It's a failure of reproduction of the middle class, though. When you're born rich, it's easy to die rich (without being adventurously stupid), when you're born poor, it's effortless to die poor. The middle-class is the class that has to rebuild every generation. We've allowed so much corruption and rent-seeking that it's not happening anymore.
My mental health deteriorated too. Looking back I should have built a support network and gone to therapy.. a lot of therapy. This all hit me at the end of college and in grad school. So I was broke too.
I didn't really have family to fall back on either, I was lonely and felt alone.
I'm still working on it, despite marriage/kids etc... I actually wish I had capitalized on my alone time in retrospect. Hence therapy!
>Regardless, I don't believe I'll ever feel the way I once did about this world.
Do you want to feel that way? What you have now is perspective and you know more about yourself.
That's what college is for.
Not everybody has parents that they can tolerate.
The issue isn't that young people don't want to move into their own place. It's that they literally can't without ruining themselves. For me, moving out of my parents place would mean moving to a tiny shithole that costs over 800CAD and is situated in the worst neighborhood of my city. It would be worse for my mental health (which is already hampered because I find modern cities unbearable) but also an idiotic financial decision.
Point is, all I want is to move away and live in solitude and independence but I think the government would probably find me even if I moved into a cabin in the woods in Yukon.