Comment by basisword

There are lots of attempts to explain this in the comments: lockdowns, lack of socialisation, pre-pandemic poor mental health, etc. But is not it not much more simple? We were and are in the midst of a global pandemic. A once is a lifetime catastrophic event. The kind of life changing event not experienced in the west since World War II. Of course that's going to cause mental health issues in almost everyone (to varying degrees). It has affected our lives in so many ways (probably many that we don't even realise yet) that trying to pinpoint a specific cause seems like a fools errand.