Is Gen Z Really Struggling With More Mental Illness, Or Are They Just Emotionally Open?

Gen Z is depressed. Or at least, that’s the story we keep hearing. Headlines warn of an unprecedented crisis: rising anxiety rates, skyrocketing ER visits for self-harm, whole classrooms of college students carrying around words like “panic disorder” and “burnout” as if they were part of the syllabus. The statistics are sobering, too. One in five Gen Zers reports a major depressive episode in a given year. More than 40 percent say they feel persistently hopeless. If you take the numbers at face