8mo ago

Depressive symptoms in US 8th, 10th, and 12th graders

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Came to make a smartass comment like "at least they'll grow out of it when they become adults, right???" but the more I stared at the chart and thought about what it was saying it started to hurt a bit.
I had a bad time largely growing up, and still to this day struggle a lot with depression. I'm front about the happiest time period on this chart.
I went and looked up the study, and there's over 40 pages of charts similar to this one. All the things about depression seem up, and participation in school, activities, and dating/sex/drugs are all down considerably. It doesn't sound like anything is better for kids.
I didn't have children, mostly due to the bad time I had, so I'm curious to go back and read the study, though I didnt see any obvious conclusions skimming through. I feel my perception of if things are bad today is skewed due to my issues, so is the world really worse these days, or is something else going on?
- There's no hope anymore. Simple as that.
  For a pretty long time, probably starting even before WW2 in some countries, there was this hope "tomorrow will be better, my children can have a better life". And that hope was at least somewhat true.
  But it's gone now, and the children understand that. What is the positive narrative for a 16 year old child now? They know exactly that they'll have a worse life than their parents in many regards.
  
  this. I'm still grieving my lost childhood (extreme trauma) at the same time I'm grieving my lost future. i don't understand the point of going on, but talk like that scares the ones i love. I'm not gonna do anything to myself, but I'm not that worried if something happens to me either..
- Capitalism has reached the late stage, so the world really is worse.

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