Why has debilitating anxiety become so common among the young? And why is it still so often overlooked? Rob Haskell reports on a health crisis in the making.
In JUNE, a 15-year-old boy, who a few days later became my patient, rode his bike to California’s Venice Beach, laid it in the sand, and stripped down to his boxer shorts. Then he started to swim and kept swimming, following the sun as it dipped over the horizon, until the busy boardwalk sounds had faded and all he could hear was the rhythm of his gasps. The boy, whom I’ll call Joseph, explained all this to me days later, after he had been rescued, taken to a psychiatric emergency room, and discharged to his parents, Honduran immigrants who spoke little English. “I figured that eventually I would get too tired and then just basically drown,” he told me with a chilling indifference. “But typical me, I can’t even die right.”
Over the next few weeks, I learned that Joseph was beset by worries large and small. Would he ever grow taller than five feet six? Could he ever bring a girl home to see the apartment where he slept with his brother on a fold-out sofa in the living room? At school he was timid and craved only invisibility, even though in my office he was unafraid to use big, grim words (schadenfreude, lugubrious) and talk about the Margaret Atwood novel he was reading. His mother took his shyness for defiance and complained of his refusal to run simple errands for her, such as stopping by the butcher on his way home. “And he’s not friendly,” she told me. “He won’t even say hello to his aunts.” But he was soulful and handsome, and I wondered whether in a breakfast club of sophisticated misfits, a teenage tribe he never managed to locate, he might have found the courage to raise his eyes off the floor. Instead, the overwhelming impression he conveyed was of perturbation: a fish out of water, a boy pulled out of the solace of the Pacific Ocean. Joseph was suffering from an anxiety disorder that had pushed him to a dangerous brink.
Denne historien er fra February 2017-utgaven av VOGUE India.
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Denne historien er fra February 2017-utgaven av VOGUE India.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Breathe In, Breathe Out
A powerful tool to help you master your nervous system or another biohacking buzzword? SIMONE DHONDY explores the inhalations and exhalations of breathwork
Red Pill, Blue Pill
India's nutraceutical industry is booming thanks to advanced technology, distrust of the medical system and rising vanity. With multivitamins becoming purer and more effective, NIDHI GUPTA finds out if supplements have become the new serum
Sign of the times
No longer do you need to have an answer to, \"What is the significance of this?\" when people point to your new tattoo. ARMAN KHAN discovers that everything is on the table when you get inked temporarily
Return to form
Watching the world's most elite athletes deliver the best performances of their careers rekindled SONAKSHI SHARMA's own love for sports
Dimple, All Day
YOU MAY HAVE WATCHED HER ON THE BIG SCREEN FOR OVER FIVE DECADES, BUT DON'T MAKE THE MISTAKE OF ASSUMING THAT YOU KNOW DIMPLE KAPADIA.
MUSIC, TAKE CONTROL
As someone who had always sought safety in numbers, ALIZA FATMA often wondered what her own company would feel like. The answer arrived unexpectedly when she attended her first-ever music festival, one of the largest in the world, all alone
Let it grow
When we think of hardworking farmers toiling in India's scorching heat, we often think of men, the sweat on their brow, the sinews in their arms. JYOTI KUMARI speaks to four women who are championing the invisible female labour that keeps these fields running
YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE
When armless archer Sheetal Devi set her sights on the Paralympic Games this year, she knew she had a tough journey ahead of her. Luckily, her mother was with her every step of the way.
Beauty and the feast
The appeal of Indian weddings has always been in a sprawling spread. For additional bragging rights, Aditi Dugar recommends going beyond designer tablecloths and monogrammed napkins.
Sweet serendipity
From a scavenger hunt-inspired proposal to a Moroccan-themed baraat, Malvika Raj and Armaan Rai's love story prioritised playfulness throughout their blended celebrations.