Biden administration invests a billion bucks in youth mental health
Also in this newsletter, the grey rock method and robots falling down
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Why are there so many of you now?
Every day lately I get a ton of new subscribers. Welcome! I don’t know how you found this place but I’m glad you’re here. I’ve set out some cookies.
Biden administration does something about youth mental health crisis
We’re all in a crisis when it comes to mental health. Kids and young adults are in a worse one.
Even before coronavirus crisis, young people were experiencing mental health challenges on an increased scale, according to CDC data. Persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness increased 40% among U.S. high school students from 2009 to 2019, according to the most recent CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey, with 36.7% reporting those symptoms in 2019. Data released by the CDC earlier this year showed 44% reported feeling sadness or hopelessness during the past year, and 37% of high school students reported poor mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Biden administration is applying a billion dollars in federal funding to get more professionals into schools.
Education Department Assistant Secretary for Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development, Roberto Rodríguez, told ABC News there's never been an effort of this magnitude by the federal government to distribute mental health professionals to schools. The recent spending also helps President Biden inch closer to his goal of "doubling" school-based mental health practitioners.
"We are making a big bet on supporting, attracting, developing and retaining our school psychologists, social workers, [and] counselors to really work in support of our students," Rodríguez said.
Here’s my first take: Great!
Here’s my second take: Where are you going to get all these people? There’s a shortage of mental health professionals all over the place.
Here’s my third take: A billion dollars is a big number. I don’t know how far that goes, however, in relation to the enormity of the problem.
Maybe we just need more clubs:
What are you feeling as you read this?
Something I’ve had to work very hard at over the years is simply noticing what’s going on with my mental state without - WITHOUT! - trying to solve everything. So if I’m nervous or stressed, I try not to look for immediate ways to make the stress go away. Instead, I try - TRY! - not always succeed - to simply experience the emotions without judgment or action. Be a reporter and not a commentator.
I do this because therapists told me to. And when I can pull it off, it helps a lot because then I have an accurate read on what it is I actually need to address.
Psychology Today says this stopping and noticing has 12 benefits, including:
4. You’ll care less about what other people think. It’s common to doubt yourself when you are out of touch with how you feel, or when you don’t value what your emotions are telling you. With self-doubt, you’re more vulnerable to the voices and opinions of others. When it comes right down to it, the only person that truly knows what’s best for you is yourself.
I don’t know let’s put this video here:
I wanna (grey) rock!
Are there more narcissists in the world lately? I don’t think so. Does the word get used more often? I have noticed this to be the case. I think everyone’s just finally getting tired of the narcissists’ shit and are calling it for what it is. It’s like how there wasn’t really a boom in autism a few decades back, there was just a greater understanding of how autism and the spectrum actually worked.
Here’s an article on the Grey Rock method of dealing with the narcissists we sometimes have to encounter in family or friends or work.
In the gray rock method, it’s important not to ignore the narcissist. However, decreasing conversations and answering in short replies can help limit additional conversation. If possible, exchanges should center on tedious topics; if queried, strive to use short answers without adding an opinion. When a narcissist tries to trigger an emotional response, deploy gestures like smiling and nodding to limit further discussion.
The narcissist in your life probably won’t give up easily. In fact, for a while, they might try harder to get your attention. But in time, they’ll likely move on to someone else because you’ve proven to be too difficult to engage—and too bland.
Daniel LaRusso: violent sociopath
I’ve been watching Cobra Kai on Netflix, which is a decades-later update on the Karate Kid universe. It features most of the same characters, the same San Fernando Valley location, and the same fixation on youth martial arts being the most important force in all of society. It’s pretty good sometimes, especially the pathos of William Zabka’s Johnny character.
But what if we were seeing the original ALL WRONG?
Robots: still sometimes doofuses
Robot (or rowboat, as my mom used to pronounce it) technology just moves so goddamn fast and the internet is full of videos of the strides, figurative and literal, taken by the bots from Boston Dynamics:
Cute, right? But what if it had a gun or something? Holy shit.
So I find the blooper real weirdly comforting: