2022: has there been a tougher time to be seventeen or eighteen?

I am sitting writing this as I contemplate the week ahead: a half-term week off school for my daughter and some time off work for me and my wife. Some downtime. Rest. Recharging of batteries. Reflecting - for me - on the end of my formal studies at the university and the new chapter about to start. 

Everything is in place for me to qualify as a counsellor/psychotherapist and in just ten days time, I should have a piece of paper in my hand which allows me to open my private practice and get started. It is an exciting time for me but I am also aware that for some of my clients, half-term is far from exciting and far from a holiday. 

It is just another week in a hugely challenging time in their lives, as they continue to revise for their A-level exams which are already well underway. These exams are the latest challenge to be put in front of them; challenges we may think we recognise even if they are a distant memory (I did my A-levels in 1996!) but frankly are off the scale from anything previous generations have encountered since the second world war.

I don't hear any of my clients complaining about the need to study hard and do their best in their exams to open up whatever opportunities they are seeking. I don't hear them grumbling about revision notes and flashcards and essay plans. I don't actually hear them complain about their lives more generally, even though they have plenty to complain about. But I do hear about the enormous challenges they face being seventeen or eighteen in 2022: challenges that are unique to them and their generation. 

The long and not fully-understood impact of the pandemic is not just about the physical impact of long COVID and coming to terms with the possible loss of loved ones, loss of financial securities at home and the upheavals it has created in their family and support networks, but more the loss of experiences - often rites of passage - that has left a huge scar on this group of young people:

• No recent exams which makes upcoming exams seem even more daunting and stressful;

• No certainty about what will actually happen with these exams given how things changed so often and at short notice (often shambolically) over the last two years, which is bringing its own anxieties about the processes they are facing;

• No leavers dos, proms and other celebrations to mark the end of their previous schooling, which isn't just disappointing but removes from their toolkit a whole set of social experiences they could be drawing on now as they navigate friendships and relationships;

• Fewer opportunities over recent years to make and break romantic and sexual relationships often leaving them feeling unclear and unsure about this important aspect of their lives;

• Facing a constant drip feed of bad news about the world - Russia, Ukraine, impending recession, climate change, gun violence in US schools - and about the hyper-competitive world of university and the workplace they are trying to enter with too many people chasing too few opportunities to train, intern, work and succeed;

• The long-term impact of the isolation they faced during the various lockdowns and how they were cut off from face to face interactions and driven to spend more and more time online and not building and using IRL skills;

• The lack of control they have had over their lives since March 2020 has led some to lose confidence in their ability to make decisions or to respond to adversity and setbacks - they have missed the chance to build their own natural coping mechanisms and resilience as so much of what they have done has been mandated by schools, or the government, or both;

• And they have faced all these challenges whilst facing the pressure dished out through social media - there is a whole blog post in that alone - to live the perfect, happy, exciting life and to have the perfect hair, smile, body image, weight and clothes. Is there any wonder we have seen an explosion in eating disorder referrals and young people feeling overwhelmed and experiencing anxiety and depression?

For those who dismiss all of this as 'first world problems' and bemoan the lack of resilience being shown, I suggest you take a breath. Don't ask what's wrong with these young people or suggest they pull themselves together, but instead ask what happened to them? What have they been through? What has been thrown at them? Perhaps consider too, that so many young people are facing these challenges whilst still dealing with the other issues that existed before and since at home and in school, including family breakdown, violence, addictions, bullying, loneliness and sadness, to name just a few.

It is widely accepted - I hope - that these years can be challenging in the best of times as we make the often bumpy journey from childhood to adulthood, but these are not the best of times. This is 2022. This is the perfect storm of challenges. This is the definition of a shitstorm of challenges. This is 2022. This is the toughest time to be seventeen or eighteen in 70-odd years.