Since 1949, Mental Health America has used May to focus attention on America’s mental and emotional health. This year’s slogan is “More Good Days, Together.” Some large building will light up green to mark the month, and undoubtedly articles and interviews focused on mental health will appear in newspapers, magazines, and online.

So, after 77 years, how’s all this working out?

Not too well.

A 2023 TIME article reports that despite our heightened awareness of therapy and its availability, “U.S. mental health is getting worse by multiple metrics.” From suicide rates to rates of anxiety and depression, the numbers just keep ticking upward. “As of late 2022, just 31% of American adults considered their mental health ‘excellent,’ down from 43% two decades earlier.”

Hardest hit are the Gen Z crowd (born between 1997 and 2012). The numbers depict them as more ridden with anxiety and depression than any previous generation. They claim stress brought on from finances, work, an uncertain future, pressure in school, and the national news, in particular climate change. They are also far more likely than previous generations to seek the help of therapists and medications.

But other factors, less frequently mentioned, also enter this arena of mental health and therapy.

For one, compare today’s greatly expanded list of disorders to those of the mid-20th century. In 1968, the American Psychiatric Association published a new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, with “over 100 refurbished or brand new disorders.” Many of these are commonly accepted today without question.

Moreover, there is growing evidence that those reading or hearing about these disorders become inclined to diagnose the disorder within themselves. A major study in the 2026 “Nature Reviews” found “a growing number of voices suggest that mental health awareness efforts might lead to some unintended negative consequences,” particularly with the young in classroom settings. The authors of this study note that to “encourage the young to focus on their mental health might inadvertently promote a sense of vulnerability, fragility and victimhood.”

Without the guards and cautions brought by age, young people hear from a friend or some online influencer about a mental condition like attention-deficit disorder, and decide they suffer from it as well.

Writing for The Federalist, Breccan Thies condemns the meds prescribed to treat so many of these “illnesses” and of the schools serving as gateways to diagnostic labels and drugs. “Nationally, by 2015, over 40 percent of children and young adults between the ages of two and 24 were on multiple psychiatric drugs, with combinations including stimulants, antidepressants, and antipsychotics,” clinical psychologist Gretchen Watson tells Thies.

If true, then clearly something is very wrong with these diagnoses of what constitutes mental health and how to deal with it.

What I find fascinating is that few observers point to what might well be a real solution, particularly regarding the anxiety and the milder forms of depression so many lament. We bombard the young from elementary school on with bad news – climate change, the “horrible” history of their country, and more – and then wonder why kids in their late teens view life as bleak and hopeless.

Instead of instilling measured optimism in them, our culture raises a generation of pessimists and then expects them to see life as a rose garden. Instead of teaching resilience, many schools and parents teach caution and safety as the best approaches to the world. Instead of courage, they learn fear. Instead of learning the value of hard work and competition, they learn self-esteem.

Earlier generations possessed advantages today’s young people lack. A religious faith provided young and old with strength. A common morality, not always practiced but certainly known, helped instill virtue in children and young adults. A society untethered to screens, social media, and a barrage of bad news found hope in friends and family.

Here are the true answers to anxiety and stress, which all earlier generations experienced. Human connections, a code of virtue, an upbeat take on the future, and learning early on the value of grit and fortitude: these were some of the tools that served our ancestors instead of therapists and psychotropic drugs.

And these tools are still available to all, to parents and teachers, to children and students, if we choose to take them out of storage.

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This article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal.

Image credit: Unsplash