Abby Madore covers a lot of ground each day at work.

A staffer at a community health center in Carson City, Nevada, Madore spends her days helping low-income residents understand their health insurance options, including Medicaid. Her phone is always ringing, she said, as she fields calls from clients who dial in from the state’s remote reaches seeking help.

It’s a big job, especially this year as states work to sort through their Medicaid rolls after the end of a pandemic-era freeze that prohibited disenrollment.

A few dozen specialists work for seven navigator organizations tasked with helping Nevadans enroll in or keep their coverage. Madore said she mostly works with people who live in rural Nevada, a sprawling landmass of more than 90,000 square miles.

Katie Charleson, communications officer for Nevada’s state health marketplace, said it’s always a challenge to reach people in rural areas. Experts say this problem isn’t unique to the state and is causing concern that limited resources will throw rural Americans into jeopardy as the Medicaid unwinding continues.

Recent data submitted to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services shows 72% of people who have lost Medicaid coverage since states began the unwinding process this year were disenrolled for procedural reasons, not because officials determined they are no longer eligible for the joint state-federal health insurance program.

By late August, federal officials directed state Medicaid overseers to pause some procedural disenrollments and reinstate some recipients whose coverage was dropped.

Experts say those procedural disenrollments could disproportionately affect rural people.

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A brief recently published by researchers at the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families noted that rural Medicaid recipients face additional barriers to renewing coverage, including longer distances to eligibility offices and less access to the internet.

Nationwide, Medicaid and CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, covered 47% of children and 18% of adults, respectively, in small towns and rural areas, compared with 40% of children and 15% of adults in metropolitan counties.

“As is clear from our research, rural communities rely on Medicaid to form the backbone of their health care system for children and families,” said Joan Alker, who is one of the brief’s co-authors, the executive director of the Center for Children and Families, and a research professor at Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy. “So if states bungle unwinding, this is going to impact rural communities, which are already struggling to keep enough providers around and keep their hospitals.”

A lack of access to navigators in rural locales to help Medicaid enrollees keep their coverage or find other insurance if they’re no longer eligible could exacerbate the difficulties rural residents face. Navigators help consumers determine whether they’re eligible for Medicaid or CHIP, coverage for children whose families earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, and help them enroll. If their clients are not eligible for these programs, navigators help them enroll in marketplace plans.

Navigators operate separately from Nevada’s more than 200 call center staffers who help residents manage social service benefits.

Navigators are required by the federal government to provide their services at no cost to consumers and give unbiased guidance, setting them apart from insurance broker agents, who earn commissions on certain health plans. Without them, there would be no free service guiding consumers through shopping for health insurance and understanding whether their health plans cover key services, like preventive care.

Roughly 30 to 40 certified enrollment counselors like Madore work at navigator organizations helping consumers enroll in plans through Nevada Health Link, the state health marketplace, which sells Affordable Care Act plans, said Charleson. One of these groups is based in the small capital city of Carson City, 30 miles south of Reno, where fewer than 60,000 people live. The rest are in the urban centers of Reno and Las Vegas.

As a navigator, Abby Madore helps clients determine whether they’re eligible for Medicaid or CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program. If they’re not, she helps them find a health plan on Nevada’s insurance marketplace.(Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez/KFF Health News)

Availability of navigators and their outreach tactics vary from state to state.

In Montana, which is larger than Nevada but has one-third the population, six people work as navigators. They cover the entire state, reaching Medicaid beneficiaries and people seeking help with coverage by phone or in person by traveling to far-flung communities. For example, a navigator in Billings, in south-central Montana, has worked with the Crow and Northern Cheyenne Tribes, whose reservations lie relatively nearby, said Olivia Riutta, director of population health for the Montana Primary Care Association. But officials struggle to reach northeastern Montana, with its Fort Peck Reservation.

Having navigators in rural communities to help people in person is an ongoing challenge the country faces, said Alker. But the unwinding circumstances make it an especially important moment for the role navigators play in guiding people through complex insurance processes, she said.

This became clear following a recent survey regarding what consumers encounter when independently searching for health coverage on Google. “The results are really concerning,” said survey co-author JoAnn Volk, a research professor and the founder and co-director of the Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms.

The researchers found that former Medicaid enrollees looking for health plans on the private market face aggressive, misleading marketing of limited-benefit products that don’t cover important services and fail to protect consumers from high health costs.

Researchers shopped for coverage using two profiles of consumers who were losing Medicaid coverage and were eligible for a plan with no premiums or deductibles on the ACA marketplace.

The team reported, though, that none of 20 sales representatives who responded to their queries mentioned that plan, and more than half pushed the limited-benefit products. The representatives also made false and misleading statements about the plans they were touting and misrepresented the availability or affordability of the marketplace plans.

The sales reps and brokers quoted limited plans that cost $200 to $300 a month, Volk said. Such an expense could prove unaffordable for consumers who may still be low-income despite being ineligible for Medicaid.

“If they can’t get to a navigator, I would not trust that they would get to their best coverage option in the marketplace, or to the marketplace at all, frankly,” Volk said.

Making a difficult problem more challenging, the federal government does not require states to break down Medicaid disenrollment data by county, making it harder for experts and researchers to track and differentiate rural and urban concerns. The Center for Children and Families does so with data from the Census Bureau, which Alker pointed out won’t be available until next fall.

A data point that will be important to watch as states continue the redetermination process, Alker said, is call center statistics. People in rural areas rely more heavily on that method of renewing coverage.

“Call abandonment rate” is one such statistic. CMS defines it as the percentage of calls that drop from the queue in two separate measures — calls dropped up to and including 60 seconds, and calls dropped after 60 seconds. In August, the agency sent a letter to the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services about its rate: An average of 56% of calls dropped in May, the first month after Nevada’s unwinding began.

The agency “has concerns that your average call center wait time and abandonment rate are impeding equitable access to assistance and the ability for people to apply for or renew Medicaid and CHIP coverage by phone and may indicate non-compliance with federal requirements,” said Anne Marie Costello, deputy director of CMS.

In the letter, Costello also cited the 45% of Medicaid enrollees whose coverage was terminated for procedural reasons in May.

All 50 states received letters about early data, but only Idaho, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah had higher disenrollment rates than Nevada, and no state had a higher rate of call abandonment.

Officials at Nevada’s Division of Welfare and Supportive Services said its call center, staffed by 277 family service specialists, receives more than 200,000 calls a month. A spokesperson said the phone system offers self-service options whereby customers can obtain information about their Medicaid renewal date and benefit amounts by following prompts. Because those calls aren’t handled by a case manager, they are considered “abandoned,” the spokesperson said, raising the rate even though callers’ questions may have been fully addressed.

People shopping around for coverage after a lapse might go into a panic, Madore said, and the best part of her job is providing relief by helping them understand their options after disenrollment from Medicaid or CHIP.

When people find out the wide range of free services navigators like Madore offer, they’re shocked, she said.

“They’re unaware of how much support we can provide,” Madore said. “I’ve had people call me back and they say, ‘It’s my first time using insurance. Where do I go to urgent care?’”

Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez:
jorozco@kff.org,
@jazmin1orozco

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Is Gen Z sad?

Jayla Johnson doesn’t think so. The 23-year-old who works in brand partnerships in music and entertainment in New York City said those in her generation are simply more brutally honest with their feelings.

She resembles a majority of Gen Z members who say they have a great future ahead of them, according to a new study by Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation released Thursday. Still, only 47% of those polled said they are thriving in their lives right now.

It’s a figure the study said is among the lowest across all generations in the U.S. today and is at a much lower rate than millennials reported when they were the same age. Moreso, the study said the only generation on par with Gen Z with that sentiment is the Silent Generation demographic, those Americans who are aged 71 and older, of whom only 45% said they were thriving.

“It’s apparent that Gen Z is struggling in many different facets,” said Ryan Jenkins, a bestselling author who has written extensively on Gen Z and millennials.

The study of 3,000 young people conducted this spring comes as Generation Z, a diverse collective of about 68 million Americans born between 1997 and 2012, has already had to navigate through many life-changing challenges that past generations did not. That includes spending months of their youth in quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic, which, for many, affected their education and limited their in-person social interaction with their peers.

For some Gen Z’ers, other challenges also include finding their first job in an economy with record-high inflation and experiencing unprecedented political divisiveness in the country.

Gen Z Americans polled in the survey were asked to rate how they saw their current and future lives and that was defined as “thriving” if they gave high ratings in both categories.

“Decisions affecting public policy, learning environments and workplaces should consider the perspectives of — not about — Gen Z, the challenges they face and the solutions that best suit their unique needs,” the study said.

“We’re disruptive, we’re innovative, we’re daring,” said Johnson who did not take part in the study. “We don’t take the B.S. We are authentic and we are very strong-minded. If I want something, I’m going to work hard for it and not wait for it.”

COVID-19 continues to derail learning Scathing new report says American schools are ‘failing the COVID generation’

Gen Z’ers see a bright future, but also feel unprepared for it, study says

And while 76% of Gen Z’ers polled agree they have a great future ahead of them, only 44% of them say they feel prepared for their future.

Johnson said her generation has had to show more resiliency in such a short period of time. A self-professed “social butterfly,” Johnson said while she had to take many of her college courses via Zoom and missed going to concerts and hanging out with her friends because of the pandemic, she said that gave her generation a new perspective on life.

High school graduates toss their caps at the conclusion of their commencement ceremony on June 4, 2023.

“Many roadblocks are thrown at all people, no matter their age. It’s just a matter of how you choose to overcome them,” said Johnson, who graduated with honors at Drexel University in Philadelphia. “I‘m going to roll with the punches and adjust and adapt.”

Nearly 70% of those polled cited their hope for the future is “to make enough money to live comfortably,” while 64% say financial resources are a barrier to achieving their future goals and aspirations.

Jenkins said finances will always be on mind for many Gen Z members who “came of age during the great recession and took a lot of that to heart to do their best to be fiscally responsible in a world of turbulence.”

Gen Z is more open about mental health than past generations

When asked to describe their current mental health or well-being, just 15% of members of Gen Z polled said it was excellent. Gen Z’ers report having experienced negative emotions such as stress, anxiety and loneliness, the study said.

That’s a big decline compared to a decade ago, when 52% of millennials in that same age range said their mental health was excellent, the study noted. And in 2004, 55% of people aged 18 to 26, including both millennials and Gen X respondents, reported excellent mental health.

“That said, some of this gap may be owed to overall declines in mental health between 2013 and 2023, as millennials and Gen X (now) report far lower mental health ratings today than in 2013 and 2004,” the study said.

Johnson said Gen Z’ers are authentic.

Yasmeen Bekhit, a 22-year-old graduate student, poses for a photograph in her Y2K-inspired outfit near her home in Manheim, Pa., Tuesday, June 27, 2023.

“We don’t sugarcoat things,” Johnson said. “We’re going to tell you exactly how we feel. You can’t expect someone to know what we’re going through.”

Jenkins said social media for better or worse has given Gen Z “a platform for their voices from day one to be heard and outspoken.” He said technology has in many given Gen Z “an overstimulation that no other generation has had to weigh through.”

Jenkins said the impact of Gen Z is still a work in progress.

“They are a highly anxious generation that’s bold, confident and socially conscious. It all goes hand-in-hand,” Jenkins said. “We won’t fully understand how the pandemic has changed them for several years to come.

Johnson has a similar assessment.

“How we are defined isn’t a complete picture, yet. Nobody’s perfect, our lives are just getting started,” Johnson said. “Our generation is just one big melting pot. We’re going to be the generation of change.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Study: Gen Z is more open about struggles with mental health

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Some pilots say it’s an issue many are afraid to talk about, but should be taking about – the Federal Aviation Administration’s mental health policies. They tell CBS News Colorado the policies are outdated and are causing pilots to lie about their conditions or avoid getting help, leading to issues boiling over.

They worry if the FAA’s policies don’t see serious changes soon, the growing pilot shortage is only going to get worse, and many pilots currently allowed in the cockpit are going to continue to suffer alone without the help they need. 

“The system discourages people from getting help,” says Adam Lemons, an aircraft technician and pilot license applicant. “I feel like I’m being punished for being forthcoming and getting the help that I felt that I needed.”

CBS

 Lemons served in the Army as a helicopter engineer, and was deployed to Afghanistan in 2006. He recalled various events during his time there that he said would later contribute to a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder diagnosis once he returned.

“They used to nickname it ‘Rocket City,’ I was right on the Pakistan border, where we were not allowed to fly, and that resulted in an awful lot of rocket attacks every night,” Lemons said. “I was a part of a flight crew that was following a Chinook that was landing and dropping off a mortar team… The Chinook ended up clipping a tree and rolled down a mountain side, but because of the rugged terrain of Afghanistan, there wasn’t anything we could do. We watched that Chinook roll down the mountain through night vision goggles, while passengers and crew were trying to get out of the helicopter and downhill from it, and then just getting rolled over by the helicopter.”

Lemons says at first, his PTSD made it difficult for him to drive on busy city streets.

“For a while that was something that I just was not able to do,” he said. “I would sooner fly into the city or take public transportation, the notion of driving myself into the city was a daunting idea.”

He sought help, and by about eight years ago, he no longer needed anxiety medications.

With a love of flying, he applied for a pilot’s license in 2016, with hopes to make it his next career move, but on his FAA application, he admitted to having a PTSD diagnosis, something he never guessed would compromise his ability to fly.

Adam Lemons as a helicopter engineer while deployed in Afghanistan

Adam Lemons

 
“At the time, I was already an active leader with a veteran led volunteer organization, so advocating for mental wellness with newly separated veterans was absolutely a priority,” Lemons said.

He says since then, the FAA has subjected him to costly frequent drug tests, and doctor’s visits with FAA-approved experts who don’t accept insurance.

He says the FAA wouldn’t accept other doctor’s notes saying that he was perfectly fine to fly a plane.

“Over the last six years I think I’ve spent a little over $30,000 of my own dollars to determine my air safety,” Lemons said.

At the Broomfield airport, Joseph LoRusso, director of aviation at Ramos Law, and a private plane pilot himself, represents hundreds of clients in similar situations as Lemons’.

“As a pilot, it’s brutal. It’s just absolutely brutal,” he said. “You can’t go see a therapist. You can’t go see a counselor, you are constantly worried about not only losing the certificate in your pocket and the ability to feed your family, but I’ll be very honest with you, you’re going to lose your identity, and that fear is so strong that it just, it tears you apart.”

He says the FAA’s mental health policies are based off standards from the 1980s, and they’re one of the biggest reasons for the growing pilot shortage.

“Really, the problem is not keeping who we have. It’s getting these young people to come up into the industry,” he said. “People are getting treatment at a young age and they’re working through those problems, and because of all that work, they can’t get into the pilot pool because they are medically disqualified.”

Jospeh LoRusso speaks with CBS News Colorado Investigator Kati Weis

Kati Weis, CBS News Colorado

 
This September, the FAA goes up for reauthorization in front of Congress, a process that happens every five years. LoRusso has been meeting with lawmakers to advocate for policy changes during that process.

“The medical application hasn’t changed in a very long time. A big change in the medical application would be that pilots don’t have to disclose a therapist or a counselor, but if that mental health progresses to the point where they need to bring in a psychiatrist, or they need to be treated with pharmaceuticals, that should be reported,” LoRusso said. “A therapist and a counselor so that we’re treating things initially and they don’t compound to the point where we need to introduce pharmaceuticals and a psychiatrist, why is the pilot being judged on that?”

But he says he’s not optimistic the FAA, or Congress, will consider any revisions.

“In the reauthorization bill that’s coming up for discussion here in September, there’s only one part of it that discusses medicals, and what it says is the FAA needs to put together a round table to discuss the modernization of the regulations. There is no time limit on it,” LoRusso explains. “I would not be surprised if five years from now, we’re sitting here talking about how they still have not yet formed that roundtable.”

Last week, CBS News Colorado Investigator Brian Maass was the first to uncover this video of a United pilot attacking a parking gate with an ax.

The pilot told police he “just hit his breaking point.”

A United pilot swings an ax multiple times on a semi-functional parking lot gate at DIA

DIA, CBS

 
United says it has an employee benefits package for pilots to have access to mental health resources, but LoRusso says it shouldn’t be up to employers to offer assistance. He says the FAA needs to do its part to help pilots reaching their boiling points.

“Pilots are crying out for help. They want to do the best for the public. They want to do the best for the industry, and they’re asking for just a little bit of give and take,” LoRusso said. “Please change the regulations, please modernize them to this decade.”

In the meantime, Lemons says he has received a special issuance to fly, but in order to maintain that, he must continue to shell out thousands of dollars of his own money into FAA-approved programs.

“I’m still doing the 15 random drug screens a year. I’m still seeing my aviation medical examiner twice a year. I’m still seeing a psychiatrist once a year and a psychologist once a year… this is my life now, forever, if I want to fly, and I can’t afford to do both,” Lemons said. “This does feel like discrimination against imperfect humans.”

Regarding those out-of-pocket costs, the FAA says: “The FAA does not establish fees to be charged by Examiners for the medical examination of persons applying for airman medical certification. It is recommended that the fee be the usual and customary fee established by other physicians in the same general locality for similar services.”

The FAA also issued this statement in full to CBS News Colorado about its mental health policies:

“Pilots must report certain mental health conditions to their aviation medical examiner (AME) during their regular medical exams. The FAA encourages pilots to seek help if they have a mental-health condition since most, if treated, do not disqualify a pilot from flying. During the last several years, the FAA has invested resources to eliminate the stigma around mental health in the aviation community so pilots seek treatment. This includes:
• Increasing mental health training for medical examiners
• Supporting industry-wide research and clinical studies on pilot mental health
• Hiring additional mental health professionals to expand in-house expertise and to decrease wait times for return-to-fly decisions
• Completed clinical research and amended policy to decrease the frequency of cognitive testing in pilots using antidepressant medications
The FAA can revoke a pilot’s medical certificate if it becomes aware of significant mental health issues.”

Lemons says those measures have not been sufficient.

“There’s a lot a lot a lot of hurdles,” he said. “A pilot is guilty until proven innocent.” 

More from CBS News

Kati Weis

Kati Weis is a Murrow Award-winning reporter on The Investigators team and multi-media journalist for CBS News Colorado. Read her latest reports or check out her bio and send her an email.

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Affordable housing is becoming less affordable for some people in Raleigh even with efforts to keep costs down.

Residents of the Grosvenor Gardens Apartments said they’re blindsided by a rent hike of hundreds of dollars per month.

Resident Andi Drew said she can afford $800 per month and the apartment is close to her job. She received a letter in the mail saying her rent would increase to $1,100 starting July 1.

“Some people it’s [a] 30% [increase],” Drew said. “For me, it’s almost a 50% increase in a month. And, by any measure, that’s not affordable for anyone.”

Drew’s latest increase comes after her monthly rent went from $750 to $800 in February. She said she felt even more secure when she heard the city of Raleigh and Raleigh-based nonprofit CASA were buying the building to preserve the apartments as affordable housing.

“I was like, ‘Wow, the city of Raleigh cares about people and affordable housing and I’m safe for now,’ and I really trusted in that,” she said.

Data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development shows the fair-market rent in 2023 for a studio in Raleigh is $1,213. It’s an increase from $1,038 in 2022.

Here’s how the fair-market rates compare in Raleigh:

One Bedroom

2023: $1,250

2022: $1,073

Two Bedroom

2023: $1,412

2022: $1,223

Three Bedroom

2023: $1,733

2022: $1,517

Four Bedroom

2023: $2,293

2022: $1,982

In October 2022, WRAL News reported about Raleigh and Wake County leaders launching the Wake Affordable Housing Preservation Fund (WAHPF) to try to make sure the affordable places that exist right now – stay affordable.

Some of the funding – about $2 million from the city – was used on the Grosvenor Gardens.

CASA said it purchased the apartments for $12 million in partnership with the city and the WAHPF. The nonprofit said it saved Grosvenor Gardens from developers buying it, which the organization says would have forced all the tenants out in favor of hotels or luxury apartments.

On Wednesday, CASA declined WRAL News’ request for an interview. However, CASA CEO Everett McElveen provided a written statement.

“The rental increase was unfortunately a necessity, as this property was running at a significant deficit,” McElveen said. “CASA is paying debt service on the $7M WAHPF loan as well as another $3M loan from Self-Help Credit Union, both of which were necessary to buy the property.

“We understand navigating through a rental increase can be difficult for some residents, and our team is on standby ready to answer questions and provide assistance. The increase will help ensure sustainable operations for the property in the long run, allowing CASA to provide long-term affordability.”

Drew isn’t the only neighbor in a tight spot with the proposed rent increases.

“I feel kind of lied to,” resident Cass Kentner said. “[I’m] incredibly caught off guard.

“I’ve got to ask myself, can my job afford this?”

Resident Aaron Denney echoed Kentner’s sentiments.

“It’s put me in a really tough spot,” Denney said. “I’ll be honest with you, that’s not something I can really afford to pay right now.”

Drew and her neighbors worry this rent hike won’t be the last.

“I just feel like it’s kind of a bait-and-switch,”Drew said.

The city and Wake County sent a joint statement on Wednesday.

“The City of Raleigh and Wake County will discuss the rent increases with CASA to better understand what can be done to ensure rent affordability for current tenants and prevent displacement while balancing needs for the long-term sustainability of the property,” the statement reads. “We appreciate CASA for their partnership to the City and County, and for undertaking this affordable housing preservation effort without which 62 affordable housing units would have been lost entirely.”

Since WRAL News started asking about this, CASA has decided to delay the rent increase by a month.

WRAL News asked if the money will go to pay for renovations or improvements. CASA says there are no immediate plans for that.

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Some people are so likable that the moment you meet them, you can’t seem to get enough of them, while others take time to warm up to. Some people are shiny objects that are easy to watch, while others can make you feel like you’re not so sure. Although we’re taught to listen to our instincts around people, our instincts aren’t always right and may not always lead us to ‘safety.’

We can fall head over heels for someone (a friend, a colleague, or a lover) who makes us feel seen because they are playful and easy to connect with. Sometimes we connect to people because they make us feel good just being around them — maybe they’re able to talk about hard things and share with honesty. We may connect with others because they share similar interests.

Sometimes it’s synchronistic, while other times we fall for these humans because they make us feel things we don’t feel with many people. Think of someone who tends to ‘love bomb’ new love interests. They might shower them with attention and compliments. They come in hot and ready, telling the other how special they are, attentive to their needs, interested in their thoughts and ideas, essentially making the person feel connected and creating an attachment.

This behaviour can happen in workplaces and social settings as well. It’s easy to get swept up in it. I’m not suggesting that every scenario like this is a red flag, but often it can be.

Signs that someone might not be a good connection for you could be:

• Someone who overshares with you, using ‘vulnerability’ as a way to connect.
• Someone who wants to know everything about you but rarely shares about themselves.
• Someone who shares stories in public places as a way to shock others. When someone is sharing intimate details to get a rise out of others, it can seem like the person is confident, but a lot of the time they’re looking for attention.
• Someone who is constantly telling you how to treat them and not allowing you to express yourself.
• Someone who always blames everyone else for the struggles in their life.  
• Someone who never apologizes or is unable to admit when they’ve messed up.
• Someone who wants you to make all the decisions, which is a sign of someone who doesn’t want to take responsibility for their own life.
• Someone who is resistant to having difficult conversations.
• Someone who starts to rely on you for all the difficult things in their life.

When I read through this list, I see parts of me in it or parts of who I used to be (maybe still am in moments). This feels cringy to admit. But just because you see yourself in one or a couple of these points doesn’t mean you’re not a good person. It might mean that you could look at why you show up that way and consider how that impacts those in your life.

It’s fun to be around someone who is exciting and new and brings new energy into your life. We all love that. Yet we have to be weary of becoming too quickly attached to someone like that.  

Not everyone that makes us feel good is good for us. It’s not that we don’t learn something from every person and relationship that moves through our lives, it’s just that some people like creating excitement, but once they are bored and have exhausted all the new sensations they move on.

Having people motivate us to be better versions of ourselves is important, but people who are like stars and shine quick and bright might burn us out and take more than they actually are capable of giving.

Even the behaviours I’ve listed above can be subtle. Sometimes it’s not always obvious because we need space away from them and the situation to see the way we’re being dazzled.

When you get swept up in anyone, just check in and see if you’re losing connection with yourself.

Enjoy people and enjoy your life.  But remember that there is so much value in being aware and grounded in your own body. If something feels too good to be true — it often is.

Noelle Bovon

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The factor in question is childhood trauma. A growing body of research indicates that trauma experienced in childhood, such as physical or emotional abuse, neglect, or a parent’s substance abuse, can have long-lasting effects on mental health. In fact, studies have shown that individuals who experience childhood trauma are at a significantly higher risk of developing mental health disorders later in life.

One study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that individuals who experienced four or more types of childhood trauma were 4.6 times more likely to develop depression and 12.2 times more likely to attempt suicide than those who did not experience any trauma. Another study found that childhood trauma was a significant predictor of the onset of bipolar disorder.

So, why does childhood trauma have such a profound impact on mental health? The answer lies in the way trauma affects the brain. Trauma can disrupt the development of the brain’s stress response system, leading to increased sensitivity to stress and an overactive stress response. This can result in chronic stress, which can damage the brain and lead to changes in mood, behavior, and cognition.

Additionally, trauma can lead to the development of negative core beliefs about oneself and the world, such as “I am unlovable” or “the world is a dangerous place.” These beliefs can contribute to the development of depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders.

The good news is that early intervention and treatment for childhood trauma can significantly reduce the risk of developing mental health disorders later in life. Therapy, medication, and other interventions can help individuals process their trauma and develop coping skills to manage stress and negative thoughts.

Furthermore, raising awareness about the link between childhood trauma and mental health disorders can help reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness. Understanding that these disorders are often caused by factors outside of an individual’s control can help reduce blame and shame and promote empathy and understanding.

In conclusion, while mental health disorders are complex and multifactorial, childhood trauma is a significant risk factor. By addressing childhood trauma early and providing access to effective treatment, we can help reduce the incidence of mental health disorders and improve the lives of millions of individuals around the world.

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