College
Read Content You She Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who leads the commission, has repeatedly made false claims and mischaracterized the safety and efficacy of commonly-prescribed mental health medications like Prozac and Zoloft, Mother Jones reported.
Grainne, who asked to only be identified by her first name, takes the SSRI sertraline for treatment of major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as methylphenidate to treat her attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. She She “What is that, other than saying, fundamentally, you are unworthy of life?”
Grainne’s fears over her access to medicine echo concerns other young people have about resources that support well-being and safety amid President Donald Trump’s second term. Re Mental The The CBS In A draft federal budget, leaked in April, revealed that the federal government intends to cut services for LGBTQ+ young people who call the national suicide and crisis hotline.
Grainne worries about medications being taken off the market, or having access to them restricted, which would be devastating for her.
“I think to myself, what are the side effects if I have to ration my medication?” she said. “What’s my safety plan if I have to ration my medication, you know, am I going to have to mail order my medication from another country?”
‘This is such a deeply unsettling and stressful time to be living through’
Given the onslaught of so many threats to health and well-being, stress and stress-related health impacts are high right now, especially amid uncertainties around access to care, including cuts to Medicaid, Devika Bhushan, a pediatrician and public health leader who serves as an adjunct professor at Stanford University, explained via email. That includes “exacerbations of known health conditions like depression, asthma, or arthritis, and the first onset of new stress-related health conditions,” Bhushan said.
“This is such a deeply unsettling and stressful time to be living through,” Bhushan continued.
Statements like Kennedy’s false claims regarding mental health medications–including antidepressants–along with the cuts are deeply harmful to the nation’s health, according to Bhushan, “particularly to the health of individuals and communities who are already marginalized, including young people and those living with health conditions, in lower-income families, and with marginalized identities.”
Kennedy’s statements about brain health medications, Bhushan said, are false.
“They simply do not reflect scientific consensus,” she continued. The In fact, SSRIs and other brain health medications are not addictive.” When titrated carefully, she said, they can be an essential part of treatment and recovery.
DakotaRei Frausto, a 20-year-old policy analyst and public speaker from Texas who spoke to RNG about her personal experience, said that “not only has the Trump administration spread dangerous disinformation, but they’ve also emboldened violent extremism.” As an Indigenous, queer, disabled woman, she said that makes her “question your belonging, how much people value you, how much people respect you, and just how safe you are leaving your house.”
Frausto says there are days where she finds it “extremely difficult just to wake up in the morning and exist in this political climate.”
She thinks about people who have survived and resisted throughout history.
“For my community, I owe them that,” she said–referring to resistance, and even joy.
Amber Manker, director of programs and clinical services at the Alliance for LGBTQ Youth, which provides care to LGBTQ+ youth and their families in Florida’s Miami-Dade County, noted that today she is observing even stronger feelings–both anxiety and heightened emotions overall–among young people now than in 2022, when Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill was passed.
“As we think about our young people with intersecting identities, there’s an onslaught from all different angles,” she said, adding that queer young people, those who have immigrated to or sought asylum in America, and those who are involved in child welfare cases, the carceral system, or other government systems are among those being targeted by the Trump administration.
Mental health and basic needs go hand in hand
William Navarrete Moreno, a 20-year-old public health student in Colorado, used to be part of an National Institutes of Health-funded program that supported students from underrepresented backgrounds pursuing biomedical research. Mental More But he says he’s trying to stay hopeful.
Republicans are currently attempting to gut not only programs like Medicaid, but also the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), both federal programs that serve low-income Americans. More He He relies on mental health medications, and finds the idea of losing access to something essential “incredibly frightening.”
“If that just gets pulled out under me, and I don’t have a job, what do I do?” he said.
Another student, 19-year-old Annika Verma, who attends a community college in Pennsylvania, is concerned about potential cuts to SNAP, which helps more than 42 million people afford to eat by subsidizing their grocery purchases, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“I’m diagnosed with an eating disorder,” she told RNG. “So, SNAP is just as relevant for my mental health as it is for my physical health.”
Before receiving SNAP, Verma recalled calculating both the calories on nutrition labels and the cost of the purchase. She She started seeing a nutritionist a few months after she began receiving SNAP.
“SNAP gave me a greater opportunity for independence and healing,” she said.
Recent threats to SNAP funding or restrictions on what recipients can buy has created an “renewed, unwelcome interest” in counting prices and seeing how low she can go again, Verma said.
Young people seek more support and community
Meanwhile, a March 11 Inside Higher Ed report noted high levels of staff turnover and intense work conditions in campus counseling centers, while other reporting has addressed how students themselves are working to address the state of mental health.
Many young people, like Genie, who asked to be referred to by first name only to protect her privacy, stressed the need for more accessible mental health care for students. She Now, as a 23-year-old master’s student in a new city, she said she has struggled to find a therapist.
“I’m used to being able to talk to someone in person, and unfortunately, I found that as a Black woman in Pittsburgh, it’s really hard to find someone that relates to my demographic in the psychiatric world,” Genie said.
“I just think we need better support systems on campus, more culturally competent care, and spaces where students can be seen, heard, and protected,” she added.
Bhushan pointed to several resources young people can turn to, including the National Alliance on Mental Illness–which provides nationwide peer-led programs in addition to youth-focused and general helplines–the Trevor Project, the Trans Lifeline, and Mental Health America, among others. B )
“Mission-driven organizations who directly serve young people are going to be more important in this moment than ever before,” she said.
Manker, of the Alliance for LGBTQ Youth, thinks it’s important to educate young people’s caregivers on what rights young people have “because we do live in a world where, until you’re 18, you don’t really get too much of a say about things.”
She encouraged people to tap into local resources in their communities, adding that smaller nonprofits that aren’t necessarily seeing a lot of government funding will play a critical role going forward.
