In April of 2020, this awful dooming feeling wouldn’t go away. It was with me all the time, weighing like a dynamite packed vest. This wasn’t normal, healthy or in any way good for humanity. Locked down, our leaders were getting power drunk and closing businesses and forcing people into their homes.
“Home” isn’t always the healthiest environment for people. Every person you know has some form of trauma. Many of those are experienced at home. Now, the world shut down and people became trapped with their abusers.
But it was just for two weeks, right?! Should be no big deal, they said. Two weeks turned into months on end and the trauma continued on and on.
Add high addiction rates to the lockdown mix and it was a one way road to disaster. I said the phrase decades of trauma all too many times then, and it’s playing out faster than I imagined.
Seeing the suicide rate in our country soar just has me in an all-time sad state of being. Was it high all along and I was stupidly ignorant?
People turned more to social media, which is bad for young people already. When it became their only outlet to the world, they become further addicted to fake connections.
Instagram has been proven to erode self-confidence in all ages of women, but especially in young girls. When the world wasn’t allowing us to be social, social media did . . in unhealthy ways. Now, when I scroll social media there are way too many stories about people dying by suicide.
Sudden death is common these days and suicide is pervasive. In the course of two days last week, I learned of people in my sphere having to seek treatment for their children. KIDS. Children are having suicidal thoughts and even attempts.
Nine-year old kids expressing suicidal and homicidal thoughts is not normal. A twelve-year old girl attempting suicide, twice, is surreal. Two female classmates, both high school athletes attempting suicide should never be ok. It happened in the same week!
What is going on? I could go on and on about the breakdown of the family dinner table, fatherless society, banning God from schools . . . social media and the insecurities it creates . . . addiction and abuse. There are so many factors.
The perfect storm of trauma, that life has just by being life plus additional torment government dished out over COVID, is raging. Decades of trauma. This trauma and frustration has led us to rapid increases in addiction, abuse, depressive episodes and suicide.
It’s crossing my feed all the time, but there seems to be little call to action. What can we do?
If the elephant here is the increasing rate of suicide, I suppose the only way to attack it is a bite at a time.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I know my first step was tears. The examples I gave of kids with suicidal ideologies are real life and I cried over each. Then I prayed. Please join me.
Pray for guidance on how and with whom we may get involved. Pray for the youth of our country and that they may be given immunity from the lies of the world. Pray for their teachers and parents, that they be better equipped to instill confidence and high values in kids. Pray that we all be given wisdom to notice and the words to intervene when people around you are silently struggling. This epidemic isn’t limited to our youth.
I guess I should back up one step. The first thing we have to do is look at the big-ass elephant!
Nurture 
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