These statistics are almost useless for determining rates of mental health issues. They measure mental health as reported by mental health professionals. Of course groups which are antagonistic or dismissive of mental health will be underrepresented. Folks who receive counseling for mental health issues at their Church will also not be represented in these numbers. That doesn't mean these other groups don't have mental health issues. It means they don't seek help for it or get help via resources that don't report these stats. All this tells me is that young liberal women are the most likely to seek help for themselves from professionals.
The subpopulation that uses alcohol to deal with life stress likely skews male and more conservative.
I recently had a conversation with late '20s guy from a small town in Illinois who said guys in his town at any point in time were either working, hunting or drunk. He felt the need to get out of there.
That account is only the perspective of somebody who obviously didn't feel included and left the town. I bet people who like living in that town would describe it differently.
What else do we really know? For all we know, the guy who left was a teetotaler and would characterize any social gathering with a few beers present as "everybody getting drunk."
I had this conversation with friends. I wondered if they were snorting cocaine because it was fun or if it was a medication to get through the stress of life.
I live in Iowa. I know you’re being downvoted, but you’re not wrong at all here. This accurately describes the hobbies of many people I personally know.
Fantastic point, and I believe the only comment in this entire thread to accurately assess the discrepancy between the groups mental health professionals have a disproportionate access to.
I would be more interested in seeing the rates of mental health professional access regarding these girls, what's the rate both parents are also talking to their own mental health professionals, their male siblings too, how often do they talk to them, etc. If I were to guess, it would still disproportionately skew towards these girls primarily because of how mental health professionals are viewed as "problem fixers". You go to them, they fix your problem so people assume. I can see many parents encouraging their daughters to speak to one ("fix her depression"), but never seeking help themselves while simultaneously being ignorant to problems their stoic male offspring are dealing with.
