Earlier this year, Made of Millions—a nonprofit dedicated to helping the millions of people around the world who have a mental illness—published “Remapping Recovery: How Gen Z’s Quest for Better Care Is Pioneering New Paths Forward in Mental Health.”

Why this study, and why now? Aaron Harvey, co-founder of Made of Millions, said, “When we started in 2016, we used data that had been available for decades. So this research was an opportunity for us to better understand what the journey looks like for today’s youth, and specifically, how the internet’s democratization of mental health education and advocacy has shortened timelines and improved outcomes.”

As a person with a mental illness myself (but I’m part of Gen X, a generation that somehow sounds much closer to Gen Z than it is), I wanted to know more, especially the findings about my own diagnosis, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), so I downloaded a copy. Some of the findings surprised me. Some of them gave me hope. And some of them confirmed that we still have work to do to make mental health care more accessible and inclusive.

When some of the gaps in access to mental health care are due to systemic inequality, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed, to feel a little hopeless and a little helpless. In the absence of sweeping systemic changes, what can we do to mitigate some inequities as we continue to fight? To be clear, I don’t believe the burden should be on the individual to fix a system, but I know I feel better when I can do something. To that end, I’ll include some ideas for getting help yourself or helping others.

What did Remapping Recovery find?

But first, let’s go over some of the findings. These two stood out to me:

Gen Zs take nearly two times longer to research mental health conditions compared to their parents, but are also half as likely to report being misdiagnosed.

and

. . . in more than 90 percent of self-diagnoses, . . . Gen Zs are coupling their self-diagnosis with a professional one, or plan to.

They stood out to Lauren O’Shaughnessy of Made of Millions, too. She said, “These findings were surprising because there’s a popular narrative right now that social media is encouraging young people to abandon traditional healthcare altogether and attach themselves to the first mental health condition they stumble upon. This perspective undermines Gen Z’s intelligence and ability to self-educate.”

O’Shaughnessy said that it’s not a lack of wanting professional mental health care that keeps Gen Z from taking advantage of it. Rather, it’s the barriers to access: “financial constraints, long waitlists, and practitioner shortages,” she said.

What can be done?

Gen Z are resourceful and will find information and support outside traditional systems. In an ideal world, this would only be a stopgap solution and would be supplementary, not a whole mental health care plan, but it’s important to know about the alternatives.

Esther Fernandez of Made of Millions said, “While it can be difficult to find someone who takes your insurance, there are definitely ways to tap into your community to see what is available to you. Using directories online is a good start. A local advocacy group might be hosting low-cost webinars, conferences, or support groups. A university might offer sliding-scale sessions with graduate students. Researchers might offer free medication or therapy sessions in exchange for research participation.”

What did Remapping Recovery find?

“On average, it took respondents about 2.5 years between symptom onset and diagnosis.”

In the OCD community, we’ve been saying for as long as I can remember (actual decades) that the time period between onset of symptoms and diagnosis is 13 to 17 years. But this study’s respondents included kids under 18, a group that’s been omitted from other studies, and that time period is much, much shorter. (Keep in mind that Remapping Recovery isn’t a follow-up to those studies.)

Harvey credits this change at least in part to OCD advocates “who have spent the last decade making topics like intrusive thoughts part of our youth’s everyday vernacular.” Young people are finding community and non-stigmatizing information about mental illness online—and of course, they’re finding misinformation there as well.

A couple of years ago, I stumbled across a TikTok about taboo intrusive thoughts that was so stigmatizing it still upsets me. When I commented to explain that sexual and violent intrusive thoughts are a common symptom of OCD, the replies were from angry (and probably scared) people who don’t understand what OCD is. All I could think was How will this affect someone who hasn’t even started their recovery journey?

Helpful, well-researched videos about OCD—and other diagnoses—are abundant on TikTok and other social media sites, but one wildly wrong one can have a devastating impact if viewers don’t know how to determine which sources are credible.

What can be done?

Uma Chatterjee, a member of Gen Z—oh, and neuroscientist, so she knows a little something about research—said, “Learn how to vet your sources and build literacy and you don’t have to understand everything. You have to understand who to look for and how to cross-check that information to make sure it’s accurate and it’s coming from someone who doesn’t have a vested interest in you being sick or buying their product cause they have the secret sauce to fix something that no one else has.”

The National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) outlines several questions people should ask to help determine whether the media they’re consuming is accurate and unbiased. Some include:

Who made this?Who was and was not involved in the creation of this?When was this made?Why was this made?What does it want me to do?Who is the target audience?Who paid for this?Who makes money from this?

While these questions can be applied to any form of media, Fernandez said it’s important to note that social media is different from traditional media. For one thing, anyone with an account can (for the most part) post what they want. Fernandez said, “Just because someone has a large following doesn’t mean their content is credible. The algorithm is also tailored to you, so you might get caught in an echo chamber of information and communities pushing certain agendas. If your feed is full of influencers going viral talking about the same topics, you might start to believe that everything they say holds truth.”

If something on social media seems too good to be true—or maybe too bad or too unbelievable—don’t stop with that first source. See if that same information is published elsewhere, and if that other place is a credible source.

What did Remapping Recovery find?

Eighty-five percent of Gen Zs either agree or somewhat agree that there’s a lot of stigma surrounding mental health, a number that increases to 90 percent among Gen Z Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). In fact, BIPOC respondents were 33 percent more likely to say that facing social stigma was one of the most difficult parts of their journey.

Chatterjee, who is brown, said reducing stigma in the BIPOC community largely falls to two groups of people: (1) Members of marginalized communities who have a diagnosis themselves and (2) allies. Beliefs about mental illness can be so deeply rooted, it is difficult to change the minds of folks in older generations, and without their support, younger generations are less likely to learn about mental illness or access helpful resources.

“You would think that educating peers would be easier,” Chatterjee said, “and that’s often just not true because they also grew up in the same type of stigma and they don’t have the ability to fight the stigma they have internalized about it, which means they won’t get help. So it’s just really isolating.”

What can be done?

When BIPOC are expected to shoulder the burden of reducing the stigma surrounding their own mental health diagnosis, it only adds to the inequities they face in other aspects of life.

While nothing can replace being accepted and understood by their own families and communities, “I think there’s more that people can do who are not part of these communities,” Chatterjee said, “like providing friendship and support and going out of your way to create spaces for validation. It’s nice to invite someone to a [mental health] conference, but you can also invite them over to your house and ask them how they’re doing and see if there’s anything they need, like a meal.”

Most of the “tips” in the “What can be done?” sections are far bigger actions than anyone with a mental illness should have to take on, and I want to reiterate that what is really needed is an overhaul to systems in the United States. But in the meantime, let’s try to chip away at it with community, support, and educational resources that don’t require an appointment, insurance, money, or a world where stigma and inequities aren’t real barriers to evidence-based care. Studies like Remapping Recovery matter because they shine a light on gaps that are hurting people with mental illness.