Widespread Mental Illness

[YinYang]

The standards of labeling states of being as "mental illness" is constantly changing, so I am not sure there is "more" now than there were.  What we call some mental illnesses now were considered variations of personality/identity 50 years ago, and some things that were considered mental illness 50 years ago are now variations of personality/identity.  If you remove the labels/names and categorizations of mental illnesses, you are left with just a planet full of a HUGE endless variety of people who are all incarnating for very personal reasons, and "mental illness" is a catalyst for learning and teaching.  Whether there is "more" of it is hard to know because the standards are not static.

Well yes, diagnosis is always problematic, so I'll be more specific and narrow it down to people who periodically end up in psychiatric institutions and who are taking some potent daily cocktail of psychiatric drugs.