“Loneliness is more than just a bad feeling,” Murthy wrote in a very personal New York Times Op-Ed where he shares his own experience with disconnection. “When people are socially disconnected, their risk of anxiety and depression increases. So does their risk of heart disease (29 percent), dementia (50 percent) and stroke (32 percent).”
The pandemic was certainly an accelerator for these trends, but it’s important to note that the warning signs were flashing long before we sequestered. According to Mental Health America (which launched Mental Health Awareness Month in 1949), 20.8% of adults were experiencing a mental illness in 2019–2020. That’s equivalent to more than 50 million Americans.
So, what can we do as educators, employers, mentors and colleagues to help the young people and adults in the room? I am not a clinician; but as the National Director of Job Corps, as a mother and as a concerned citizen, I want to offer a simple message:
It’s OK to step away. It’s OK to take a mental health day. You don’t need a diagnosis to ask, only the courage. And you certainly don’t need to apologize or feel shame. As leaders, we should give employees and students the space and some grace when needed. We should check on people from time to time, especially if we get the sense that something is wrong. But we don’t always know. There are triggers that we may not be aware of in our day-to-day interactions, and it is our responsibility to be mindful that we don’t always know what others are going through.
One of the best things about the Job Corps program is that we work with disconnected youth, many of them neither in school nor at work, and we show them connections. Connections to skills. Connections to mentors. Connections to career opportunities. Connections to each other. I imagine that many adults outside of our 16-to-24 age range could use the same.