Prevalence of Any Mental Illness (AMI)
Figure 1 shows the past year prevalence of AMI among U.S. adults.
In 2022, there were an estimated 59.3 million adults aged 18 or older in the United States with AMI. This number represented 23.1% of all U.S. adults.
The observed prevalence of AMI was higher among females (26.4%) than males (19.7%).
Young adults aged 18-25 years had the highest prevalence of AMI (36.2%) compared to adults aged 26-49 years (29.4%) and aged 50 and older (13.9%).
The prevalence of AMI was highest among the adults reporting two or more races (35.2%), followed by White adults (24.6%). The prevalence of AMI was lowest among Asian adults (16.8%).
I mean I think that part of it is the loss of connection in the digital age.
The improved quality of diagnosis.
I also think that we may be misdiagnosing people who aren’t able to have the resources to survive as depressed. Like “huh you’re sad all the time and constantly stressed, gotta be depression and not that you have to work 2 jobs to live in a shithole and be one car accident from losing your home” I say this not as someone who wants to dismiss depression, but as someone who works with mentally ill addicts and sees that a lot of people are perhaps not chemically depressed but situationally, and they’re never given a chance to leave the situation.
Nice comment. They are misdiagnosing people for sure. Also you may disagree with my next statement but some people allow themselves to be misdiagnosed because they are Inherently weak. Easier for them to say I’m mentally ill than to improve themselves. I’ve witnessed it many times
also…a complete (intentional) destruction of any sort of community via unaffordable housing (housing was more affordable during the great depression, than right now…), fostered social seperation/bubbles via algorithms, and backstabbing speculation drive that has infested every level of our economy and government to breed distrust, and of course nonexistent healthcare/job security for large sections of the population which increases stress (a known trigfer for underlying mental conditions)…
There’s also a fuckload of people seeking misdiagnoses for financial gain. You see it in mundane ways like people faking depression or PTSD to get an emotional support animal to get around their apartment’s no pets policy. You also see nearly universal advice to soldiers separating from the military to claim some mental issue to get a partial disability rating.
Not saying that there aren’t genuine occurrences of mental illness, but the amount of fraud is pretty massive.
the game is rigged, playing fair only puts you at a disadvantage…the number of people “faking” is rarely statistically significant.
most people play a fair game, it’s why they never get anywhere…
I’m certainly not naive enough to ignore that this happens. I do personally believe that these people are outliers and not the rule. But I talk with people who are misdiagnosed all the time. I personally have bipolar with a trend towards mania, and I talk with people who tell me they’re bipolar often enough and they don’t meet the requirements for the diagnosis at all.
And lastly, the stigma of mental illness is fading which is great, but what isn’t is people are self diagnosing themselves left right and center. They then use this self diagnosis as a crutch. Which in my belief is the opposite of what a diagnosis should be, a tool to help you improve your life