Dear Friends,

Last week I asked you to tell me about your mental health — how you are faring in this hard time. I don’t know what I expected; maybe some jaunty stories about families pulling together in a crisis. What you sent gutted me. There have been over 5,000 replies so far, and while many people are hanging in there, there is also a river of woe running through the world — a significant portion of our friends and neighbors are in agony.

A college student in State College, Pa., wrote that at first the lockdown seemed like a lark — a chance to get out of certain obligations. But “now almost a month into staying here, I’ve been gripped by a deep depression. My appetite is very low. I’m sleeping far too much to feel as lethargic as I do.

“My future, which seemed so bright a few months ago as I anticipated graduating in May, now seems bleak and hopeless: How will I find a job with the economy tanking? How will I pay hundreds of dollars per month when my loan bills kick in during August?”

A college junior from Vienna, Va., is going through the same thing. His career hopes now seem dashed. “I’ve spent days crying alone and feeling helpless as I’ve been stuck at my parent’s house and I find myself difficult to be around even as I don’t want to be.”