We’d thought that PTSD was finally being given the respect it deserved; and then a reporter for the New York Daily News claimed that test-firing an AR-15 at a gun range gave him temporary PTSD, so loud were the explosions.
It turns out many more of us — millions, perhaps — have undiagnosed and untreated PTSD and don’t even know it, according to a new report put together by the nonprofit ecoAmerica, Climate for Health, and the American Psychological Association.
Our new report on the mental health impacts of climate change is now available! Download it here: https://t.co/ktjFRlv7tz pic.twitter.com/jdTEETrAIc
— ecoAmerica (@ecoAmerica) March 29, 2017
New report from @APA and @ecoAmerica explores the mental health impacts of climate change https://t.co/mKt8o4y7CS
— APA Science (@APAScience) March 30, 2017
It’s certainly not difficult to see how a natural disaster like a hurricane or a flood could cause anxiety and depression, especially in children, but of course the 70-page report doesn’t stop there.
“Ecoanxiety” — the feelings of loss, helplessness, and frustration due in part to people’s inability to feel like they are making a difference in stopping climate change — is affecting more and more people not in the direct path of climate disaster and leading to PTSD, substance abuse, suicide, violence, trauma, fatalism, and more.
New @APA and @ecoAmerica report finds that #climatechange is affecting #mentalhealth: https://t.co/0ee3mwOXgL via @washingtonpost5 pic.twitter.com/QIblU0gT5S
— Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (@YaleClimateComm) March 31, 2017
Recommended
American Psychological Association reports planetary crisis causing
anxiety, depression + PTSD "on a mass scale":https://t.co/1dcJhJJlYg— Alex Steffen (@AlexSteffen) April 4, 2017
How climate change affects mental health https://t.co/ywtP15XnSi
— TIME (@TIME) March 31, 2017
One of the study’s key takeaways in supporting individuals struggling to cope psychologically with climate change is to foster optimism, which TIME recently proved it hasn’t been doing for at last half a century now.
50 years ago this week: Worry over climate change has already begun https://t.co/qCl6YqMDjk
— TIME (@TIME) January 24, 2017
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Related:
Climate change blamed after scientists at Arctic weather station besieged by gang of polar bears https://t.co/ZmuwCKQ9b7
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) September 14, 2016
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