It started when I was 12 years old. First depressive moods, later longer depressive phases. “I lacked the strength for everyday things. Showering was suddenly tiring, there was no motivation to brush your teeth,’ says Emil from Zurich Helbling (19). A daily struggle – also emotionally.
It was especially bad in high school. Helbling was increasingly missing in class: “It puts extra pressure on you because you know: now you have to Actually being at school and doing something. But you’re home with no drive. It makes you feel really bad because you can’t even go there.” A rat’s tail that makes everything worse.
emily Helbling is just one of many. Mental health problems among young people in Switzerland are on the rise. The 2021 federal figures on mental health in the Swiss population show: Mental illness was the most common cause for the first time hospital admissions in 10 to 24 year olds (19,532 cases). The increase is 17 percent compared to last year. Young women are particularly affected (+26 percent), while the increase for men of the same age was 6 percent.
Every second IV pension can be attributed to psychological causes
This balance corresponds to the latest figures of the disability insurance (IV): According to the Federal Social Insurance Service (BSV), there were almost 9,000 new retirees with mental illness in 2021 alone. That is 16 percent more than a year earlier.
Every second IV pension is now traceable to psychological causes. The increase among 18 to 24 year olds is dramatic. The share has already risen to 70 percent. It is four times as high as 25 years ago.
Pro Juventute is also sounding the alarm. The youth care organization announced that the number of consultations for children and young people at hotline 147 due to suicidal thoughts has doubled from 3 to 4 per day in 2019 to 7 to 8 in 2022.
“Multicrisis” as a trigger
Crisis interventions have also increased significantly. In 2019 there were still 57 interventions due to the risk of suicide, in 2022 that number has almost tripled to 161 interventions, the youth care organization reports.
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Pro Juventute sees the “multi-crisis” as the trigger for the strong increase. «corona pandemicthe climate crisis, the war in Ukraine, the threat of inflation, social injustice – crises overlap and affect children and young people at a particularly vulnerable stage of life,” says Pro Juventute.
emily Helbling confirms that. He says: “These crises leave no one indifferent. When you are young and aware that these are things that you have no control over, there is an extreme sense of helplessness and loss of control. It’s a total burden.”
Waiting times up to 18 months
According to experts, this also applies to young people future– and fear of failure. These would be exacerbated by the pressure to perform at school and at work. It can also negatively impact mental health the social media to influence. Studies show that spending too much time in online networks can be dangerous.
The consequence of the increasing number of psychological disorders in young people: lack of space in child and adolescent psychiatric institutions. Adolescents and children in the canton of Zurich have to wait up to a year before a psychiatrist assesses their condition.
In the canton of Bern, the figures are even more dramatic: there, children and young people with mental disorders sometimes wait up to 18 months for treatment in the university outpatient clinic psychiatric Services (UPS).
Junge Mitte submits an initiative
emily Helbling know what it means to have to wait for help. “I had to wait eight months for the first inpatient treatment. That is – for the condition you are in – far too long a period.” An unsustainable situation, because those affected love it Helbling left alone with their problems.
“Of course you then go to outpatient therapy, but depending on the condition it soon becomes clear that that will not be enough. That’s why I needed hospitalization in a clinic,” he says. That’s a huge slap in the face. After all, it took a lot of effort to seek professional help at all. “And then it says: ‘It’s nice that you’re participating, but you have to wait again.'”
That is exactly what the young center demands incident measures, which ensure that mentally ill children and young people are treated by specialists within four weeks. You submitted an initiative on Friday with more than 9,000 signatures in the canton of Zurich.
“Many have been affected themselves or know someone”
Junge Mitte co-chair Benedikt Schmid (21) says: “In no other initiative has it been so easy to convince people on the street. Many have been affected by it themselves or know someone with mental health problems.” He himself experienced a suicide in the immediate vicinity, which opened his eyes, he says. “Suddenly I understood better what the self-harm to the arms around me means.”
It was all the more frightening how little help the affected people had received. “One therapy session every two weeks was the maximum. The longer I was on the subject, the more hateful It struck me that there is so little help being offered,’ says Schmid. And so it became clear to him that politically he wanted to change things for the better.
Emil Helbling has since recovered thanks to regular therapy. He applauds the initiative all the more. He says: “The waiting times must be shorter. I do not think it tenable that people who are already in such a situation, who are not doing well, have to wait a long time for the help they urgently need. So political action is also needed.”
Source:Blick
I am Liam Livingstone and I work in a news website. My main job is to write articles for the 24 Instant News. My specialty is covering politics and current affairs, which I’m passionate about. I have worked in this field for more than 5 years now and it’s been an amazing journey. With each passing day, my knowledge increases as well as my experience of the world we live in today.
