According to the journal Translational Psychiatry, more than 36 percent of teen girls in America are depressed or have had a recent “major depressive episode.” The study found more than 13 percent of boys have had the same experience.
Research shows that the rates for depression and anxiety “were much lower during the Great Depression, World War II, and the turbulent 1970s than they are today.”
Mental-health issues are spreading like wildfire on college campuses, too. Ohio State, for example, reports a 43-percent jump in students seeking mental-health counseling in the last five years.
It appears Something is robbing young people of happiness and well-being.
There are several possibilities including family dynamics, such as divorce and single parenting. Not having a mom and dad at home can be very hard on young people. But Eric Mataxes, writing in Christian headlines.com thinks the issue goes deeper.
Mataxes writes, “Somewhere deep inside, unhappy young people know that they were meant for more, much more, than this world can possibly offer. As Augustine said, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”
He says C S Lewis claimed that there is something beyond mere happiness. He called it Joy, saying that the Lord uses it to draw us to Himself.
He concludes, Perhaps what they need is not more encouragement to be nice, but more opportunities to encounter Love Himeslf—who gives them not a list of do’s and don’t’s, but an invitation to a banquet.