Earlier this week, it was reported that children as young as five are having panic attacks over meeting their friends following almost 15 months of heavy Government restrictions on socialising. Now, data has shown that the use of antidepressants among British children has reached an all-time high over the past year of repeated lockdowns, with many children having been prescribed drugs because waiting times to see health professionals were too long. The Telegraph has the story.
More than 27,000 children were prescribed antidepressants last year, the figures show, with numbers peaking during the first lockdown, and two-thirds of cases involving girls.
Overall, the figure was 40% higher than five years ago, when 19,739 children were prescribed such drugs.
Experts said growing numbers of children were being medicated because waiting lists for help from psychologists and psychiatrists were too long.
Earlier this week, the Telegraph revealed waits of up to four years in some parts of the country, amid warnings that 1.5 million children will need mental health treatment as a direct result of the pandemic [that is, lockdowns].
Experts said many children were suffering behavioural problems fuelled by lockdowns, social distancing and fear of infection, with many now anxious about everyday social activities…
The investigation by the Pharmaceutical Journal reveals that overall, the number of prescriptions of antidepressants to children rose by 26% between April 2015 and April 2020, from 19,739 to 24,957. The peak month was March 2020, when 27,757 prescriptions were issued – two-thirds of them to girls…
NHS figures show a 28% rise in children being referred to mental health services between April and December 2020, amounting to 80,000 more cases.
The number in need of urgent or emergency crisis care, including checks to see if children were so unwell they were putting themselves at risk, rose by 18%, compared with 2019…
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence says children should only be given antidepressants alongside talking therapies, following assessment by a mental health specialist.
But earlier this year a survey of 32 mental health trusts with children’s services found that one in three had children waiting at least a year for their first appointment.
The longest wait, in South London, amounted to 1,497 days – more than four years, with children in South Yorkshire waiting 872 days.
The average waiting time was 58 days, across the country, the survey by ITV News found in March.
Worth reading in full.
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Horrifying data.
“…waiting lists for help from psychologists and psychiatrists were too long”
That was the case before the shit-show engulfed the nation : so the increased demand will have turned the intractable into the impossible.
Actually, therapy is no solution to reduce the problem. It’s not feasible.
What is required – rapidly – is a reverse ‘good psy-op’ to return perceptions to normal and thus remove all threat of the current abnormality.
That will still leave a significant core of individuals with problems, but I reckon it would make a major difference.
Obviously – the first steps re to abandon all steps to test and jab children, and pressure schools into sanity rather than pissing about with masking and social distancing. And it needs to be done now.
But that requires a massive effort from government to devise a programme of reversal and create a clear narrative.
Hmmm.
The mental healthcare provision in this country is shameful, absolutely incompetent and soul-less.
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Profitable though.
A programme of reversal won’t work. There has to be truth and reckoning. The rest is just gaslighting.
The only thing that will ever make the world feel safe again to kids and adults alike us the restoration and strengthening of human rights law, and the prosecution of those who failed them.
yes. an admittance that everything was wrong, we were lied to, people will get punished and it won’t happen again
saying what happened was right and that we’d do it again in a heartbeat isnt going to help anyone
They only devised the terror mechanism and boy did they use it! They didn’t bother to think about how they would talk people away from the cliff edge come the end of the “pandemic”.
It was all about the money and power, you or my wellbeing and lives do not matter
Things are so bad in my opinion it might require some kind of life affirming religious movement to correct this.
And I’m not even religious.
It’s said that in China the authorities did have some sort of de-programming to get people back to normal (plus enhanced surveillance). I suppose they are accustomed to manipulation and how to dial it down before it becomes too pathological. Over here, we were bounced into it by a combination of panic and the opportunism of various interested parties. Sadistic behavioural psychologists found themselves dominating operations, but with no coherent objective, or clear end-point to their experiments.
There is no end point. Once started it is forever.
I have already seen evidence of adults weaponising childrens’ learned fear response. Local social media group whinging about some people not wearing masks on public transport. “Little Johnny was very anxious when he saw 3 people not wearing masks.” The mother concerned is also a teacher. There is little hope for these people, they have fully bought in to the propaganda.
Late last year I found myself sharing an otherwise empty tube carriage with a mum and her 4-year old. At the next stop she took his arm, got up and ran to the next carriage. My lack of mask seemed to register like a suicide vest, in her mind.
We went into one of the bigger towns to find a M&S as the teenage Eagle needed some stuff. Convinced the fledgling to give not wearing a mask a go. No-one said anything, and I could see a barrier drop as previously the child had a fear of not conforming. If the adults behave rationally, strangely enough it rubs off on the kids. On the other hand if adults behave like nutters I think I can confidently predict the children will end up with issues.
A teacher. How can anyone foolish enough to believe that a bit of material across someone’s face can in some magical way stop an airborne virus possibly be a teacher?
Generation Wrecked
Generation Borg!
I Will Comply.
I Will Be Assimilated
Resistance Is Useless.
I’d like to know about the parents. I’d suspect that the kids who have problems have parents who are, shall we say, paranoid about Covid19. Our kids are frustrated by the whole thing, but we don’t see psychological problems.
Definitely. There is a family up the road from us who are completely hysterical about this, and their 12 y/o son wears what looks like a muzzle, (covering his entire face below his eyes and touching his neck), and avoids everyone and anyone, choosing to stand some distance from other kids at the bus stop. They have done a good job with him.
Yes definitely.
However other kids with parents that are not scared of the virus have been affected in other ways that sucked out their happiness
Lockdown is an assault on the mind, first and foremost, every totalitarian ideology works the same way in that regard.
At least the Patrician was compent …..
The Patrician was literate and numerate.
And not without humour, and even humanity.
Not to worry it will all be made alright when their parents offer them up as a sacrificial
offerings to the COVIDJABGOD!
Swimming pools reopened here the other day, after a two month closure that saved thousands of faces, I mean lives. Since then, the pool here has been thronging with happy children. But I can’t help but wonder how they’ve spent the past two months and how they’re being affected by the constant on-again-off-again prohibitions, and of course the anxieties of their parents, many of whom will be credulous puppets of the zealots. What kind of generation are we creating? I hope it’s at least mentally together enough to be angry and exact justice.
Yes major issue – these kids are petrified that schools will be closed again.
Why You Need To Stop Believing The Lie That Children Are Resilient
Another sign of society’s madness. We create a world to which depression is a perfectly appropriate and valid response and then we try to ‘medicalise it’ away.
Absolutely!
So the absolute number has increased, in a continuation of the already-concerning upward trend.
But did the rate of increase also increase? I’d assume it did, but it feels like this is the important stat in terms of how it relates to the anti-lockdown narrative.
The drug companies will be rubbing their hands. If they can’t get to the kids with their “vaccines” yet at least they can get to them with their psychotropic drugs.
Yet more fantastic news for big pharma shareholders.
Covid is the gift that keeps giving to them and taking from us.
All hail corporate fascism.
You can’t blame the corporations for this- this is 100% down to politicians and their model obsessed ‘advisors’. All of them crave power and are not about to give it back.
In my opinion so called democratic governments are owned and controlled by a power elite that also control the corporations.
Whatever way you look at it during the past 18 months, a horrible streak of ‘crimes against humanity’ has been ever present.
An absolute disgrace. “Herod” Johnson has certainly made an excellent job of Massacring the Innocents of both sexes, now and for decades to come. I feel it sometimes necessary to stick a pin in myself, just to be sure that I am really awake in this hellish, dystopian country.
I wasn’t best pleased to see a photograph of my older grandson taking the Scout’s Oath, in the open air, with some rag over his face. It’s just an endless “Why, oh why?”.
I’m not normally a vengeful, bitter and twisted individual, but I now think that condign and severe punishment should be meted out to the people, at any and all levels, who are responsible for this particular crime against children and young people. Unless the affected young know and see that there is retribution demanded by the majority of adults in the country, and that it is administered, I see an even-greater intergenerational divide opening up, which will be far more toxic than the divisions over Brexit, by several orders of magnitude.
Funny how Boris and co never talk about these rocketing numbers in the same way as when they like to panic everyone about rocketing COVID cases (sorry, positive tests)
POSITIVE???
I dont follow, sorry?
The “Positive” tests leave something to be desired, don’t you think?
I believe that the testing system that’s used in this country is suspect in the USA.
Another win for Big Pharma. Making people ill and drug-dependent. A win-win!
Anybody who works with children knows that in almost every case, the child’s problem is the adults that s/he is stuck with.
True in many cases, I’m sure. But anxiety is also a massive problem amongst children, even before this Sage created fiasco, intense anxiety, as asthma became a problem in my lifetime, and nut allergies – so also some kind of disabling biochemical anxiety rampages. It’s real. Caused by – who knows, something omnipresent in modern life. Those children genuinely disabled by anxiety have had their difficulties multiplied many times by this.
I’ve got a horrible feeling that many were locked in at home while the parents had to go out to work, where they have jobs that couldn’t be done from home. Need to find some primary school teachers and ask them if the kids’ social progress had regressed during their imprisonment.
Very sad, but the kids were locked up for 18 months & told they’re granny killers.
Hardly surprising they have depression & various other mental health problems.
Quids in for Big Pharma. They just can’t lose.
OK so I have never taken antidepressant pills so can’t claim to be any kind of an expert but from what I have seen of work colleagues who have taken them they do worry me. In all of the cases these were colleagues under pressure at work who were also suffering problems at home (death of a parent or divorce) causing them to go to their GP who prescribed antidepressants. In every case the colleague would return to work a few days later with a much improved mood and sunnier disposition. After a week or so though a pattern would emerge where the person would almost act as though they had super powers saying yes to every job and promising amazingly short timescales. Yet at the same time they didn’t seem to have any ability to concentrate and actually do the job. After a few months the jobs would be due , it was obvious nothing had been done and everything would come crashing down leaving the colleague in an even worse position.
Has anyone else ever come across this ? I do worry about putting children onto these.
Don’t worry. They are more likely to be offered CBT by Zoom.
Not exactly, I was wise enough not to promise such things. But low dose anti depressants helped me sleep and reduced my social inhibitions a little, in some ways quite a nice experience eg being able to have a chat with total strangers which I wouldn’t normally do. However I wouldnt want to take them again, as I found it quite hard to care very much about anything. That’s probably psychologically harmful for a child whose personality and approach to the world is still developing.
Anti depressants have horrible side effects and the longer you take it the more difficult it is to stop taking them, also withdrawal symptoms.
A good wholesome diet (nutrients), very little sugar (anti nutrient and messing up your blood sugar levels that then result in feeling blue), sufficient good quality water, good and sufficient sleep in a dark room, movement/exercise, sun exposure/vitamin D levels, laughter and being happy will go a long way.
Mood Swings? 14 Nutrients for Emotional Support
https://drjockers.com/mood-swings-emotional-support/
Absolutely. Good quality food, exercise, and time outdoors and away from screens…
No worries, a mandatory vaccine and no private property will make the young happy.
Do you think this is why we’ve been primed to focus on ‘Mental Health’ for the last few years by the Powers that Be? Nothing happens by accident. Planning for a ‘plandemic’ must be done on multiple levels.
And they will continue banging on about how important mental health initiatives are and at the same time do everything they can to decimate mental health in this country
Yes, and the solution will be MORE DRUGS.
Yep. Medicalise medicalise medicalise. A genuine long-sighted public health policy would look holistically at why so many people struggle or think they struggle with mental health, rather than trying to medicate the symptoms.
That would involve moral leadership, decision making based on intended outcome according to a theory of what is morally the best outcome. Unfortunately, government now only operates on the basis of what lobbyists push them for and their only motivation is money.
There’s no quick return on investments in pursuing a healthy society.
There’s really no such thing as antidepressants in a clinical sense. There are drugs marketed as antidepressants. They may have their place for short-term use in dampening down problematic feelings in a crisis, but they are addictive, withdrawal can be difficult, and they may cause neurological damage.
You can’t do a brain scan and say, “Ah look, depression!” It’s a meaningful concept, but a highly subjective one, not a clinically valid diagnosis. It can be looked at as a defence mechanism against trauma, abuse, or conflict. Sometimes you might have to withdraw from a hostile society, rather than lashing out in a dangerous way. We have all been abused by government psychologists. The best therapy now is to find ways of defying them that avoid the dangers of violent confrontation. That’s not to say pacifism is necessarily appropriate in every situation.
So true. The body is not deficient in anti depressants, it is actually deficient in nutrients