Self-reported mental issues are kind of like rape and sexual abuse reports in Sweden: when police started to take them seriously, the number exploded, apparentl

Self-reported mental issues are kind of like rape and sexual abuse reports in Sweden: when police started to take them seriously, the number exploded, apparently showing things were getting much worse when in fact they were getting better. There was always a massive disease burden hidden away in the younger generation, schizophrenic and depressive adults don't just spontaneously emerge. It's just that they wouldn't know about it and their family strongly resisted the notion they have the "crazy" kid, because the stigma was unbearable. Those kids would show up as "slow learners", "attention issues", "troubled", "aggressive", in the penal system, addicts etc. and only much later, if they were lucky, get any kind of treatment for the underlying issue. Remove the stigma and provide resources and many children will use them, perhaps to the point of over-medicalizing normal human variance.