Thoughts about cause of mental health issues

So something that I've wanted to say about mental health for a while now but haven't really had much of an opportunity, or I guess an excuse to up until this point.

Last year I was speaking with my grandpa because one of my family members was having some mental health issues, and he brought up an interesting point that the number of people committing or attempting suicide seems to be rising quite drastically in the past 10-20 years. Now, honestly, why do people think that is? My personal opinion is the societal norms that have been set for us as a generation.

Now I know what you're probably thinking. Oh, typical millennial whining about how the previous generation screwed everything up when they in fact are a lazy sack of shit. You're partially right about that. See, let me explain the world as I see it: In 1929 there was something called a "market crash". Basically, in laiman's terms, because I'm too dumb to know any better, a lot of people lost a lot of money. Society, as a whole in North America, was poor as shit. Then there was a war. People were poorer as shit and had to save every penny, live off as little as they could, send stuff to the troops, you get the drift. Then the war ended and people fucked a lot and made a shit ton of babies. Let's call this the "baby boomers" as they're normally called.

So since this generation that fucked a lot grew up with very little, when times were better they were still a bit paranoid it seems, at least from what I've observed from my grandparents who lived in the Great Depression. They then had a shit ton of money because they were frugal so they bought a ton of land and stuff when they wanted to make investments. Their kids, having grown up in a time where their parents had money but didn't spend it, and didn't really need to be saving, grew up and overcompensated. They became a very consumer-based society, continued buying a shit ton of land, but also cars, blenders, I don't know name something and they bought it. Based off of this, a ton of companies were formed an made a ton of money.

In order for them to continue to making money, they had to get the attention of the new generation, the Millennials as they're called, and get them to buy a ton of stuff like their parents. Unfortunately for the companies,  the Millennials (we) were a bunch of snot-nosed kids that were raised basically getting whatever we want because our parents just love buying shit and paying attention to us, so we became entitled. Due to this entitlement, we became rebellious, and thus, don't buy shit.

Now, we've grown up in an era where companies are starting to see that they're not getting the market, so they've raised prices on things and made them more expensive. In addition to this, the baby boomers, who could basically walk into any job they wanted out of high school and make enough to live off of, aren't retiring because they've been so bad with their money, so we can't find jobs because companies are used to having people with experience and won't settle for less. We can't afford houses because the price has been driven up so much by the previous generation (average house price in the city I live in is $1.3M). We can't afford to live off of the jobs we CAN get because the prices have been driven up so much. Basically, we live in a society where it's extremely difficult to even just get by even if you have a university degree, most of which are useless and will put you thousands of dollars in debt. I myself live in a small 1-bedroom apartment, working a job in a top-10 wage field out of university, barely able to get by and making almost triple minimum wage. Rent in my city just cracked the $2000/mo mark for the average 1-bedroom apartment.

Now, what the FUCK does this have to do with suicide rate?

Life is stressful. People don't have time to just sit around and smell the flowers like they used to. People are working 2 or 3 jobs to get by and not sleeping enough because of it. They can't find work and they're stressed out about being able to make their bills. They can't see their friends all the time, and they see social media outlets that only show the best parts of other people's lives like vacations and gatherings.

So how are we going to prevent this? Here's what I ask.

If you're reading this and able, stop what you're doing, put the computer down, and go for a walk. Go see the world around you, take some time for yourself, do something that makes you happy. I'm not talking about video games or something like that that's generally used to fill the time, but something like outdoors. Call up a friend and crack jokes, and if you don't have a friend to call up, call a family member.

I get some people have social anxiety and depression and these things are extremely difficult for them, but just take it one step at a time, and if you're not comfortable, take a step back and try again later.

And absolutely never forget that there are people out there that care about you. ALWAYS.

One last thing to end things off: Just over a month ago, a friend of mine called the suicide hotline on me because he, as well as other people, didn't know if I was going to kill myself or not. I will say that they misread the situation, and I wasn't actually suicidal, but seeing the things that they saw, there's absolutely no way they would have known that I wasn't suicidal. Anyways, in the middle of the night 3 police officers came to my door and took me to the hospital to take my blood and make sure I was going to be okay, gave me access to a counselor should I need someone to talk to, etc. One of the things one of the officers said to me that night really stuck with me:

"We're a society, and everyone has a job. Your job is to provide people with a service they need or want, something that makes them happy (I design and manage civil builds of fibre optic networks). My job is to make sure there are people around like you to do jobs like that."

Just thinking that if I did something to myself that night, that I might not be here, is a horrifying thought to me. Please please please, before doing anything, call someone and talk to someone because you never know what someone's gonna say that's going to change your life.

Suicide Prevention Hotline:
US: 1-800-273-8255
Canada: 1-613-702-4446
UK: +44 (0) 8457 90 90 90
Other countries: google