“Oh well I was bad too, but then it passes”
“Wee we use ?!” “If .. we go out ..” “Go get dressed!” “But where are we going!?!? A rate that? With whom? Why? “” But let’s go have fun! ” “Ah you want to party!” “You see” “I don’t, and I don’t want to.” “But you are not coming ?!” “No, you know what it is? Stay at home. A nice little film, herbal tea and Kinder Fetta al Bed”.
What appears to everyone today as a funny Tik Tok reel is actually not at all. If you stop for a few minutes you can see the perfect representation of a normality to which, with more or less suffering, we are now used to. Because, even though we had to come out stronger, we have created a social stigma that we prefer to stay at home rather than go out.
2020 had just begun and while we were all leading more or less ordinary lives, enjoying the freedoms and all the comforts of everyday life, almost taken for granted, we were not yet able to realize that all this would soon be snatched away from us. Thus, from March 2020 the population is seen forced to change reality, it adapts to conditions foreseen for a world championship, it is as effective as possible its own pandemic, a mortal danger can be avoided: life at risk without mortal danger and who knew how to stop. However, in the following months, between slogans through repairers such as “It will go well” and fake expressions of community closeness, created flashmobs on the cases of the houses, the first psychological consequences begin to manifest themselves on balconies of fear of contracting the virus itself and uncertainty for the future. Between a restriction and a fictitious concession, there are those who begin to give in, including health workers who mock themselves, workers who see their employment highly, families who are affected by their internal balance, the elderly, but above all young people and children. That atmosphere of hope that it was hoped to instill is soon replaced by cries for help, sometimes dramatic, from those who can’t take it anymore. Thus begins a silent and distressing war that several parts within a process: the perception of the danger of the virus, the refusal of its recognition, the defense of its existence. The result takes place in the psychological pandemic affecting its first victims, with very few intangible dispositions to deal with it. Stress, anxiety, depression, frustration and uncertainty noisily burst into people, definitively crumbling the puppet of social harmony into a thousand pieces. The request for more information regarding a led the media to focus on this phenomenon to the point of pandemic loss of hope in young people who no longer found effective and reassuring.
Within this chaotic scenario there are young people who, within their new distance learning school system, begin to live alone, to be started because they are bored, less and less new spurred to take an interest in topics or subjects a lot “while they ‘is the lesson they can stay on Instagram ”. The risks associated with the overuse of media and the continuous and morbid connection with screens are extremely debilitating. However, all this makes them feel frustrated, if in fact at the beginning of the pandemic they had responded in an adaptive way like everyone else, now they do not know how long it will last and all this only increases strong stress in them. There are those who risk the year even from home and those who suffer even more the negative consequences. Who begins to suffer from insomnia, depression, the first symptoms of post traumatic stress. Furthermore, they are accused of the spread of the pandemic because “they can’t stay at home when it’s that simple”. Deprived of leisure opportunities, from sports to just going out with a friend, they are soon placed in a bubble of “disabling loneliness”, while no one sees (The psychological impact of COVID-19 on mental health in the general population).
In 2021 the Italian Order of Psychologists declares the increase in cases of depression by 28% and those of anxiety by 26%, but again, the National Adolescent Observatory states that in the last year 25% of students have experienced depressive episodes, 20% problems related to anxiety. According to the UNICEF 2021 report, one in seven teenagers between the ages of 10 and 19 have been diagnosed with a mental disorder. It therefore follows that young people are increasingly depressed and tired: if before the situation concerned a few, now there is a large increase in psychiatric discomforts and disorders in children and adolescents. Depression, Anxiety, Obsessive Disorder, Sexual and Eating Disorders are among those that are most commonly frequent (La Repubblica). “Oh well but I was sick too, but then it passes” is what many young people have heard as adults, a statement that led them to perceive even more isolation and above all not to feel bosses, to experience the lockdown in an extremely negative, emptied, soaked in vortices of apathy.
Many young people still struggle to understand what is happening, perhaps precisely because the information they receive is totally incorrect, full of contents that only increase existing feelings of fear, fear of the future, fear of something that is unknown. . Many can reduce the reason for their existence, they do not find a reason to live for. They are totally discouraged, disinterested in rediscovering passions or delving into something new. The paradox lies precisely in the fact that they are not to blame, they have been silently confined to a bubble within which it is convenient and easy to control them. But what you don’t want to admit is that this bubble of apathy does nothing but consume them day after day, snatching them the frivolity and ability to dream, typical of adolescence. We want them ready, reactive, capable of taking responsibility for a situation that is now habitual, so no one really knows how long it will last. You want them grown up, pretending it’s okay if some of them haven’t even been able to experience those regular stages of the teenage life cycle. You just want them adults, but it doesn’t matter if no one has given them guidelines for doing so. It doesn’t matter if some of them are being worn down by inner monsters they don’t own and will soon end up feeding on them completely. They are left to fend for themselves, in a world that is no longer ready to raise them as resources.
Many have argued that simply being listened to by someone can increase their sense of not being alone. Those who claimed to have asked for help from a psychologist, said they had obtained benefits and improvements, but dramatically not everyone can afford it. Furthermore, the request for help is not so immediate, as many still have the stigma of the psychologist for which “if you go there you are only weak”. Following some occupations of Italian high schools it is precisely this, namely that young people have shown interest in their psychological well-being on the part of schools, because in this way they can no longer do it and not the tools to grow (VDNews). They can be valued in their particularities and inclinations, in order to become part of a system that makes educational institutions, work, politics and economy communicate with each other and that provides them with adequate tools to take on a role in building their future. Social support, greater inclusion are important protective factors that can increase the psychological resilience of young people, i.e. the ability to support or recover psychological well-being during or after dealing with stressful disabling conditions.
We need to raise awareness among students, but above all teachers and parents to make a difference. If we don’t act now, we risk losing an entire generation. For this reason, the psychology team of the San Marino Renaissance Cultural Association decided on an anonymous teacher questionnaire, addressed precisely to students of the e cfp, and San Marino parents. This questionnaire, which can be filled in via the link, will serve the team as a basis for targeted interventions to help children and beyond.
cs Dr. Margherita Gorrieri, graduated in Psychology of the Life Cycle and of Contexts and members of the Cultural Renaissance Association