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 home lives.
“Home” isn’t always the healthiest environment for people. Every person you know has some form of trauma. Many of those have been experienced at home. Now, they shut the world down and people became trapped with their abusers and victims.
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, but it’s played out faster than I imagined.
Seeing the suicide rate in our country soar just has me in an all-time sad kind of way.
Was it high all along and I was insulated? Or had these spikes been happening?
People turned more to social media, which is bad for young people already. When it becomes their only outlet to the world, they become further addicted to the fake connection. When it’s your only escape, it gets more detrimental to the scared mind.
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 a very unhealthy way. Now, when I scroll social media it seems there are way too many stories about people dying.
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.
Over the course of two days last week, I learned of multiple suicide attempts or thoughts in children. Young children. KIDS, contemplating suicide, attempting suicide and sadly succeeding.
Nine year old kids expressing suicidal and homicidal thoughts is not normal. Twelve year old girl attempting suicide twice is not good. Two high school female athletes added to the statistic of attempted suicide should never be ok.
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 so easily hands out, plus the additional torment government dished out is upon us. Decades of trauma is culminating in 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?
I don’t know what the answer is, but I know the first step is prayer.
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 may know better how to instill confidence and high values in kids.
Pray for guidance on how you might get involved.
Do you wish to see change in the world? We must reverse course, rapidly and to a complete one hundred eighty degrees. We need to march back to a time when the ‘family’ was the best social connection we had.
Be Nurtured and Grow 