Depression statistics alarming

As you can see from my profile, I am an Army Veteran. I am also a veterans welfare officer, so I have a reasonable understanding of PTSD, depression and associated conditions.

The alarming rise in people with these conditions has concerned me for some time. This week was a case in point.

Articles in the media got me thinking: is there anyone who isn't without PTSD? I don't mean that in a derogatory sense but am asking: what's going on with us? Why is this happening? Is it "real"?

Apparently 25 per cent of kids have depression. This article highlights the problems faced by senior high school students (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-24/year-12-exam-anxiety/7960460).

The increase in the number of people being diagnosed with mental illness is cause for alarm. From a military viewpoint, read this article, which points to growing scepticism about the increase in PTSD (https://havokjournal.com/culture/why-im-skeptical-of-ptsd-claims-and-why-you-should-be-too).

Medical students are another group far from being exempt from PTSD, with a report saying a third of them (worldwide) suffer from the condition (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-07/third-of-med-students-suffer-depression/8099672).

There seems to be a correlation in the rise in cases of PTSD and depression with an increase in younger people not being able to cope with failure, criticism and hardships. We saw this in the US election, with some universities providing counselling and exemptions from study because the election of Donald Trump upset them.

Seriously, either something's going seriously wrong in society, or people are just using these conditions as a crutch, or as one author said: "a get-out-of-jail card".

Clearly, this is a topic that warrants closer examination, monitoring and discussion. If there's that many people with problems, many of them them are heading to a workplace near you, if they aren't there already.