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, you are very unlucky then,

because the suicide rate went down in 2020..

We were aware of it at the time, and it has been confirmed since

Ah, I see, yes, that is quite funny!

ErrolTheDragon · Today 09:04

From the Times article
Women were the only specific group to experience a worsening of symptoms across all three areas.

Oh, well, that's ok then.Hmm

This. Only women. Let's add it as a footnote.

For me, lockdown was WFH FT on an exploded workload, with 3 toddlers who I'd much rather have been properly caring for. It was absolutely horrible and MH wise, I try to not think about it.

I predicted the suicide rate would go down at the start of the pandemic and got told I was talking rubbish on here. The suicide rate always goes down in times of a national crisis. The pulling together narrative seems to help people who are already suicidal or at risk of it. It is when things go back to normal and everyone else is happy again that the suicide rate can increase.

@Greeneyegirl I know three people that took their lives. All young men. One wasn’t in the U.K. and couldn’t travel back to his family. Devastating.

My daughter loved lockdown as she didn't have to go to school 😃 She still continued with horse riding and we spent a few months with my parents in Germany though. So she wasn't stuck at home all day with no human contact. She would love another lockdown, as would I! 😂

Can you home school?

I was very stressed during lockdown as both myself, my DH and one DC are medically very vulnerable. But after we had vaccines and caught covid we were all fine. I do miss the reduced traffic and noise though. I loved how I saw more wildlife during lockdowns and loads more people out walking and cycling.

No, as ai have to work. During lockdown my daughter had online classes at her school.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/suicidesintheunitedkingdom/2021registrations#:~:text=2.,10.7%20deaths%20per%20100%2C000%20people.

The decrease in suicide in 2020 was partly due to a decrease in male suicide and partly down to registration delays. Female suicide rates remained largely the same.

You do realise of course that people wouldn't generally go into lockdown one day and become immediately suicidal? These things tend to take time. We are only really starting to see the impacts now and it will take YEARS to fully understand it all.

It is genuinely disturbing how people are so willing to dismiss the concerns that others have over mental health, all so they can carry on proclaiming that lockdown did no harm.

Individually mental health will have varied. Some people will have had a lovely time while some will have had a tough time. But this research which is a meta analysis so very robust, shows that in general covid did not have a big impact on mental health at a population level. Individual groups of people may have had a worse time, but for many of those their mental health will have returned to normal once things went back to normal.

I do find people are very doom and gloom on social media including mumsnet. Most people are more resilient than we realise. Most people struggle through hard times and are happy again. I always remember a thread during a lockdown that asked if this was the worst time in their life for individuals. Very few people said yes. Most people said they had in their life far worse periods that they had got through.

@GoChasingWaterfalls you do realise life has been back to normal for a long time now?

My teen attempted suicide because of it, been stuck in a home with an abuser all day long ( not me) to say that is damn rude and insulting to the people still suffering, like my daughter with her mental health

Well I don't know, but maybe they should've talked to universities, and the amount of mental health issues they are having to support. They are overwhelmed with struggling students.

That's a sweeping generalisation. I'm a social worker and I noticed the vast range of impacts- for some it was brilliant and for others it was dreadful. So it could average out as little difference but a LOT of lives were ruined

@OutOfChocolate

Has it?

My working life will never go back to 'normal'

Cost of living won't either

You can be resilient and still recognise what an awful time it was. You can have had great fun wfh in your nice house and still recognise how privileged that makes you.

"mental health charities knew at the time that suicide rates were falling"

Suicide rates fall during war time too (research:www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7592752/) – basically suicide rates fall whenever something very big is happening that pushes people out of their usual routine and makes people feel that they are all pulling together in some kind of big national effort. The fall in suicide doesn't mean that war (or a pandemic) is good for MH, or that these things aren't traumatic/don't come with serious harms!

@KnittedCardi Mental health problems nationally have not increased amongst students.
There is indications mental health problems increased amongst people stuck at home with an abuser during lockdowns.

None of this means that some university students do not have major mental health problems. But this research criticises some previous research that did not look at the level of mental health problems before covid, and often looked at a very particular place at one point in time. So mental health problems may have increased amongst students at a particular university if that university handled the situation badly.

So you think that my y7 benefited from being shut up in her room on her own all school day squinting at a small chrome book, trying to do her lessons rather than be in a real life classroom with a teacher and peers?
What planet are you on? Did you actually parent a teen during lockdown - you know…at home???
Shutting a 11/ 12 year old on her own all day in a room like she is WFH in an office job, with no socialising at all, I can assure you is in no way beneficial, quite the reverse and no, the extra hour lie in did not compensate for that in any way.

This is the thing though isn't it.

There is one story line and one only, and for YEARS now we have all literally been forced to keep our own experiences to ourselves, and get berated for saying anything other than full agreement that lock down was a mental health disaster, totally flying in the face of all evidence and personal experience.

I am sorry your daughter had an unpleasant experience, but the time you can shut us down, call us rude or insulting for not sticking to your narrative, had been put to bed forever by this report now, I think.

As others have said, it is a very robust report.

It is genuinely disturbing how people are so willing to dismiss the concerns that others have over mental health, all so they can carry on proclaiming that lockdown did no harm.

I think if you were very much pro lockdown, and there were a fair few on mn, a headline like this will back up thinking.

But a lot is lack of reading and understanding what is included in the study. The op might revise now pp have pointed it out, it would be good if so, but sometimes it’s more about what you want to hear than what’s actually there.

'I predicted the suicide rate would go down at the start of the pandemic and got told I was talking rubbish on here. The suicide rate always goes down in times of a national crisis. The pulling together narrative seems to help people who are already suicidal or at risk of it. It is when things go back to normal and everyone else is happy again that the suicide rate can increase.'

Yes its interesting as certainly here on mn there was panic about a 'pandemic of suicides' when the stats never backed this up at all.

Our dc and their peers all managed fine, no school or college was obviously a treat, luckily nowadays they all socialise online so I don't know anyone who struggled. Obviously some did but I'd suggest it would be the same that had mh issues with or without a pandemic, the rules just exacerbated it rather than caused problems

This, I know so many people who suffered from MH issues during the pandemic (myself included), my mums hair fell off, there were numerous suicides around me that I know the off. Many of us self employed spent almost two years in a “flight or fight” mode wondering if we were going to pay our rent, loose our house or our livelihood. My father in law was in intensive care for a whole month and to this day he’s still in therapy for Ptsd because he’s afraid of being in public and getting covid again. Anyone trying to minimise the MH from the pandemic is deluded or full of sh-t.

I see two sides of this with my DC.

DS who was 15 in 2020 had some anxiety and depression prior to the pandemic. He thrived during lockdown. He did bugger all school work ( as we later discovered ) and spent his afternoons mountain biking , paddle boarding or gaming in his room. He was a happier and more rounded young man when school re opened and he quickly caught up with his GCSE studies and got great grades when he sat his exams last summer. I'd go as far as to say that the pandemic and lockdown were beneficial for him.

On the other side though - DD was a very happy go lucky 12 year old child prior to the pandemic. She struggled a bit academically but was hard working. The lockdown destroyed her. She missed her friends, she missed the structure of school and the additional support she used to get. On line learning didn't suit her at all and she fell further and further behind. When she went back to school she was miserable , she became dependant on her face mask to hide from the world. She became more and more depressed. She then became I'll with a chronic illness and her mental health has declined to the point where it is effecting all of our lives. Dealing with her illness and school work during the second lockdown was very tough and we are still dealing with the fall out.

My female cousin committed suicide during the second lockdown - we know the isolation of living alone in a lockdown contributed to her death.

I did not have a good time during covid. I was very anxious that I, my DH or DD would die. I am particularly vulnerable and was terrified that I would leave my DCs without a mother.

But that does not mean that mental health was terrible for everyone, it clearly was not. My work colleague had a lovely time and really enjoyed herself.

Wfh has benefitted some and negatively affected others. I love wfh my DH hates it. Not having a stressful commute has made it easier to manage my health and physically my health is better than it was pre pandemic. I also do not have to worry about my teenagers home alone after school.

I think the cost of living will be having a negative impact on some peoples mental health. Worrying about food and heating is not good for your mental or physical health.