Let’s Talk About Mental Health and Young Adults

Here at Ready to Hope, our mission is hope (it’s in the name, right?).

And so as we kick off this month and look to the new year, while we want to share the latest statistics on mental health and young adults, we believe it is important to say: there is always hope.

Where there is life, there is hope. Where there is a desire to feel better, no matter how low you may be, there is hope.

Our mission is to connect young adults with the resources, tools, and community that can be pivotal in attaining and maintaining mental wellness, and consider it a privilege to do this work.

However, we also must recognize the reality: there is much work to do. 

And for that reason we wanted to take just a moment and talk about the current state of mental health and young adults. 

When we speak about young adults at Ready to Hope, we are referring to those between the ages of those starting out high school, all the way up to young professionals living on their own and making their way in the world. 

So in order to understand how important this work is, and why we so deeply believe in it and our goals and mission, let’s look for a moment at what is actually going on. 

Our data comes from the NIH, the National Institute of Mental Health.

Young adults aged 18–25 have the highest prevalence of any mental illness in the US, at 36.2%. This is higher than adults aged 26–49 (29.4%) and 50 and older (13.9%). 

What that looks like specifically: 

Anxiety and depression

Young adults (ages 18-25) in the US report twice the rates of anxiety and depression as teens. In a 2022 survey, 36% of young adults reported anxiety compared to 18% of teens, and 29% of young adults reported depression compared to 15% of teens. 

Suicide

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in adolescents and adults ages 15 to 24. 

Many young adults with mental health concerns do not receive care. Some of the reasons for this include:

Not thinking their symptoms are serious enough for treatment.

To that we respond: if you feel like you are struggling to perform at your best, connect with others in the way you want, or even just get through the day feeling like you did your best: you deserve to be supported.

Feeling there is a stigma attached to needing mental health support.

To that we respond: we get it. For years and even decades, there has indeed been a stigma associated with seeking help. And we want to be a part of the solution.

At Ready to Hope, our belief is that mental health isn’t about a condition or a diagnosis or a disorder. Mental health is part of overall health. So it is just as important to keep tabs on your mental wellness as it is to take care of how you feed your body, how much exercise you get, and the quality of your sleep.

Our mission is to decrease the stigma and normalize talking about mental wellness so that you can care for it just like you care for  your physical body.

Cost

To that we respond: yes. Cost is a barrier to mental health services. Because of the state of managed health care, many therapists and counselors have stopped taking insurance. Hourly rates without insurance start somewhere around $100 (definitely on the low end) and go straight up from there. Even with insurance co-pays can be expensive, and managed health care often means a limited number of sessions.

Our answer: Ready to Hope is not intended to be a substitute for high quality therapy, and if in a workshop or retreat we learn that an individual might be someone in need of counseling, we will do what we can to connect them with appropriate and affordable services. However, Ready to Hope workshops are designed to offer tools, resources, and community that can support mental wellness, and the ultimate dream is that we can decrease those in need of counseling services! 

Confidentiality concerns

To that we respond: you may feel exposed walking into a therapy office, but know this: any therapist has a professional commitment to keep your conversations confidential. That means that they could not only lose their job if they were to speak to others about what you share, but they could even face legal consequences.

And also: Ready to Hope participants sign confidentiality agreements at every single workshop or retreat! So you can know that whatever you share stays in that space! Being able to be open is a huge step towards being able to connect on a meaningful level with others. 

We are just getting started!

Ready to Hope is a young organization, but we are determined to have an impact. We won’t give up until we know that, at least in our local area, any young adult who desires to feel better has the ability to tap into resources, tools, and community in order to do so!

To find out when our upcoming workshops are, hop on our email list below!