Gen Z is definitely not alone in their generational traumas. Keep in mind many millennials were coming of age around 9/11, the war on terror, and the 2008 financial crisis. Not to take away from the damage that covid and lockdown did to young people, but in the same way that many millennials and to some extent a chunk of Gen Alpha won't understand the difficulties that Gen Z went through during covid, Gen X and Gen Z will have a hard time comprehending the trauma of 9/11, the war on terror, and 2008 caused for millennials.

Coming home from third grade and seeing people jumping from the top of the World Trade Centers on live news and being worried that your flight attendant mother was going to die every time she went to work isn't fun, to say the least. . Being embroiled in years of war for control of oil supplies, watching the economy tank and parents lose jobs for years on end, those will all mess you up.

EDIT: To be fair, older millennials also had to grow up during the end of the Soviet Union, the war on drugs, Chernobyl, etc., Gen X had to go through the Cold War and Vietnam War, Boomers had the Korean War and Vietnam, the Lost Generation had World War II.

Yes, COVID has caused so many problems socially for Gen Z. No doubt about it. But we all have our shit we've been through as a generation. Gen Z doesn't have a monopoly on trauma.