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’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