I don't think anyone's more disabled or less mentally healthy than ever, but the explosion in diagnoses is to be expected given the rewards and incentive structures. It's actively helpful to be "disabled" in college, as you get extra time on exams and other accommodations that make success more likely. If four in ten of your fellow students are getting such advantages, why wouldn't you want to compete on more even terms?
All of this made sense in a world in which we took pride in being healthy, competent, and capable. There's no shame in having a real disability, which is nobody's fault after all; and so there should be no shame associated with the receipt of these benefits, provided that the disability is real.
One way not to be ashamed of claiming such a benefit falsely is to actually believe that you deserve it. The same generation that has managed to 'identify' with many fake genders seems very capable of 'identifying' with various mental health challenges, too. Who's to tell them that they're wrong about what's going on inside their heads?
The system we set up for a different time won't be able to survive this change, but for the most part the systems seem to be failing anyway. What's one more, I suppose?
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