who is scared to watch a horror movie alone in the night.

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

#287
post #259

This pandemic is very strange mental-wise, all my doctors note that. The US, as far as I understand, has huge lockdowns and that may be the factor, but in my country it's called "an advisory self-isolation" and everyone basically lives their life like before, except wearing masks in public places and mandatory vaccination to visit a mall or a restaurant (also "manageable"). I'm not a social person (age almost 40), an…

>> The US, as far as I understand, has huge lockdowns and that may be the factor

The US never really locked down after maybe the first two or three week period. The “lockdowns” we had were mostly performative and not really enforced. This is in huge contrast to some cities in Australia for example, where lockdowns were both prolonged (lasting months) and those violating them were smacked down consistently.

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

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d rather be governed by people who have 65 years of experience with life, than by people who snort coke at 40 to be the shark they’ve always wanted. Politicians never seem to take correct decisions anyway.

Really? I feel exactly the opposite. I wouldn’t trust someone over 65 to drive me to the store.

In our world, we often assume old people have wrong opinions. The core, though, is that they were betrayed more often than us, so they are less prone to fall into the next rhetoric trap.

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

#289

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…

> Luckily, all my friends are fellow techies who are upper-middle class, and can afford medication and therapy (and in one case, out-of-state long-term hospitalization.) But even with insurance, they're looking at many thousands of dollars of treatment. Please understand that I am not anti-psychiatry at all. Your kid and their friends are best doing intensive therapy, and if necessary, sessions twice per week, outpat…

I am so sorry this happened to you. The LAPD almost killed me and I got put in a similar situation being drugged against my will in a mental ward. I had an allergic reaction and had to splash a water cooler over my head and go into a cold shower while clothed because the staff had no processes in place for adverse reactions. Every moment felt like death and I had to keep moving. I'd say the only silver lining we can take from these experiences is knowing that the American ideal of freedom is a lie, and that we should help liberate animals from testing. What we felt is only a sliver of what lab animals feel.

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

#290
post #259

This pandemic is very strange mental-wise, all my doctors note that. The US, as far as I understand, has huge lockdowns and that may be the factor, but in my country it's called "an advisory self-isolation" and everyone basically lives their life like before, except wearing masks in public places and mandatory vaccination to visit a mall or a restaurant (also "manageable"). I'm not a social person (age almost 40), an…

> Can anyone share similar observations, or am I just a coincidence?

it has been excruciating for me living alone during 2020. Getting out of bed was a battle nearly every day. The pandemic came just in time when I thought I finally learned how to manage a severe depression that got triggered by a burnout, which was lasting over a decade, and included 2 suicide attempts, drug abuse, and losing most people in my life at that time due to my own behavior.

When the pandemic hit I realized that how I felt all these years has become suddenly a very common way people feel all over the world. Depressed, isolated and on the verge of succumbing to darkness.

What I learned for myself (long before the pandemic) is that I need: a strong routine which includes time-boxing not just work but also play. avoid any chemistry that changes the way I feel naturally (sugar, coffee, cigarettes, alcohol, and especially the self-prescribed weed). after reducing anything artificial mentioned, I started facing my emotions. that means stopping everything when a certain feeling hits me, and analyse that feeling telling myself it will eventually pass, but not taking any other action. e.g. I would not continue anything (including eating or drinking) and remain in my chair until I learned that this feeling has no power over me and that just because I feel it, isn't going to change my routine or send me back into my old rut. treating such dark emotions like a "monster" that can only be killed by staring at it until it leaves me alone, prevented sending me back to the dark place.

Another thing that has hugely contributed to recovery was changing the country. I moved to a new place 3x since 2020 and that has me thinking on my feet (new language, new things to discover, different culture, warm people). I have no time to wallow because I'm flooded with new experiences, and am making new memories every day. Even allowed myself to fall in love twice since the pandemic hit. But I'm not ready to bring in other people into "my new world".

The pandemic shook me awake. I realized there is a danger out there that is at least as scary as the darkness that lives in myself or anything I could do to myself. It made me realize that I need to screw my 5 or 10 year plans and do whatever I want right now or perhaps never will get a chance. It's not that I am in an easier situation than a family with toddlers, because my kids are grown up, my ex wife is god knows where, and so I can just go and do as I please. But the story I tell myself today is very different than 5 or 10 years ago. To paraphrase Don Draper in Mad Men: "If you don't like what's being said, change the conversation." (and this especially applies to the dialogue in my head)

Post reply on HN