Now 29 years, never worked, unable to go out of the house on her own, difficulty reading, extreme difficulty mixing with anyone she doesn’t know, or being around people in general. She does have a partner, who also has health difficulties. She does most things using apps on her smart phone.
She was diagnosed with Agoraphobia at the age of 17yrs: she can’t go to therapy because she is too frightened to go out of the house. She frequently feels suicidally depressed. She also has severe endometriosis. This has led to treatment with major medications that include antidepressants, pregablin and morphine based painkillers.
Where is this leading? It seems unlikely that her and her partner will conceive. And would that help? She struggles with simple activities such as taking a shower or bath, her weight is increasing year on year and she spends her time watching TV and You Tube. If her mother will pay for an Uber, she can visit her mother.
The root cause of these difficulties? spending her teenage years in hospital with nephrotic syndrome (kidney problems). This meant she fell behind at school, separated from her school friends and left without any qualifications. It also left her with severe mental health problems that make it hard for her to cope with adult life.
Her situation is reminiscent of millions of children left to home school for 18 months while the world raced around locking down everyone to protect the old and the infirm. (Many teachers described their pupils after their release from LockDown as little better than Feral). Meantime, adding more fuel to the fire that is now destroying the planet. All of this bound so tightly to a profit motive, that to question it gets you banned from social media. All of this, peppered liberally with selfishness and a belief that money and pleasure are the only reasons to do anything.
There is no easy way back from this, once the moment has passed and the teenager grows without a peer group, it is all but impossible to learn the social skills needed to make a success of life: to learn how to find meaning with other people: and to take joy in completing a task well for its own sake.
Children need to be a successful part of a group, as a babies, toddlers, small children and growing teenagers. Some children need more help integrating into the group than others (this is also known as “autism”). On the whole, children do not grow up well or happy when left largely to their own devices and once the moment is lost, there is no easy way back into society.
Unintended consequences destroy many supposedly well thought out plans. This is why debate and differing opinions are crucial for a well balanced stable society. Let us hope at some stage, we can return to that state