THE intended column abandoned. A distraught daughter. The day darkened by overnight news that another local youngster has taken his life. Not the first time parents hold their heads and cry.

I am scared for my children because they are not children anymore. Scared for their peers, trying to find the way right now. And I am scared for the rest of us. For whatever we may pretend, being confined for years with those we love, with those we loathe, or by ourselves, is a considerable hurt and few have resurfaced into this cost-of-living catastrophe unscathed. We are not perfectly fine; examine the relevant analysis; depression, alcohol abuse, violence. It is not only a matter of attending to the obviously wounded when, to varying degrees, we are all wounded.

As we get back on track, a national recovery can be aided by demanding a society better shaped to heal. And let me suggest we start by rejecting individuals and organisations whose mission is to make lives feel inadequate, whose unapologetic monetisation of dissatisfaction and misery pollutes and saps the souls of us all.

Last week, exploring marketing opportunities, I opened an Instagram account. This is how millions of us connect with celebrities, influencers, companies, and organisations from around the world - which is why I was there. But I found no one genuinely connecting with anyone. Instead, I found an endless feed of wishful thinking and cliche fairy-tales posted by over-manicured posers frantically seeking approval and money.

After 20 minutes I deleted the account then messaged my daughter: Instagram is everything that is wrong - no wonder you are all depressed. You should see TikTok, she replied.

Unfortunately, being thrust into corrupting fantasies is not an experience unique to social media. Unavoidable bulletins concerning Love Island, TOWIE and too many other ‘reality’ programs, splashed across newspapers and television news broadcasts. A parallel universe constructed. A bizarre yet cliched la-la-land whose spectacular output purports to describe aspiration and success. Like some crooked religion, reality television has become a glittery illusion against which, younger generations especially, are encouraged to measure real lives and real relationships. Little surprise that in the mirror­ nothing looks up to scratch.

During breaks in this insidious output, we then permit ourselves to be trolled with spiteful content that further demeans. For five minutes, nothing about our lives is acceptable. Not only is your scalp flaky, your skin ugly, and all your possessions rubbish, but you are an instantly terrible person if you cannot immediately donate two pounds to save this donkey, cat, dog, tiger, African child, or Ukrainian family - you would if you cared. But few can give to charity twice every 15 minutes so we are forced to ignore graphic images of intense suffering; images that until recently would have stopped the world. For I can recall the entire television-owning planet absorbing similar pictures from Ethiopia, shocked into action. I remember the instantly mobilised global response around Band Aid and then Live Aid. What chance today?

Demeaning and distressing messaging alters the nature of every consumer. If such content were not hugely affecting, organisations would neither invest fortunes in explaining how awful we are, nor commission so many blood-soaked ransom messages with which to extort our cash.

With little hope of those creating mentally undermining content quickly seeing the error of their profitable ways, the solution at hand is to stop rewarding individuals and organisations whose industry is to make us feel worse about ourselves.

Is such unlikely change worth attempting? Yes, because this mental health crisis is as urgent as any threat we face. So, the longshot that needs constant repeating; to remind that grasping individuals, businesses, and shameless charities, are not on our side and to shun their antisocial messaging. Because life is difficult enough as it is, and though hurting, we are more complete than others would wish to imply... Hang on in there.

Twitter: @iriesblog