No real mental health crisis from pandemic

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Confirmed by BMJ, after surveys across high income countries across Europe and ASia

This doesn't surprise me in the slightest, despite a myriad of anecdotal accounts on MN and in some other places.

I know I asked many hundreds of children myself, and found more enjoyed and benefited from lockdown than suffered because of it, and mental health charities knew at the time that suicide rates were falling, which has later been confirmed.

Some people's mental health deteriorated in the lockdowns. Some people's improved. Overall, there was a small rise in mild/moderate mental health problems being reported, while suicides decreased.

Can we stop blaming the pandemic and lockdown for poor mental health across the board now, but particularly in schools.

Well, yeah, that's a different way of life than most of us have...statistically.

Yes, if people read the study it will be very clear what it's about. It's not torturing data.

The OP's title is misleading and tbh the whole thread is a bit of a mess.
Individual's experiences don't invalidate the study, but the OP's first post was (maybe unintentionally) provocative.

@LovelyLovelyWarmCoffee

I didn't say no one liked it.

Of course well off people with big gardens, wfh etc would enjoy it more than those working with covid or with less staff, being put at risk

Or those in poverty with no or insecure income, living with an abuser they couldn't get away from

Or those with kids with SN or health issues they couldn't get support for

A. Having lost an immediate family member to suicide aged 23 i wouldn't call myself lucky. I sat alone at a funeral in a mask watching 6 young boys carry their best friend in on their shoulders and i wont get over that. I hate this narrative thats emerged that unless you lost someone to covid in 2020 your grief and pain does not count and

B. You are grossly incorrect about the suicide rate going down in 2020. At inquests a death is ruled as suicide if it is incredibly clear cut (they left a note of their intentions, they voiced their intention to others previously and those people can evidence that) otherwise it is ruled a narrative verdict. My family member hung himself in his bedroom, a family friends ex husband jumped off a multi story carpark. They're deaths don't count in the number of suicides in 2020 because they were given a narrative verdict. If i was a cynical person I might say that it suits the government to rule most suicides as narrative to avoid them being counted and therefore argue suicides went down and not up as a result of their actions ...

I think those who have big gardens or live in country areas didn't understand how policed urban open spaces were, especially for young people.

Mr Monkey and I were "spoken to" by the police for daring to sit on the ground in a park with a can of beer on a sunny spring evening.

A local private school opened up their playing fields and immediately local forums were full of posts condemning anyone doing more than trudging silently on their daily walk.

In the sunny Easter of 2020 Lambeth Council locked Brockwell Park over "fears" 3000 people went there one day. This was reported with breathless judgement in the press. Brockwell Park is 157 acres and can easily absorb 3000 people distanced. When you realise many people in the vicinity of the park have no or very little private outdoor space, the posts about enjoying the nice weather in your big garden are even more tine deaf.

I live rurally and although we could get outside a lot It was awful here too in lots of ways. Notices everywhere, the local social media page buzzing with people reporting that Mrs X had walked her dog twice that day. It may not have been police but the local busibodies were out in force. We got an email asking us to stay indoors for part of the day so that people could walk their dogs past our house without us being less than 2m away (garden of house partly borders a lane).

I got stopped by the police driving into our local town to go shopping because I had dd with me - she was 15 and planning to just sit in the car in the car park because she was so bored. I was really angry and upset with the police and looking back on it quite relieved that they didn't arrest me!

But I was never not grateful for being able to get outside. That footage from Italy showing the kids stuck in their flats really upset me.

I have a small garden in a large town. I was out twice a day walking and running (with each child) and didn't see a glimpse of the police.
My estate is a dump though so no one cares about anyone. Let alone report them. Our local drug dealers did cut back their work though which was amusing.

The police stood and watched my children play in an empty park in January 2021. They were terrified and kept asking if they were going to arrest us. My eldest then didn’t want to go to the park anymore. This was London.

South Wales Police left a notice on my sister's car when she took her kids to a deserted beach in the winter lockdown. They said it was more than x miles from home and if it happened again they would take steps.

Someone who lived on the cliff overlooking the beach had seen them playing and reported them.

I still can't get over how the police behaved.

Ah well, that's OK then, no harm done. Ffs.

We got "moved on" by the police from a public garden. There was one other family on the other side of it, playing with their toddler, and my two were climbing a tree while I watched.

The police came over and told us we should leave as "you're only meant to be outside for exercise." I wanted to say that tree climbing was a perfectly legitimate form of exercise for a 6 and 8 year old, and would it make them happier if I jogged on the spot while supervising them?

But I didn't have the guts, so we left. Which ironically took us to a much busier and more crowded area where it was much harder to maintain social distance.

I broke in to a local golf course in May 2020, partly ouy of fury that there was loads of green space lying empty while we gardenles Londoners were trudging round crowded parks and being judged for it, but mostly so I could have somehwere to sit down unjudged and unharassed.

It was beautiful. For weeks I had my own little glorious private place to sit and decompress in the sun.

Still not sorry.

That is marvellous.

I'm surprised there is a golf course in an urban area, equally as surprised that it didn't have cctv or any kind of security.

Pandemic or not there was no excuse for alleged criminal behaviour. I'm sure you couldve found a quiet spot in a park.

Or perhaps you're joking, attempting satire? Hard to tell with some of the stuff I read on mn nowadays.

Get off your high horse I'd have done exactly the same thing in the same circumstances.

Me too! What a ridiculous post of judgy-ness

You absolutely get urban golf courses.

This was was east to get in to as there was a hole in the hedge that separates it from a playing field that had been opened to the public.

I will now humbly reflect on my lockdown indjced descent in to criminal depravity.

Oh hush

We live within a ten minute walk of a city centre in one direction, and a golf course in the other.

No breaking in required, as it was and is accessible to walkers, provided you stay off the greens.

I love this story! Good for you.

I was in the same position, stuck in a second floor flat in the first two lockdowns in a city, with no outside space, but luckily our local park was mostly left alone by police when the government said it was ok to visit with your household, so my mum and I (she got stuck with me from abroad at the start of lockdown 1) bought a couple of fold up camping chairs online and basically spent a couple of hours in the evening there with a bottle of wine every night. Thank god for the lovely weather. It made it just about bearable. But the first two months of not being able to sit down anywhere outside were awful.

My ds too! But I can say because we had the privilege of being in a private school and a supportive home environment. Many kids didn't have this at all so I can understand that many suffered.

What makes this even worse is that by January 2021 we knew that risk of transmission outside was negligible.

In Scotland during that winter lockdown we were allowed to meet other families (maybe one other family at a time) outside and play together for as long as wished.

Where did the privilege of private school help during lockdown? Presumably she wasn't allowed to attend?