Alone and sad, CNY’s kids suffer: ‘I just want to feel better and I don’t know how’ Updated Feb 19, 2021; Posted Feb 18, 2021 Mental health professionals and parents say kids are experiencing both new and more severe mental health problems caused by isolation. Illustration: Andrea LevyAdvance Local Graphic Artist Facebook Share A 10-year-old with a journal full of suicidal thoughts and plans. A girl who had sliced so many cuts into her arm the doctor could not count them. In a two-week span earlier this year, Dr. Robert Dracker referred 12 children for in-patient psychiatric care. “The ways children have thought about actually killing themselves,” Dracker said, “I’ve never seen this.”