What helps create a firewall against anxiety, depression, and suicide?

May is Mental Health Awareness month.

Given the trauma of living through a global pandemic, even people who in the past didn’t suffer from any mental illness now know what it’s like to do so. Our socially withdrawn, constrained, and isolated circumstances have created more awareness around the hot topics of anxiety, depression, and suicide. How do they relate to autism?

Clearly, the news cycle these days is anxiety-producing, on top of the hard facts of life: social disconnection, a reckoning with our nation’s real history, economic hardships, and climate change. For those who were already struggling socially due to peer rejection and exclusion, the anxiety and depression have increased during the social isolation and confusion of COVID-19 times. In fact, we can assign the attributes of being peer rejected and socially isolated as the driving forces in organizing antisocial behavior.

We still need to have people in our lives who love and “get” us — through good times and bad. Even the introverts and loners among us still need some social interaction - we are “pack animals,” albeit the human kind, after all. Longitudinal studies of the PEERS curriculum indicate that, even 5 years after taking the course, participants were having an average of 4 get-togethers a month. That’s a social life! Even virtual get-togethers, to share a meal or watch a movie, help stave off the negative mental health impacts that result from social isolation. You don’t need a lot of friends — just one or two who have your back.

Photo by Irina Gorskaia on Unsplash