Teen Mental Health Crisis: What Can We Do?

While stigmas around mental health are dwindling among Gen Z and Gen Alpha, mental health concerns are increasing.

I first sought out counseling in my teen years. I was really fortunate to have an amazing school counselor who doubled as my mental health counselor throughout the most difficult years of my identity formation. In part, this why I wanted to have an emphasis in children and adolescence when I was in my grad program-- to give that same gift of support and understanding to individuals in the same period of development that I needed it the most.

But the landscape of teenhood has shifted dramatically since I was growing up. Teen Me existed in an age when Internet was limited to AOL and the smartest of phones had slow, unreliable connections and blurry camera capacities. We weren't versed in mental health topics or coping skills.

Contrarily, my teen clients now enter the office with a sprawling mental health vocabulary and access to all the information man has to offer at the tips of their fingers. But while stigmas around mental health are dwindling among Gen Z and Gen Alpha, mental health concerns are increasing across the board.

Anxiety, depression and suicidality have all been on the rise since the late 2000s. Suicide is now the leading cause of death for children through young adults in Colorado. The statistics are so shocking, initiatives have been created by the state to address what has been dubbed a Mental Health Crisis. More socio-emotional education in schools and mental health professionals on-site are some of the government enacted changes we can see across the state. But is it enough?

The reality is that it's not just teen mental health which has been suffering, but there is a general trend in increasing suicide rates among all populations since 2000, by 36 percent.

So what is going on?

Anecdotally, I can point to feelings of disconnection, isolation and hopelessness. The research of anthropologists, psychologists and neuroscientists paints a picture of increased isolation. The American Psychological Association has recently released a study which indicates loneliness as an epidemic. It's common understanding among trauma professionals that the severity of a trauma's impact upon us is correlated with how lonely we feel within our experience.

Sorry to sound like a nag, but technology is a huge culprit of all this despair.

Smart phones and social media have cultivated a culture of disconnection. We may feel more connected when getting "likes" or sending memes, but these connections are superficial and fleeting. I won't be redundant in exploring the unreality of online "friends," but I do want to emphasize how social skills, such as empathy, can only be learned in actual human interactions.

When we see another person's face online, we may be able to interpret facial expressions, but we miss out on the ability to biologically sync-up with whoever we are interacting with. Studies demonstrate how physical exchanges among mammal groups of any sort cause a synchronization of body rhythms, including brainwaves. This means we get to literally feel what another person is feeling when we are in-person-- a connection which is robbed from us when we only communicate through technology. Practicing communication with connection is something we can only do in-person.

I'm also not going to go into how devices are made to be addictive and keep users on as long as possible. But I will talk about how devices are therefore causing an intense dysregulation of dopamine which makes it more difficult for individuals to find joy, rewards and motivation within non-technologically based activities. Technology is not only disconnecting us from each other, but the world at-large in which we live.

Chronic exposure to information is also associated with increased anxiety and depression. This information can also be social information. Maybe our brains were just not meant to know everything about everything every moment?

So what can we do?

Let's start having candid and loving conversations with our teens (or maybe ourselves, our partners, our parents, our friends...). If what technology causes is a sense of disconnection and overwhelm, a fear of not belonging and never being enough, then let's tell our teens they belong with us and they are enough for us.

The culture around technology and media differs from home to home. But we can all work to educate the next generations on the dangers of disconnection. We can educate them the same way we would about any substance: "This is your brain... This is your brain on media." We can demonstrate courage in connecting vulnerably with each other. We can demonstrate healthy relationships with technology and media.

Here are some tangible actions we can take to become more connected:

• Put screen time limits on all phones in the home

• Devote time every day to connect with each other (play a game, use cards for conversation prompts, watch a movie together and talk about it...)

• Show your teen you are interested in their world without judgement

• Increase positive affirmations in the home (praising 'okay' behaviors, expressing gratitude, talking about positive traits and actions)

• Talk about mental health, including suicide, which can feel scary. Let your teen know it's normal to have these thoughts in passing but if they have a plan, means or intent, seek out professional they can talk to. Work towards creating a relationship where your teen can trust you to confide in