A few weeks ago, mid to late-April, it had been unseasonably cold, cloudy, and windy for a few days. This is the time of year in New Jersey when everyone looks forward to spring and warm weather, but that weather seemed to disappear for days.
On the way to work one of those days, I had been listening to the "Seriously Sinatra" channel on my SiriusXM radio on the way to work when Sinatra's rendition of A Very Good Year came on the radio. I immediately flashed back about twenty years ago when I was visiting my 80-something year-old grandmother who had been overcome by dementia and was, as we discovered, months from the end of her life. During that visit, that same Sinatra song was playing on the radio in her kitchen, which was tuned to a standards station. When the song changed to the melancholy tone prior the final verse and Sinatra sang about the "autumn of the years," the aging of the song's protagonist reflecting on his life, my grandmother asked, "When are you going to settle down and get married?" I couldn't tell her that I had married years ago and that she had met my wife and her great-grandchildren many times, that would've confused the hell out of her so there was no point in going there.
From that moment on, I cannot hear A Very Good Year without thinking of that moment with my grandmother and feeling melancholy. And that's fine. Occasional sadness is natural and healthy and makes you experience and appreciate happy times more intensely.
Thus, when I read the graphic to the left which had been posted by a teacher's account on LinkedIn, I winced. How did we get to the point where kids, teens, and college students are led to believe that one needs "a counselor or therapist when feeling sad?" Don't get me wrong, if someone has bouts of depression, they should absolutely be referred to counseling, but routine sadness? There is absolutely no need for therapy or counseling for sadness and we should not overwhelm therapist's offices with visits from people whose presence there may be preventing people who really need therapy from getting it in a timely manner.
If you've spent any time recently visiting numerous campuses on college visits with high school students, you've probably noticed an abundance of signs posted on campus walls sending a similar message - that students need help from counselors. It's as if they're trying to convince students that they're all depressed and suicidal.
This was certainly not the case when I was a college student decades ago. So it came as no surprise to me that suicide rates among those under the age of 25 have spiked recently. In fact, according to a 2016 report, the Centers for Disease Control, suicide rates are up more than 30% in more than half of America's states since 1999 and in 54% of suicides, the victim was not known to have had mental health problems. Those rates have only continued to rise due to the isolation of the pandemic. One must wonder, is society conditioning acceptance of suicide as routine and convincing young Americans that natural, occasional sadness is a condition that must be treated?
Imagine going through life thinking that every time you experience routine sadness you are in need of treatment. Clearly, with suicide rates skyrocketing, it's time for America to take a look at the messaging around sadness and reconsider what is labelled as a situation in need of treatment and what is a situation that is routine and normal and passes sometimes in minutes, sometimes in hours. The health of young America is truly at stake.
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