The pandemic did not create a mental health crisis

We are currently going through a widely predicted mental health crisis. We shut businesses down, socially isolated individuals, and took away freedom. I saw numerous comments online about how these actions would likely lead to deaths of despair, which generally refers to suicides and substance abuse. In all honesty, we should have also emphasized violence, which was certain to rise for similar reasons.

When I looked at what we were doing, this mental health crisis appeared to be certain. I always had some concerns with the specifics. Mental health issues can take years to become obvious. Even more so, it can take years to recover. I always suspected a gradual rise followed by a gradual decline. When would we peak, and when we would finally recover? I never could figure out this part.

I can't nail down the details, but it definitely appears that the predictions were right. Substance abuse seems to be on the rise. I think suicides have also increased, but people haven't been talking as much. Regardless, I think it's safe to say that predictions of a mental health crisis have been validated.

There is some good news here. While there has been a lot of news surrounding a spike in violence, a lot of this is tied to actions that are moving further into the past. If we do nothing, violence should gradually move to pre-pandemic levels. There are already signs that this is happening, although I would definitely say that violence is still elevated. It's hard to isolate different factors in violence. This will eventually cease being a factor, but other factors could make it more difficult to establish the diminished role. Unfortunately, it could potentially take decades for this problem to completely disappear.

I want to make something clear. The existence of SARS-CoV2 and COVID-19 did not cause this problem. What we are seeing was caused by our response. It was caused by the government severely disrupting the lives of the public. It was caused by taking away many people's livelihoods. It was about an authoritarian government taking away people's say in their own lives. The pandemic did not cause a mental health crisis. The government's response did.

Numerous Americans' lives were saved as a result of our response. Numerous Americans' lives were also ended as a result of our response. As I have repeatedly mentioned, this should not be a straight up numbers game. Which number is higher shouldn't be our biggest concern. If the government is killing people as a means of saving lives, we should all be very worried about their power the wield.