I’ve dealt with suicidal depression most of my life. Around 30 I survived a lethal attempt and afterwards put all of my resources and attention into mental heal

I’ve dealt with suicidal depression most of my life. Around 30 I survived a lethal attempt and afterwards put all of my resources and attention into mental health care / diagnosis. It was quite the slog and extremely expensive and much of it not covered by my very nice PPO. One of the most useful things for my issues (undiagnosed ADHD, PTSD, and ASD) was Dialectical Behavioral Therapy in a group setting. 90% of the people getting mental health care in the groups I was in were teen girls and young women. The only other men I ever saw were divorced dads trying to get visitation rights back so they could see their kids. From my experience working through that, but also just out in the world I’ve found that young men frequently take up extremely risky behaviors with a disregard for their safety to cope with similar internal turmoil. Obviously, some take the direct route. I’ve lost a couple friends to immeasurable despair. In the USA at least the mental health system is so fucking screwed. I’m not saying young women have it better, but the antiquated biases are very much present in clinicians, researchers, and really everyone else. Women are emotional, protect them... but also a huge amount of medical pros don’t believe a woman can be passing autistic. Men/boys just need to “walk it off”. Largely even seeking help for mental distress is seen as something weak people do. It’s abysmal. If a study doesn’t address those very real biases in our culture, I don’t know if you can draw a useful conclusion. Having talked to my nieces and nephews and some of their friends (aged 10-22ish, probably a sample set of 15 kids that I know) something that I know even from before the pandemic is that they are acutely aware of how fucked they are and that the world as it’s set up is just fucking them harder and seems pathologically geared to continue to do so. They don’t even have the words to articulate it how I have here, they internalize it and try to grok it from the inside out. They put a smile on and do their best to seem normal. We need to listen to the kids and their despair. It’s ridiculous to say that it’s just that they are upset about having to spend time with someone they don’t like. We are boiling and this is the first of many plagues. The boomers borrowed from the future and are willing to ride it till the wheels fall off.... The kids have the internet and very much know what the world has set up for them.