#mental-health

#mental-health

Over the course four months, Thomas lost his job as a funeral director, began living out of a van out in the desert, and completely emptied his savings. It all started after he began talking to AIs like ChatGPT for advice, and he soon got hooked. It "inflated my worldview and my view of myself" almost instantly, he told Slate. Eventually, he found himself wandering the dunes of Christmas Valley, Oregon, after an AI told him to "follow the pattern" of his consciousness.

Get to know and be friends with other gays," said one. "Meaningful, genuine, healthy romantic relationships come from friendship. Not from passionate s*xual encounters with strangers. And focus on your health, your style, hobbies, mental clarity through expunging all the toxins built up from ... mistreatment in your childhood.

I noticed this shift in my own life when I started having dinner with my partner most nights, phones deliberately tucked away in another room. We made this change after too many evenings disappeared into "just checking one thing" that turned into hours of parallel scrolling. The difference was immediate and profound. Conversations went deeper. We actually looked at each other. Time seemed to stretch in the best possible way.

If you've been feeling weary or discouraged lately, you're not alone. Many people are moving through their days exhausted, overwhelmed, and out of alignment, carrying a growing sense of despair for a world that feels increasingly divided and uncertain. We're living in a time where we're more connected than ever, yet many feel deeply alone. Mental health challenges are rising. Burnout is common. Climate anxiety is real. The systems meant to support us often feel fragile or failing.

It hurts. All of it. For many of us who have dedicated ourselves to this career, journalism isn't just a job. It's a calling built on service, sacrifice and a belief in the public good. Losing this job, and watching others lose theirs, is extremely disheartening. And of course, losing a job doesn't just disrupt income, but also shakes up our routine, our connections and our general sense of usefulness and belonging. What do we do when that sense of purpose is suddenly gone?

Walk through any coffee shop these days and you'll notice something interesting. The twenty-somethings hunched over their laptops look somehow more weathered than the thirty-somethings chatting nearby. At first, I thought it was just me projecting, maybe feeling defensive about approaching my mid-thirties. But then the research started backing up what many of us have been quietly observing: millennials born between 1985 and 1995 often appear younger than their Gen Z counterparts.

I've reached a boiling point. I don't want to live my life and see others live their lives through phones. I'm sick of watching AI slop (AI-generated images and short videos that dumb us down) and news that is upsetting, exhausting, and hopeless. And, simultaneously, I'm scrolling through Instagram and mindlessly comparing myself to strangers, consuming content from a toxic algorithm, shaping what I see. Social media, for me, has become overwhelming;

Throughout my childhood and adolescence, my closest friend was "Kate." We kept in touch throughout college but drifted apart a bit afterwards. Kate stayed in our hometown after I moved away. Long story short, I abruptly cut Kate out of my life several years ago after she made a racist comment to the person I was dating at the time (Kate and I are both white, my ex was not).

Growing up, I watched my dad handle stress the same way he handled everything else: silently, stoically, and with a stiff upper lip. When his company downsized and he lost his job, he just nodded, shook hands, and never talked about it again. Meanwhile, my younger cousin posts TikToks about her therapy sessions and hosts "crying parties" with her friends when life gets tough.

You know that friend who always texts back within seconds, no matter what time of day? I used to be that person. My phone would buzz, and before I'd even consciously registered the notification, my thumbs were already typing. It took me years to realize that my lightning-fast response time wasn't just about being helpful or friendly. It was broadcasting something much deeper about my relationship with boundaries.

One in six autistic pupils have not been to school at all since the start of this academic year, according to a new survey which found that mental health issues were often behind high levels of school absence. Nearly half (45%) of the parents and children who responded to the UK-wide survey by the Ambitious About Autism charity said they felt blamed by the government for the absences.

When I first read that, I was skeptical. But after trying it myself and digging deeper into the studies, the mechanisms started making sense. When we actively look for things to appreciate, we're essentially rewiring our brain's default mode. Instead of scanning for threats and problems (which our brains love to do), we're training it to notice the good stuff. It's like changing the channel from a disaster documentary to something that doesn't spike your cortisol.

Last week, I tried to watch a movie without doing anything else. Just watching. No phone, no laptop, no second screen. I made it exactly 12 minutes before my hand started twitching toward my pocket like some kind of digital zombie. And that's when it hit me. This isn't about being lazy or unmotivated. This constant restlessness, this inability to truly relax, it's something else entirely.

When I was eight, my grandmother taught me how to make her famous apple pie. But it wasn't really about the pie. Every Saturday afternoon, we'd stand side by side in her kitchen, her weathered hands guiding mine as we rolled out dough. She'd tell stories about her childhood, ask about my week at school, and somehow make me feel like the most important person in the world.

Haney's research found that such prolonged isolation led to paranoia, anxiety, despair, anger and, eventually, numbness among people in the SHU. "When you're in the SHU, you don't feel," said Frank Reyna, who spent 20 years in solitary at Pelican Bay. "If you feel, you start getting weak. When people die, you just move on. You lose your emotions." Prison officials had built a fortress designed to keep people away from each other.

Opening up isn't always easy, but honest conversations can be a powerful first step towards better mental health,

Quite frankly, the support that officers get is not good enough. New Scotland Yard, headquarters of the Metropolitan Police The provisions currently in place don't help officers we see an average of 400-600 traumatic events in our careers, and there's no support for that. Chief officers need to be held to account and they need to do more. They rely on the Federation or the NHS to support officers and get them through their waiting lists. And it's just not acceptable.

A record number of out athletes will compete in this year's Winter Games. And as Team LGBTQ heads to Milan, dozens of competitors are bringing us to tears with heartfelt posts on social media. For today, we will focus on some handsome figure skaters, who glide across the ice with grace... and make our collective hearts melt! Of the 44 members of Team LGBTQ, per Outsports, 11 are figure or speed skaters.

This year, our committee knew that we needed a speaker who could hold space for our students who are navigating grief and loss, experiencing emotional burnout and mental health crises and struggling to show up for themselves and for others,

Last August, Adam Thomas found himself wandering the dunes of Christmas Valley, Oregon, after a chatbot kept suggesting he mystically "follow the pattern" of his own consciousness. Thomas was running on very little sleep-he'd been talking to his chatbot around the clock for months by that point, asking it to help improve his life. Instead it sent him on empty assignments, like meandering the vacuous desert sprawl.

I tell you now, there is an attempt by some of the longer serving chief constables to get rid of me, says Ch Insp Andy George. I can guarantee I know exactly what they think of me: that I'm a wee upstart, so I am, that doesn't know my place, he adds with a smile. The eldest son of a Protestant mother from Armagh in Northern Ireland and a father who was born in Malaysia but served in the British army,

We've all been there: Someone asks if you're okay, and even though your world feels like it's crumbling, you manage a weak smile and say, "I'm just tired." It rolls off the tongue so easily, doesn't it? Like a reflex we've perfected over years of practice. I used to be the queen of this response. During my worst anxiety spirals in my twenties, when deadlines loomed and my chest felt tight,

A mysterious man, dressed as an FBI agent, showed up to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn in an apparent attempt to free Luigi Mangione, the man who has been charged with killing health insurance CEO Brian Thompson. As the Associated Press reports, the impostor was later identified as 36-year-old Mark Anderson, who has previously been arrested for drug possession and has disclosed ongoing mental health issues.