70% of Gen Z Incorporates a Mental Illness Into Their Identity

Join us as we navigate the evolving landscape of personal identity in younger generations, with a focus on the role of mental health, societal changes, and cultural frameworks. From the alarming rise in mental health diagnoses to the merging of gender and mental illnesses with core identities, we delve into the psychological and societal impacts of these trends. Explore the challenges of self-diagnosis, economic barriers to professional help, and how structured ideologies like cultural heritage and personal responsibilities can shape a healthier self-concept. Through various examples, including the use of AI in creativity, we offer insights into crafting an empowering and balanced personal identity in today's dynamic world.

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] 73 percent of boomer males. No matter what psychological challenges I face, I will not let them define me. 72 percent of Gen Z females. Mental illness is an important part of my identity.

Malcolm Collins: This chart right here that we're looking at is absolutely shocking to me. What the, what it's looking at is quote, mental health challenges are an important part of my identity in quote. And then it's looking at how this has changed over time, where if you look at males who are boomers, only 27 percent would say that mental health challenges are an important part of their identity.

Whereas if you look at. Gin Z emails, a full 72 percent say mental illness is an important part of my identity. Now I want to point out here, not even 72 percent of the population has a mental illness or a real mental illness, I guess I and yet 72 percent of young women are [00:01:00] identifying with a mental illness as an important aspect of who they are.

Simone Collins: And I

Malcolm Collins: really wanted to dive deep on The negative psychological effects of this to an individual. Why this is a really dangerous thing that this is happening. How this comes downstream from the destruction of our religious systems and understanding. Because I think for a lot of people as they destroyed and eroded the concept of a soul.

They needed something to replace it. Something that described, Who they were and that they could identify with in sort of a deeper sense. And I think for many people that became either gender or a mental illness or gender and a mental illness. Well,

Simone Collins: or you can say intersectional identity and victimhood as well.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. And for people who are like, well, how bad is it for males? 67 percent of males in Gen Z identify with a mental illness as a major part of their personality. If you were looking at millennials, [00:02:00] it's 67 percent of women. So the same as Gen Z males and, and for males 56 percent now, this is interesting to me, even if you're talking about millennial males, Over half of them identify with a mental illness as being a primary part of their identity.

Simone Collins: That checks out given the young, younger people that we've spoken with and people in our own generation.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And where was the big jump here? Well, the big jump started with Gen X. So our generation. No,

Simone Collins: just above our generation is Gen X. We're millennials. And then below us is

Malcolm Collins: Oh, Gen X is above us.

Simone Collins: Yeah, Gen X is, is, so we have the greatest generation.

These are the people who fought in World War II, the last generation. This is the generation that was too young to fight in World War II in the United States. Then we have the boomers who were the children of the World War II war heroes. Then we have Gen X which came after the boomers. Then we have millennials.

Then we have [00:03:00]

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Well, then in our older generation, there was a big jump from boomers to gen X, where it went from in boomers 27 percent of males to 47 percent of male gen X. And then it for boomer females, it was 34 percent to 53 percent of female gen X. So already within women of our generation you're seeing this set and I would put all of this was in the caveat of Simone.

You are autistic. You've been diagnosed with autism much, much later in life, not as a young person, but what basically happened is we took one of our sons in to get diagnosed. They were like, Oh, here is why he's autistic. And then Simone was like, Those aren't autism symptoms. Those are all normal things.

And then they're like, have you ever been tested for autism? And then they tested you and you were like, Oh, I guess I am. And before autism, you thought you had OCD.

Simone Collins: I have been clinically diagnosed with OCD.

Malcolm Collins: But did you [00:04:00] ever make the OCD or autism diagnoses a major part of your identity? Like, would you have answered mental illness as an important part of my identity?

Simone Collins: No, and I tried to hide it, as you know.

Malcolm Collins: And okay, so first I want to talk about, I think partially why this is happening and this comes from something that I noticed. We have another episode where we go over this, like the, the, the turning of gender into a concept of a soul,

Where especially when you have these huge ranges of genders that you can identify with.

And when you talk to somebody about this, you're like, well, what, what is this thing that you're calling gender? Because clearly it's not like. What I mean when I think gender, I'm like, do they have a penis? Like, that's what I'm asking when I say gender, right? They mean something else when they say gender.

And they're like, well, it's like the way you relate to reality. It's the way you see yourself. And I'm like, Oh, so it's like your genetic, like, sociological profile. Right? Like you mean, and they're like, Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not genetic. [00:05:00] You can't be, yeah, because then, the people who you know, then you become what they call a true scum is the term.

This means that you can only consider yourself trans, i. e. choose your gender if you have a form of dysphoria. And if you don't have a form of dysphoria you, you, you, they basically see it as like a form of gatekeeping and the, the anti true scum movement has largely won, which means anyone can identify whatever you want.

So they're like, Oh, it's not genetic. And then I'm like, Oh, so it's like your personal preference. And they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! It's not a preference either. Okay, that's a very offensive thing to say. And I go, okay, so it's not a preference. But it's not like, genetic, and it's not something that I can like, put my finger on, and it's like, core to how you self identify, you've like, reinvented the soul, but like, gendered it.

Simone Collins: Exactly.

Malcolm Collins: And I think that mental health issues for people who aren't fortunate enough to be able to [00:06:00] decide and when I say fortunate enough, I mean, this was, you know, within this generational context where this is like sort of an elite class that gets access to special privileges. And I

Simone Collins: would say that having a formal mental health diagnosis.

Is a product of privilege because the amount of money you have to pay to get one is, is quite high. We spent a lot of money just to get an autism diagnosis for our sons. And yeah, but I'm sure you

Malcolm Collins: could do it through state services.

Simone Collins: No. because we tried to do that. I would, I

Malcolm Collins: would actually go so far as t