Latest / Radically Genuine / 129. Coddled into Crisis, A Gen Z perspective w/ Freya India

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129. Coddled into Crisis, A Gen Z perspective w/ Freya India · Radically Genuine

• Welcome to the Radically Genuine Podcast. I'm Dr. Roger McFillin. Sean, the rise in mental health problems for young women, girls, it's unprecedented right now. It certainly represents a genuine mental health crisis. I think we've addressed this topic from multiple angles on our podcast. I mean, mostly from the perspective as myself as a clinical psychologist and what I'm observing clinically, but I think we've also spoken about it from the terms of like where we are generationally. As Generation X males, you and I have been able to talk about generational differences. And I of course am exposed to the intimate details of my clients and working with their parents. And I think it does reflect on kind of a unique perspective. But I think, at least I'll admit, I know you have in previous podcasts, it's a challenge for middle aged men to kind of fully understand the complexity, especially when you're not raised in it. Yeah. Growing up completely connected. to devices and the internet is an environment that we didn't have. Like we will use the term before times, we got to experience what it was like before that. Yeah, and it certainly does utilize a, it allows us to, I think, observe things from a distance that's harder for those who've kind of raised wired to the internet and social media. And so like that experience is just completely different. And it's very difficult to find a young person who's been able to kind of step outside and kind of observe what they're going through. You know, Jonathan, I don't know if you've been aware of Jonathan Haight, who's the social psychologist. He was the author of The Cuddling of an American Mind. Yes. He just released a book on this. I'll probably bring it up with today's guest. The experience of young women in this culture provides probably the most accurate portrayal of intimate details impacting Generation Z girls. And today's guest, she's kind of blowing up globally because of her insightful commentary on Western culture and the impact on young women. You know, I find her to be wise beyond her years. She's definitely, I think I mentioned it to you before we connected with her, that she sounds like an old soul. And so being someone who is of Generation Z, it gives her a lot of credibility. Sean (02:17.938) So I want to welcome Freya India to the podcast. She's a freelance writer and has written for publications that include Spectator, The New Statesman, The Independent, Colette, Unheard. Her writing has also been acknowledged by The Guardian, The Atlantic, The New York Times. You have maybe have been introduced to her just from the popular podcast that she's been on globally, but... You know, from the perspective of the United States, we may be introducing her to an audience that maybe hasn't been reading her writings or listening to her speak in other platforms. Her substack, which is absolutely excellent. I've only recommended like four or five substacks on my developing substacks. Hers is one of them. It's titled Girls. In my opinion, it's the most thoughtful and critical writings on the impact of various aspects of the... popular culture on girls' mental health. And of course, it's coming from somebody who has been in that bubble. So I wanna welcome Freya India to the Radically Genuine podcast. Freya India (03:25.654) Thank you so much for having me and thank you for such a lovely introduction. It's so nice. Sean (03:29.074) You're welcome. Well deserved. Freya, you know, when somebody is in a delusion or they're attached to an illusion of a specific reality, they don't know it. And that's what makes it delusional. Right, Sean? Why just, why me? No, I feel like you've been able to step outside of your own illusions. I don't know. But Freya, you at a young age have been kind of able to step outside the matrix and observe. Freya India (03:43.735) Thank you. Freya India (03:49.763) Thank you. Sean (03:57.234) what is happening around you with astute observations. I am interested in you as the person, your own personal story and how you've been able to get to this point in your young career. Freya India (04:08.586) Yeah, I get asked that quite a lot and it's kind of difficult to really pinpoint what it was. I think as a person, I'm just quite introverted and I'm quite, I would say, sensitive. And especially as a child and as I was growing up in school. And so I think I was kind of feeling like I was experiencing everything on an amplified level. So I would feel like... you know, social media, the pressure of it was really getting to me. I felt like there was so many pressures in kind of the modern world that were like bearing down on me and other people seemed to be dealing with fine. So I felt that there was a real like loneliness among young people that I was really feeling. I felt that there was like disconnection. I could see things like family breakdown and the way we talked about our mental health. really affecting me as a person. And I think as I started to get into writing, and I've always loved writing, the thing that was really bringing out my voice was when I tried to articulate some of these feelings. So I tried to write about young people in Gen Z, and pretty much from the perspective what I was feeling, these like crazy intense emotions, and just a kind of like detachment from modern life and not feeling like it's it served me or made me happy. And the more I started to articulate it through writing, the more it became clear to me what those things were. And over time, I've started to realize that a lot of it is the influence of companies and industries. And there seemed to be a common thread through everything that was making me anxious. So it would be like the beauty industry, what I would call the therapy industry or the entire mental health industry. all of these social media companies. And that's kind of what Girls inadvertently became, was like an expose of all of these industries that I do think are amplifying these negative emotions that I really felt as a child. Sean (06:21.758) When we look at the data, it certainly appears that social media has a much more negative effect on developing girls than it does for boys. Why do you think that is? Freya India (06:36.966) I think that girls feel those kind of age-old teenage angst and negative emotions at a much more amplified level anyway. So we know from studies that girls are a lot more ruminative. We tend to go inwards when we face trauma or stress. So we'll have behaviors like self harm and eating disorders, whereas it seems like boys and young men will kind of act out and maybe... know, start failing at school, they'll turn to drugs and substance abuse and whatever. So I think that's all normal, just kind of naturally among girls, but then I think industries have noticed that, capitalized on that, and found a very, very lucrative market among what I would call one of the most vulnerable demographics, which is young girls going through puberty, where all of that's amplified anyway, and then you get this huge source of profit from that. Sean (07:37.022) Can I ask when you first got access to a cell phone and what kind of restrictions were put in place for you and your family on your exposure, your access to social media apps? Freya India (07:50.73) Yeah, so my mum was quite good. So she I had kind of like a Nokia, like a brick phone through school. So if I was on the bus or something, I could message her but I had no apps or anything. And I wasn't, it's not that I wasn't allowed Facebook or anything, but there was kind of like, I have so much, I'm so close to my mum and have so much respect for her that the thought of like going on Facebook when she didn't want me to. made me anxious. I didn't want to do that. So she wasn't kind of strict, but we had a good relationship. So she would say, I don't want you on these platforms, and I wouldn't be part of them. But I feel like at that age, I already knew myself and I already knew I was very susceptible to these things. So for example, if I knew that all my friends were asleep over and I didn't get invited, I knew that I had quite a strong emotional reaction to that. And so I kind of made that decision myself as well. Okay, I can't be on things like Facebook, because seeing that is just, you know, out of self interest, it's too kind of emotional for me. But I think what's happening now is, as you've said, the younger generation growing up so immersed in it, that they don't even know that that's an option, that they're not even considering that maybe they could avoid exposing themselves to that like I did. Sean (09:13.63) Do you think that puts you at a social disadvantage? Freya India (09:16.414) Yes, definitely. Well, I think it may be on the surface level, it appears like that. And maybe you miss out on some superficial things, you might miss out on getting invited to things by people who only care who's on social media. But I think at a deeper level, once you come off social media, your connections become extremely meaningful, because the people that do remember you, the people that do invite you are doing it purely because... want you there, not because you're constantly reminding them that you exist by posting stuff. You know, if I get a message now from someone from school, it's someone who's thought of me and tried to find me. It's not someone who's seen my Instagram story. So it's a lot more meaningful. Sean (10:04.766) That's such a good point. And I think it speaks to some of the superficial aspects of your generation and the developing self. You know, I don't want to talk too much like a psychologist, but that's a period of distinct identity formation, adolescence, is you're trying to figure out who you are in respect to that world. And of course, that's going to fuel self-confidence and your willingness to take risks. And what we're actually seeing is a generation that is controlled by fear in a lot of ways. You know, even with Jonathan Haight's book, he calls it the anxious generation. And so I wanna get your sense from the inside on if that's true, do you believe yourself and other people of your age range are more fear-driven, more anxious than maybe previous generations? Freya India (11:01.79) Yeah, definitely. I think we fear things that people from older generations can't even comprehend fearing. So for example, you might think that we fear big things like taking on huge challenges or even like social anxiety, like going to events and stuff. But I think Gen Z really fear any kind of discomfort at a level that older generations. can't even kind of understand. So for example, feelings, I think, you know, a lot of people think Gen Z are obsessed with their feelings and we all talk about our feelings too much, but I actually think we're really, really fearful of negative feelings. And so we have this like desperate need to control and like diagnose and categorize every feeling and make it something we can understand. Because we have this really deep fear of any kind of like uncertainty and discomfort. and no real ability to kind of sit with it and accept it. And I think that drives so many trends among Gen Z is like a fear of not just like hugely uncomfortable situations, but tiny discomforts, psychological discomforts that we feel we have no control over. Sean (12:22.974) It's such an astute observation, Sean, to bring you in here because what I've mentioned is the shift in how our culture now views our emotional states is what has changed dramatically from when you and I were younger versus what is now. How can you not? I mean, how can Generation Z not be afraid of their emotions when they're bombarded with propaganda that emotions are symptoms of an illness? And that these drugs have been developed to help their mental health, which is in essence trying to decrease the intensity of emotions, even blunt emotions. The actual presence of discomfort or emotional pain is really pathologized. And just from the outside looking in, for me, it does look like a purposeful campaign to like, fragilize a generation through this constant bombardment of ideologies that Developmentally, I don't think adolescents can fully comprehend, I mean, from the Decrease Stigma campaign to the focus on mental health. I don't think it's coming from a genuine, authentic concern for mental health, but rather I think it does the opposite. It gets people to drive their attention inward and increase the amount of people who are now going to judge their own experience as if it's an illness or a disability, thus creating new customers. Yeah, I was, um, Freya I worked in advertising for about 20 years before I navigated over this space and, and during those mid two thousands into maybe like 2010, 12, that was a period where for a brand authenticity was the buzzword. So any brand that was out there, it was always about being authentic, being true to who you are, trying to establish some type of relationship to elicit an emotion and. I believe that navigated over to the social media space first with influencers prevent or kind of presenting themselves and trying to be authentic, whether it was authentic or not. And then that migrated over to the individual being on social media, sharing how they were feeling, uh, what they were going through. And I feel like it's compounded to the point where this offense authenticity led to these like negative outcomes. Sean (14:44.13) of sharing all those moments in your life that are generally fleeting and passing, but then become this permanent identity of who you represented yourself to be. So what are your thoughts on that, Freya, in terms of maybe how people have been portraying themselves or sharing their feelings when they are just temporary or fleeting? Freya India (15:05.63) Yeah, well, I think that the problem is we are advertising ourselves now all the time. So on social media, we, you have to categorize yourself as some form of product, uh, some form of, um, you know, depending on what your identity is, you're going to have to condense it into something marketable and kind of digestible to an online audience. So everyone is doing that to an extent because obviously you can't fit your whole complex self onto social media. And I think mental health and struggles is kind of like a really easy one to do because you can say, okay, I'm anxious or I'm depressed or, you know, and have that as part of your identity, which we're seeing massively online, you know, young people putting their diagnosis in their Twitter bios and having, you know, like their entire TikTok feed is about their struggle with something or, you know, they're, they're buying like mental health merchandise and wearing it. Like it's a full on. identity. And I think that is because of the pressure to take parts of your personality and then advertise that to people. But like you said, the problem is once you've categorized yourself as a certain type of product, and that gets maybe rewarded, or it's online, you know, for everyone to see, there's a lot of incentive to keep going. And also, kind of I feel like there's an incentive now to keep the same coherent identity because people think you're being inauthentic if you change. So if you suddenly say, Oh, you know, I'm, I don't have OCD anymore. I don't have social anxiety anymore. I've grown out of that. People will start accusing you of, Oh, you never really had it. You don't understand the struggle. You know, what happened to that? And I feel like we think it's some kind of, um, you know, it's, it's inauthentic to say I've changed, um, because we're so, you know, conditioned. Sean (16:38.45) Mm-hmm. Freya India (17:02.446) to categorise ourselves and then keep that, you know, keep our profiles coherent and understandable to other people. So it really takes away the incentive to improve and the space for you to kind of grow and mature out of things, which I think does a huge disservice to young people. Sean (17:21.362) Yeah, I completely agree. And the categorization of everything is what kept me off of Facebook very early on because I was working on the marketing side and when we were doing media planning, I just saw the abundance of information that we had access to, to pinpoint and target individuals based on what they're going through, what they're searching for, what they're writing about, what they're, what, uh, news articles they're reading and regionally and like you can pinpoint people. And I was like, Freya India (17:42.476) Yeah. Sean (17:48.274) This feels a little weird. I'm going to wait for the next big social media thing. I kept off of Facebook, but, um, at, but once you're in that algorithm and once you're liking things and the videos that you're watching now, now it's happening automatically. Like I can't tell you the amount of sourdough videos I get through Instagram and YouTube right now, just because I was researching sourdough it's nuts. Freya India (18:01.547) Yeah. Freya India (18:09.986) Well, it's like, you know, for any generation, the more you kind of talk about something, identify with something, it becomes like a self-fulfilling prophecy. So if you keep saying, I'm anxious, you're probably going to get more anxious. But now we've got this software engineering behind it. That's, you know, it's actually being algorithm algorithmically driven. So not only are you talking about it, are you making it more likely? You're also telling all of these companies who are going to use that data against you and your entire kind of. social media ecosystem is going to start reflecting it back to you all the time. So yeah, the self-fulfilling prophecy is even more powerful now than it ever has been. Sean (18:51.95) I think one of the challenges that I had in being able to adjust to this generation, and there was a period of adjustment for me because there were some things I could not understand. Empathically, I try to put myself into the shoes of my clients, but I did not understand the desire to want to identify with a mental illness. Because in our generation, the last thing that you would want to portray yourself as in this world. is unstable or mentally ill. It just evolutionarily is not adaptive. It just does not make any sense. You have to make your way in this world and you have to develop relationships and you have to achieve and eventually be able to take care of yourself and your family. The last thing you want to do is present yourself as unstable. But yet we are seeing a generation want to almost obtain an oppressed, disabled, or minority status as if it provides them some degree of social currency. And so, Freddie, you mentioned the word social engineering. I'm kind of interested to know maybe what the roots are of this and the function of this from your perspective. Freya India (20:08.03) I think that a lot of the time, I mean, it's so controversial to say if I said it to anyone who's kind of not recently, just someone normal in this generation, but I think it's a very attractive excuse for a lot of things that I don't think are Gen Z's fault. So for example, we're growing up a lot slower than previous generations. So we're kind of taking longer to do things like move out and get a job and get a driver's license. So if you talk to kind of like the average 25 year old, they probably seem about 18 to older generations. And then the average 18 year old seems like 15. And so there's areas in which Gen Z are kind of falling behind in terms of these kind of milestones of adulthood. And then I think something like mental health, with this mental health culture, all of these diagnoses, all of these reasons come along and they're very attractive because then you can say, you know, I'm not being lazy. It's my ADHD executive dysfunction that means that I can't, you know, tidy the same way that a normal person can. Or it's not the fact that I can't make a phone call at 24. It's because I have crippling social anxiety that I take medication for. Um, and, and I think the problem with that is there's this huge, obviously mental health industry that's indulging that and saying, yeah, you know, it's not your fault if you're behind on these markers or if you kind of behave. more childlike because I feel, you know, your generation would view that as childish behavior. You know, if you can't walk in a room and introduce yourself at 25, you would see it probably as a problem that's kind of juvenile. Whereas now that there's no talk of that, it's you know, we have to understand your trauma and your childhood and your chemical imbalance or whatever it is. But I can fully understand why people are identifying with it because it's it's very attractive. You know, there's a lot of things I would like about me to blame on a mental health problem. It's a lot more effort and work and kind of, you know, it's not the best thing to have to admit to yourself to be like, actually, this is just something I can take accountability for. So I can see 100% why the average 15-year-old would wanna do that. Sean (22:28.486) Yeah, I've gotten killed on social media for making kind of those same points that the identification with a mental illness is kind of self-serving in a way that it decreases the experience of shame. And aversive emotions have value. We want to avoid feeling shame. We want to avoid feeling guilt. We want to avoid feeling bad. So we make the necessary adjustments in our lives to overcome those challenges. So we don't have to feel that anymore. If you're unable to. Freya India (22:39.863) Mm. Sean (22:58.262) socially kind of integrate and have conversations with adults when you're 25 years old, that anxiety is supposed to be aversive. It's supposed to help you adapt by making necessary changes. So essentially, we have to feel bad, we have to struggle in this life in order to progress. So the identification of emotional struggle as some Freya India (23:22.069) Mm-hmm. Sean (23:27.546) immutable characteristics, some disorder is so nefarious, to me, it extends beyond just the mental health industry. I think there is something else going on where politically, it's part of a approach to fragilize generations to confuse people in order to usher in new political ideological... perspective. So I've been open about that. Does that in any way cross your mind when you think about this when you step outside? Freya India (24:05.626) Yeah, I think, I think a big problem. So politically, the problem I see with it is the is the kind of progressive narrative now is, is the one indulging this is the one saying, you know, any struggles you have, it's because of something out of your control. And you know, the biggest, the most pressing problem young people have in their lives is stigma and discrimination, and completely like absolving young people of of personal responsibility. And like you say that it almost seems like it's orchestrated because the more you say the more you depend on your ADHD diagnosis to excuse things like maybe not being productive or not being a capable adult, the more you do that, the more you're going to have to rely on that to explain to people why you're falling behind because you're not going to grow. And so you have to then depend on a diagnosis because you've used it as an excuse so far, and yet you're going to keep having to lean on it throughout your life. And unfortunately, leaning on that diagnosis also means you're probably going to have to lean on medication companies, the therapy industry. And you're probably going to have this belief that you need constant solutions and intervention in order to live. And so, like you said earlier, it just creates a lifelong customer. for various different industries and someone who's demoralized and who thinks that everything is kind of out of their control. And I see that happening so much among young people is this belief that they can't handle uncomfortable emotions and can't handle life, the ups and downs of life without having some kind of professional intervention or product or service. And yet to me it seems like one massive... kind of marketing strategy. Sean (26:00.038) Yeah, when it comes to the politics, this is where I have a hard time understanding. Like I understand your perspective about control, but for any country, the economics for an economy to want to progress, like it requires a certain level of risk to be taken by individuals to start business, especially for small business. If you have an entire generation that is risk averse, that's just setting your economy up for some type of downturn or collapse. So how do you overcome that? And you know, Freya, I was on- Wait, stay there. Okay. That's a good question. I want to be able to respond to it. Yes. Okay. So this isn't new. This class warfare that's created by an elite class that is seeking more dictatorship or totalitarian control is not new. You create an us versus them in a culture and you bring about a revolution. I think you're thinking about things from a free market perspective. And what we were raised in is a free market, capitalism, and during our lifetime that has become global. And in order to be able to survive in a free market economy, that you have to innovate and you have to be able to integrate into other cultures. But really, I think when you look about what's happening globally is like, is China in itself is being like the producer of goods cheaply for the markets like the United States market, which is eliminating a middle class, which is eliminating a working class in our country because you can get goods and services like made cheaper. And that's made China an economic power. But I don't think that's how the global elites think about the future. I think they think about the future as we have way too many people. And when we have too many people that is, you know, dangerous to the welfare of their planet, and their wealth and their purpose. I think we've had these complex kind of conversations. I don't know if we have the entire, we don't want to dedicate today's topic to that. But I just want to reflect to the complexity of it where creating class warfare is nothing new. That's an old playbook on cultural Marxism. So you get to you get people to believe that their, their own happiness. Sean (28:20.09) and their inability to achieve success in this world is related to an oppressive class. And there's distinct characteristics, you know, whether it's race and whether it's gender or, you know, just, you know, social class that you were born into, that will always prevent you from achieving any type of success. And I think what that does is it tends to almost enslave the human spirit. Like the human spirit wants to innovate, the human spirit wants to create, wants to grow, always wants to learn, wants something new. And once you're told that you're not able to become something based on maybe how you look or where you were born. And you won't own anything and you'll be happy owning nothing. I think that just, you know, it was a recipe for kind of depression and you become numbed by seeking out drugs or television, Netflix, stimulation, video games, porn, something just to feel good in that particular moment. And I think that's where we're seeing with generations is we're just being numbed by technology to kind of forget. the realities of our life right now is we're not seeing the ability to, to the opportunities to exist in order to innovate and, and take care of your family and, and there's economic problems. This is where I'm interested in getting Freya's perspective as Gen Z. And she talked about being risk averse and getting driver's license later and staying at home. What do you believe are the contributing factors to that? Because it has to be something beyond social media and devices. Freya India (30:04.766) Yeah, well, I think, you know, Jonathan Haidt was right about coddling, coddling culture. If you if, if you get Gen Z to describe their childhood, it's very, very different to older generations in the sense that you'll hear a lot of stories about things you couldn't do because of health and safety and because of rules and regulations and the times that you know, in school, ball games got banned because they're too dangerous or, you know, instead of going up at meeting up with friends, your parents would prefer you to stay home on the computer because you're safer, even though now we kind of know you're not safer in many different ways. So I think that safetyism and the coddling culture and you know being raised as part of a generation, you know, generally speaking, that's very in the West affluent going up with all these comforts and conveniences that previous generations didn't have. I think that really set us up to fail in the sense that we weren't raised to have that resilience. And then that's kind of the background as to why we're risk averse. But then as we've grown older, all of these technologies have come out which indulge that risk aversion. You know, they say to us, you don't have to go and talk to that person, you can just text them, you don't have to try and start a relationship, you can watch online porn. You know, as we're growing older. there's this old kind of advice people would give, you know, or they would say they predict when Gen Z grow up, they'll get hit by the real world. And they'll realize that they can't get away with this. But you know, we're growing up and the technology is growing up with us, to coddle us and take away the risk. And so we're getting into adulthood. And we're still not having to be resilient, because we have all of these options at our disposal. And so I think risk aversion is kind of the bigger picture. But now companies are able to get much closer access to us and much better influence over us because we're fragile and risk-averse. Sean (32:13.01) The older you get, I think the more you begin to appreciate the health and beauty of your youth. Sean and I were talking, I said, every time I look into this camera here, I see an older man looking back at me. The beard gets a little bit grayer and whiter and you start getting some of the salt and pepper in your hair. But what I've noticed, Freya, is that, especially for young girls, Freya India (32:18.51) Thank you. Sean (32:39.902) that the insecurities that they experience around their appearance has manifested into such a social anxiety that it's really palpable. And these are, you know, beautiful young girls in their prime who think they're utterly hideous. And I can't help but believe that is due to the exposure to these social media apps and all these, this ability to filter out how you look to, it's such an unrealistic way. Freya India (32:55.714) Mm-hmm. Sean (33:09.85) When we were growing up and when I was studying and researching the development of eating disorders in young girls, one of the factors that we were focused on was the impact of media. But that media was just like television, print media, and how it presented like a thin ideal body image to young girls, where that now has exacerbated 1000 fold as far as exposure to an unrealistic beauty ideal. Freya India (33:20.052) Mm-hmm. Freya India (33:37.582) Mm-hmm. Sean (33:37.67) What is the experience of young girls from now when it comes to their developing sense of physical attractiveness? Freya India (33:44.582) Yeah, well, I think so previous generations, it was an unrealistic beauty ideal in the sense that it was a supermodel who works very hard to be very thin, and is born with like amazing genetics and looks great. But now our unrealistic beauty standard is an avatar. It's like a face that you cannot recreate unless you're having cosmetic surgeries or using an editing app or using a filter. And so it's unrealistic in the sense that it cannot be you cannot be born with it. So it's a whole different level of unrealistic. So that's the first thing. And then the second thing is the amount we're exposed to it. So maybe, you know, previous generations of women would feel insecure when they're looking through a beauty magazine or, you know, they see a billboard of like a, some supermodel, but that's not young girls experiences now. Young girls experiences is like a relentless onslaught of this same. avatar face that they will not be able to recreate. And also the constant looking at themselves with a filter or with an editing app, seeing like an idealized version of their face that they'll never be able to recreate unless they get some kind of surgeries and even then it won't look the same. They're seeing that potentially for hours every day and then going to look in the mirror and it just does not. There's no way they can kind of match up to that. There's no like amount of exercise and healthy eating they can do. So I think there's a real like demoralization among young girls when they see that and they just think, you know, I can never look like that. I can never find a relationship where someone's gonna think I'm attractive when they're exposed to all of these images all the time. And yeah, I see it all the time. I see like beautiful young girls thinking that they need to save up money to get Botox at like 15, or they need to, they can't go meet a guy because he has no idea what they look like in real life without a Snapchat filter. And I would say, you know, just from my experience, I think this idea of like body dysmorphia, facial dysmorphia, pretty much like 80% of girls are struggling with, I think it's so widespread now that. Freya India (36:11.114) what we would call pathological dysmorphia years ago is just the normal experience for the average girl. Sean (36:17.874) Yeah, you would think that this has to play a role in the rise of gender dysphoria and kind of the self-hate, body hate just for having a woman's body. Would you agree that this is certainly a factor? Freya India (36:32.33) Yeah, I think there's almost a sense of I can't, this is not for everyone, but I think there has to be a part of it which is I cannot compete. And I really empathise with that feeling of thinking, you know, there's these perfect influences, there's these, like, infinitely accessible porn stars, you've had all this cosmetic surgery that, you know, guys can be exposed to at any moment. And then looking at yourself and thinking I, there's no point me even trying. And I think that's what a lot of young girls are feeling, is I can't even attempt to be beautiful because the level of beauty I'm expected to meet. And I don't think it's men expecting them to meet that. I think, you know, the big influence is the industry is pushing it over and over. And even as well with transgender people, I've been looking recently and even the editing app, Facetune is now advertising to people with gender dysphoria. saying we can like alleviate your gender dysphoria because you can use the editing app to be your true self and your authentic self. So not only do they create these insecurities, but when you're struggling with them, they then fuel them and fuel them. So yeah, I think a child using social media is inevitably gonna feel some kind of dysphoria because you're splitting yourself into a real life person and an online person, an online avatar. Sean (37:36.318) criminal. Freya India (38:00.03) And that is dysmorphia. You can't equate the two. Sean (38:06.75) And this is some of the challenges I've had just in therapy and working with Generation Z. You know, obviously a big part of therapy is kind of learning who you are. And I'm really interested in people beyond just some superficial characteristic or presentation that exists. And it's really hard now to get into some conversation that has any depth about their own inner desires or passions that, you know, how they view themselves in, in the future, because they're so conditioned. To. Develop themselves in a way that increases their popularity through what it mounts to I think is likes You know like you your value is determined by how many people are liking a picture or who are commenting and it is so entirely Superficial that they haven't done any of that introspective work that I think you know A lot of people do when they're disconnected from an internet that time You have to think about who you are and what you want your future to be and what allows you to stand out It's just a lot of like different femme bots almost like they all kind of present the same because that's what's coming back to them in that social media world. Freya India (39:13.162) Hmm. I think as well it's interesting that like you say, you know, we're not doing the work, we're not like looking inwards, but it's kind of like we are doing incessant like inner work, but it's superficial. So there seems to be this like obsessive self scrutiny, but no self reflection, like actual taking time away, like who am I as a person? What is my... What are my values and my moral character and how am I living up to that in my relationship? There's none of that. It seems to be this very superficial like therapy speak in a work, which is like, you know, what's my attachment style? What's my mental health diagnosis? And it's like, it's kind of along the right lines. You need to be thinking about your relationships and how you're treating people. But it's like... Sean (39:55.162) Yes. Freya India (40:06.674) a really superficial shallow version of that. So if you ask young people, they'll say, I'm doing the work, I'm doing all of this, but it's like, how much of yourself are you actually interrogating? Or are you just doing this, you know, parroting what you've heard, this psychological language that is really just empty. Sean (40:24.606) actually put a social media post out today where I was reflecting on this because I don't think the psychiatric industrial complex and the medical establishment has kept up with these cultural shifts because we have young people who will come into our sessions and I'm trying to learn about them and they're describing themselves in terms of DSM symptoms and diagnoses. Something that was they were never exposed to like I had to go to school to learn what a psychiatric diagnosis was. Freya India (40:46.813) Mm. Freya India (40:52.814) Mm-hmm. Sean (40:52.91) Now they're so bombarded with this on various platforms, which I do believe it's purposeful, you know, if you, a foreign adversary wanted to really influence the decline of a, of a culture, one way is to make them all kind of think that they're psychiatrically ill. And that's how that has happened, but they come in and they describe themselves in that way. And I think they go into the medical settings and they speak to their pediatrician or they speak to a psychiatrist in these terms and the psychiatrist just attached to it. Like it's real. I kind of made the point today. Freya India (41:17.859) Mm-hmm. Sean (41:19.846) That just because a teenager says they want to kill themselves doesn't mean they want to kill themselves. Because we're seeing this is when parents are trying to restrict that phone and they're trying to place limits on that social media, it feels like they are being, um, actually imprisoned and taken away from their, uh, from their, their whole social world. That's why I asked you earlier, whether you felt like you were placed at a social disadvantage. And then what they do is they go to extremes to kind of control their parents and they'll use mental illness as a way to control their parents through fear. Because their parents will eventually just give into it in order to make them feel okay because they're afraid they're going to screw up their own kid. In other situations, they'll take them to the doctor, they'll even go to the emergency room. And that's why you see this mass increase in teenage girls being psychiatrically hospitalized. It doesn't reflect the suicidal ideation. and the aspects that in the past we would view as someone that is deeply suicidal. You know, it's more reactive, it's more emotional, and you see it's related to that phone addiction, and that's what's new. And I think that's another aspect that's driving the increase in identification with mental illness and prescribing prescription drugs, because when they do present themselves that way, I do believe a part of them really believes it to be true. because they are struggling, they are suffering, and they're being conditioned to talk that is an illness. But there's also a social component to it as well, where it's almost like validation of their struggles and they're part of that oppressed group that we saw before. So getting that drug validates that. Freya India (42:58.046) Yeah, I think I think a really tragic thing is like, Gen Z are losing the language of just suffering and just kind of distress and disappointment and hurt. And so the only language we kind of know now is the DSM diagnosis or the mental health label. So they're trying to articulate a real feeling, which is maybe that I'm, I'm feeling lonely, or I'm feeling like rejected. don't have the language for that or don't feel that will give them enough validation. So instead they say, oh, I have, I read about this thing earlier. I don't know if you've probably heard of it. Rejection sensitivity dysphoria. Um, there's all these Reddit forums of mostly young women saying they have rejection sensitivity disorder, dysphoria. And yeah, and they'll say, you know, my boyfriend dumped me and I can't stop. Sean (43:46.809) All normal aspects. Freya India (43:52.85) I have rejection and sensitive and it's like, no, you just, you've lost the language of I'm hurt and I'm upset. And there's also this new thing, highly sensitive person it's called, which is like, aka a young woman. And there's this, all of these forums of young people saying, I think I'm a highly sensitive person, because I'm feeling this, this and this. And it's like, you're just a child or a young adult trying to make your way through life. And I think it's really sad that young people think they won't get sympathy or they won't be seen or heard unless they make it a diagnosis or something medical. Sean (44:35.59) Definitely an identity crisis, there's no doubt. Yeah, I wonder at some point if there's gonna be this transition where we're just gonna recognize the ridiculousness of so much. I mean, some of these new things that you're speaking about, like for somebody who's experienced life, or even for a young person that's had heartbreak and then found the right person to look back and say that you had a disorder or dysphoria because you're brokenhearted, To me, that's just a little insane. Doesn't the pendulum swing? Freya India (45:07.89) Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think what it comes from is, you know, it's a cuddling culture is this progressive culture where we kind of act as if suffering isn't part of human life. And if there is suffering, it's because you're either unwell or because of discrimination or something that needs and can be fixed. And so I think a lot of these young people think know, if they're struggling at all, it's because of some something is causing it rather than, you know, that's just baked into human life. And as you grow older, you'll come to appreciate, like you said, the heartbreak that you had that made you more resilient, or you can almost look back fondly when you were 20. And you felt these emotions really intensely. And it's kind of just a part of life. I'm hoping it will swing back. But and I think it is for some people. But I think if, if you like I am if you read through some of these forums of very young people who are so muddled with this like they're it's they're so confused so they'll be trying to list out how they're feeling and saying I don't know if it's ADHD or if it's autism or it could be my gender identity or there's this new thing now I was reading about called like autigender which is like if your autism influences your gender identity there's now like neuro queer Sean (46:33.306) Mm-hmm. Freya India (46:38.53) which is like neurodivergent and quit. And they're getting so confused. That I hope it almost gets to the point where it's so confusing that people just say, wait, this is not making any sense. I hope. Sean (46:52.41) Yeah, the unintended consequences of this for somebody. I mean, you're 20, 24, 25. How old you now? 24. So you're entering into your professional career. And I'll tell you what, like working in the corporate world, when someone applies for a job, one of the first things that team's doing is looking at a social media presence, like you can, everything is searchable, findable. Like you can. Freya India (46:58.99) 24. Freya India (47:14.219) Mm-hmm. Sean (47:18.778) You can create an identity for a person before you even meet them based on what they're sharing through social media. There's going to be an entire generation that realizes, what was I thinking? This, this was stupid and now I've harmed myself or the rest of my professional career and I'm a mature adult now. And I think you're 10 years behind on this. Maybe. Yeah, no, 10 years. That's what we said 10 years ago. And it's just not the case because everybody is. utilizing social media and online in a similar way that it doesn't separating. We used to have this self consciousness about how we presented ourselves in public that seems to be that seems to be gone. Well, that's why I'm hopeful that this pendulum would swing. And I'm thinking about, you know, my child who they're calling them Generation Alpha, like maybe just the label of alpha, like we'll put them in a mind state where they're going to see everything that went wrong for this millennial and Gen Z generation of the things that that they felt that they thought would, you know, be comfortable doing. And then all the harms that came from it, maybe they'll pull back. This is a good segue to kind of feminism. So Freya, I have two daughters. They're both around your age. My, my oldest is going to be 23 next month and take away your British accent. There's a startling resemblance to her. Like I'll look at you and I'm like, Freya India (48:34.379) Mm-hmm. Sean (48:46.206) thinking of looking at Madison, right? There's a startling resemblance. And then I also have a 20 year old daughter. And so, I have a love hate relationship with feminism. On one end, I wanted to raise two daughters who were independent, did not need to necessarily depend on a man to survive, who could have a voice, who could have opportunities. And I just thought of obviously that's critically important and then to protect themselves from, aggressive men. in that would try to hurt them or take advantage of them. So you need a kind of strong character. And I feel like I've certainly done that. On the other end of this modern feminism. It almost it almost seems like the characteristics of a traditional man get pushed on a woman and there's this expectation that they should live a certain type of life. It's like the consequences of entering into capitalistic society where we push women into the workforce. And we have them doing the jobs that a lot of men had to do. And we kind of frame that as if it's equality. And they then have to deny some of their own natural instincts and their own intuition and desires. Like, for example, like both of my daughters, I think are very nurturing by nature and very motherly. I think their natural instinct is to want to be a mother, but they live in a, in a culture where you have to work and you have to put time into your career. And being a young mother is kind of frowned upon. And they're having, you know, having, you know, children later and later in life because you have to focus on, on your career first. Uh, and I, I had this conversation with, with my daughter this morning and just asked her, Alexa, my set, my 20 year old. And I asked her, I said, if you could be born into any time period in any generation, you know, what would it be? And she laughed. And she says she's had this conversation with her friends. And you know, she, was like talking about like, my our parents generation. So I guess that's like almost baby boomer generation. Like, so like born in the 50s, grown up in the 60s and 50s and 60s. Right. She she didn't want to feel she said, basically, we can't have fun anymore. We're glued. We're glued to these phones. Everything's so expensive. Nobody's free and everyone's anxious. That's hopeful. See, that makes me think that the pendulum will swing. It could be. I mean, right now, we're talking about a lot of Sean (51:12.402) traditional institutions that are kind of burning to the ground. And so I want to get Freya's kind of viewpoint on what is modern feminism and how feminism movements can actually harm girls. Freya India (51:25.062) Yeah, I think, well, the way I see it is I think young women, like young men, need some meaning in their life. So I do think that things like creative work and meaningful work are good for everyone. And I think, like you said at the beginning, women need their own identity in order not to be vulnerable to potentially bad men or getting stuck in relationships where they're unhappy. I do think that's... all true, but I think what's happened with modern feminism is it's just amplified the pressure to where so we have the exact same pressures men now to succeed and be professional, professional and, you know, have these, like, gruelling nine to five jobs, the exact same. And we've kind of even that out. So we're facing the same pressures. But then women are also facing these insane pressures from the beauty industry to look perfect all the time. And they're also facing these insane pressures to be very motherly and have a really like really look after their family. And so I think what we've ended up with is amplifying everything. So women have pressure to exceed in all of these areas of life, which is just not manageable. And I think that plays a part in women feeling overwhelmed and falling apart and even maybe saying, you know, I must have. ADHD because I can't concentrate at work and also have this perfect relationship and also try and look Perfect and keep up with this And obviously men have their own pressures. It's not just women, but I feel that the pressure to work and consume and be these perfect Perfect kind of yeah consumers who look amazing and also, you know work just as hard as men and have the perfect relationships All of that is kind of bearing down on women And so I feel like the counter narrative doesn't have to be, you know, you don't need to work, you should be a stay at home mom, or, you know, go right back to traditional relationships. It just needs to be, you know, is everything in your life being determined by the market? Is it all being determined by how much you can contribute to the market or consume? And then stepping away from that. So in all areas of life, you know, not making. Freya India (53:40.574) a career for a corporation that doesn't care about you, the central meaning in your life. Also, not making consuming products and services to look good and whatever, making that the central meaning in your life. So I think the narrative I kind of want to share to young women is just, you know, the things you should value and make the meaning of your life should be things outside of the market as much as you possibly can. Because otherwise the pressure, they'll find more and more things to sell to you and you know, put more and more pressure on your lifestyle to the point where it will be unmanageable. Sean (54:17.202) This could just be my exposure to my personal algorithm. But I am observing on social media a counterculture movement that is driven by women seeking to return to more traditional ways of living. Whether that's embracing monogamy, marriage, escaping the workforce, reporting the harms of birth control, the pill, rejecting a lot of aspects of modern living and even just promoting more traditional values and rural living is... Freya India (54:29.432) Mm-hmm. Sean (54:46.342) that really occurring or is that something that is just being pushed in my algorithm? Are you seeing something similar? Freya India (54:53.022) I mean, I see it online because of my algorithm. I'm yet to experience it in real life. I don't, I think there's like an intuitive sense so people will, they'll know that work is stressing them out and they'll know that it may be at some point they want a meaningful relationship and children. But I do kind of cringe because I feel like now we're seeing almost a caricature of the other side, which is like... Sean (54:55.582) Yeah. Freya India (55:21.974) you know, go right back to, everyone has to go back to tradition. You can't have any, you can't have any kind of meaningful work in your life if you're a woman. And I think there's a middle ground to be found. And I think actually, especially with technology, there's a middle ground to be found where you can, like me, for example, I find such meaning in writing and having my creative work. But I also know that eventually I want to be a mum and have a family. And I think there's like a hybrid now that you can achieve. in the modern world that you couldn't before. So I think there's, I hope that a lot of young women will be drawn to that kind of middle ground rather than like the caricature, like tradwife lifestyle or the girl boss life. So I don't think it has to be either extreme. Sean (56:09.274) Yeah, I would say that culture exists obviously, because maybe it's in your algorithm and you're, and you're watching those videos, which means it is there. So the question you need to ask is, you know, how large is that movement? And if it is happening, is it something that's growing or is it something that's always been there? And now those, that group is just being a little more vocal through social media space to talk about the things that they feel are important or the things that have created value in the life or have. Freya India (56:16.717) Mm-hmm. Sean (56:37.762) made living more meaningful, which for them individually may be being the head of a household and raising children or, you know, cooking great meals and, you know, collaborating with her husband on raising the children. Like those things are important to some people. It really comes down to the individual is what's important to you. What are your values? What are you looking for? And then taking the appropriate steps in that life transition when it's, when it's right. I think Freya mentioned some things that I think are important. One is, purpose in life. And I think a lot of this is being pushed by conservative Christians, Christian women, who are seeking a return to family in a lot of, I mean, I'm just looking at some statistics. Around 50% of US children experience their parents getting divorced. And that's powerful because that is their model of what a healthy relationship is. Freya India (57:28.386) Hmm. Sean (57:36.442) And what I'm observing is a genuine fear of women to attach to men, to connect with men, because there seems to be like a lack of trust that a man could actually like commit themselves to them. And like monogamous, loyal, marital dyads will be able to present itself throughout the lifetime. So, you know, there might have been a time where being married was a primary life goal to be able to meet your purpose and your needs around family economically and to really experience what love is and I think right now the institution of marriage is Really under attack at least in popular Western culture, which I also think is purposeful so I want to open up the conversation just to talk about the dating life of Generation Z and you know their experience of monogamy and and marriage and all things that might be influencing what is really an anxiety around love. Freya India (58:42.474) Yeah, I think that's exactly it. I think if I had to describe the most common kind of feeling I get from young women, it's around relationships and dating. It's like fear and risk aversion. Actually, like absolute terror of her, again, these feelings, these uncomfortable feelings of hurt and rejection and abandonment. And I think it's very understandable if you look at... like one the divorce rates you know our templates for love are usually we're usually growing up in families where they've broken down um so we don't have we haven't seen it modeled for us but then there's all kinds of other things like online porn people you know kids are exposed to online porn like as early as age nine now before they've even got anywhere close to a relationship or talking to the opposite gender or learning about them then you've got like scrolling through social media, seeing the most extreme exaggerated depictions of either gender and this kind of like gender war that we seem to have going on now. And then dating apps where everyone swipes through each other like we're all products and we're all disposable. I think all of these things create understandable risk aversion for young men and for young women in the sense no one wants to put themselves on the line, no one wants to start, you know, serving someone else in case they don't get it back. So everyone kind of holds back, no one wants to, you know, be the needy and the desperate and the clingy one. And so I feel we've all kind of got this front up to protect ourselves because we've had bad templates for love and the dating market is so confusing and you know people... don't really stick around like they used to because there's not the kind of social norms keeping that in place. But then we kind of shoot ourselves in the foot because the more risk averse you are, you don't offer anything, you don't sacrifice for anyone, you don't go full into that commitment and then you never get the full commitment back. And so I think there's just a lot of fear about kind of committing to deep love and like... Freya India (01:01:03.102) love that actually compromises and sacrifices because we're just terrified that we're not going to get it in return. Sean (01:01:11.186) Yeah, there's an entire generation that's just not being vulnerable. And, and you can't find love unless you are vulnerable. You have to throw yourself into that moment and say, this is who I am. And I want to be with you. And that's hard. And then I use the word disposable. The, the idea of a disposable relationship, that whole swiping culture to me is just so. Freya India (01:01:15.051) Yeah. Freya India (01:01:30.488) Mm. Sean (01:01:37.086) problematic because the grass is always greener, right? That mentality of like constantly swiping through people and say, Oh, this didn't work out. I'm just going to find somebody else. You never find somebody else unless you open up and really be vulnerable. I mean, yeah, maybe. Go ahead. Freya India (01:01:49.022) Yeah. And I think, yeah, and I was just going to say that I think that that's where a lot of the pressure on looks comes from because now when you're finding love, you're finding love through an advert of yourself as a product on a dating app. Um, so everything comes down to your superficial representation of yourself. So it comes down to how you look or how many pictures you have on holiday or traveling or like what stuff you buy that you've got in the background. It's very superficial. Sean (01:02:09.31) Mm-hmm. Freya India (01:02:19.106) because that is the starting place for love now. And so there's not an emphasis on who you are as a person or how vulnerable you're being or how loyal you are. It's none of that. And so the pressure to be this like perfect product for someone to want to buy is like the main thing bearing down on Gen Z. Whereas, you know, previous generations, it would be, you know, how good am I at conversation? How... Sean (01:02:46.373) Mm-hmm. Freya India (01:02:46.994) loyal, what can I offer this person in terms of my values and then you don't have to worry so much about being the most attractive. So the incentives are all wrong to find actual deep connection and Sean (01:03:00.006) I also think there's a distortion of what love is. It is communicated in popular culture as if it's like a feeling like you would get like you'd see in a movie or, you know, you would get when you watch like The Bachelor or something, right? And it's so built on passion, this initial attractiveness that exists. And I'll never forget this. The priest during my wedding actually gave a great homily sermon Freya India (01:03:18.719) and Sean (01:03:30.01) what love is. And I'll never forget it and it sticks with me at times when you struggle in your marriage. Because he said, love is not a feeling. Love is so much more than a feeling. It's an action, it's a verb. Imagine what happens in culture when you communicate love as a feeling. Feelings come and go, feelings like the weather. Sometimes you're irritable. Sometimes you're in a good mood, sometimes you're in a bad mood, sometimes you're tired, sometimes you're unhappy with your partner, sometimes you're happy with your partner. What are you saying? Love just comes, it's fleeting, it just comes and goes based on, you know, your mood at the particular moment, and that's what's communicated in our popular culture. So therefore, if someone is unhappy in the moment, they attribute it to their partner, instead of seeing love as just a greater concept of like an energy and of a commitment and your willingness to work through things, even when they're not at their best. because if you're gonna make a lifelong commitment to somebody, I mean, you might be committing 50 plus years with the same person. There's gonna be ups and downs in that relationship, but that stability matters. And certainly there's horrible relationships and it's best to get out of those relationships, right? Sometimes you see infidelity and you see abuse and you see drug addiction and there's a number of things that it's in everyone's best interest for that relationship to end. However, I think we've lost our willingness and our ability to know how to work through things, how to face them and how to overcome them. I think older generations speak to this much better than even our generation, Sean, is they'll say that you have to fall in and out of love with your partner. You know, you got to fall and live with in love with them, back in love with them, you got to rediscover them at different times in your life. I got married when I was 24 years old. I had a daughter when I was 24 years old. Freya India (01:04:54.703) Mm. Yeah. Sean (01:05:19.914) I was your age. I danced with my daughter at my wedding. Whoops. And we were young, but you grow through that. You're different, who you're gonna be at 24 is gonna be different who you're gonna be at 30, and who you're at 40 is gonna be different who you're at 30 and so forth. And that's just not communicated. Those lessons aren't passed down. And so there's a misrepresentation of what love is. I had the opportunity of spending some real quality time with our grandfather. Freya India (01:05:20.844) Thank you. Sean (01:05:47.758) out on the West coast and, and sitting around a kitchen table with him after our grandmother had a stroke, he looked me in the eye. Uh, this was right around the time before I proposed to my now wife. And he just said, listen, uh, when you make that decision of who you want to spend your life with, know that the passion, the sex eventually that kind of goes away. Uh, you need to make sure that this, this is what you love. Just being with that person. sitting with them, being in the presence and knowing that the two of you together make each other better because all that other stuff is fleeting. And if that's all it's based on, it's gonna fail. Now, this is what I wanna ask Freya because we had to approach girls, right? It was pretty much on us. Let's face it, like girls weren't that aggressive back in the 80s and 90s, the 90s essentially for us. Like they weren't, I don't think they were culturally that. Freya India (01:06:33.59) Thank you. Sean (01:06:44.154) aggressive and there was nowhere to contact us like through social media, DMs or anything like that. Like my son gets contacted through DMs. You know, like someone will see him on Instagram and they DM him and then like that's how they end up like talking right. But there's a safety to that, right? There's a distance. There's a distance. But we had to like go up face to face. We had a spark conversation. We had to make ourselves interesting. We had to we had to find ways to flatter that girl. in ways that were different than what would be typically like they would flatter because you want to stand out. And we had to know that we could get rejected in that moment to our face. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's why like, I mean, but you know, maybe you well that I mean, that's like the influence of alcohol, right? Like alcohol gives you some of that when you're young, it gives you that courage, the liquid courage to be able to say those things at that developmental period. But then you generally you have to follow up with them. Freya India (01:07:24.787) I'm sorry. Sean (01:07:40.198) you know, even, you know, after that night that you kind of said those things. Can't be drinking all the time. No, you can't. But you learn skills. Right? You learn skills as a as a young man on how to connect with a woman and what a woman wants. And I feel like that might be lost. Freya are like guys coming up to you and hitting on you and sparking conversations with you and, and trying to court you. Freya India (01:07:45.55) Thank you. Freya India (01:08:05.854) No, well, I don't really go out much. So I'm not like, yeah, no, that's true. But I think, no, that's not happening. Like if I go out with my girlfriends, it's not like guys coming up to the table or buying drinks. It's like more of a rare thing. And I think, you know, gen Z women would kind of find it strange. So sometimes it would be like, you know, what's his motive? Sean (01:08:10.118) But that's the thing nobody does in your generation that much anymore. Freya India (01:08:34.614) rather than, you know, this is a romantic thing. But I think your generation was very lucky to have the, to be forced to go and speak to someone because it's really like stunting a generation to be able to, I think that the big problem is being able to rehearse everything you say before you say it. So if you send a DM, you can really think it through. You can say the most charming thing. You can like Google what to say. You can make it perfect. Um, which is a real problem because if you think of like Gen Z being terrified to talk on the phone, I think a lot of that comes from the fact you can't rehearse it, you're just talking live and there's anxiety because we're used to being able to orchestrate and get it right just how we want it. Um, so I think even just having the ability to DM someone is so stunting because when you're on, when you're face to face with them in real life, you feel like there's so much pressure to get it. perfect. So I think, yeah, among young men, there's so much risk aversion around that and, and terror getting rejected. And also now, if you have like a clumsy moment as an adolescent or a young man, say you get rejected, someone could literally film it and put it on social media, or record it on social media or like, talk about it on group chats, like If your generation experienced that, maybe people would talk about it and then it would kind of fade. But I think now we're so terrified to put ourselves in a situation when we're embarrassed or rejected. Because that girl could then go on Instagram and tell all her friends or put it on Twitter, this guy just approached me, he did this. So there is big risk involved that there wasn't before. Sean (01:10:27.39) I would have a playlist of shameful moments. My goodness, I couldn't live in this. No, I couldn't. I could not grow up in this era. I mean, I feel so horrible for the people that do. I don't feel like I can even give my son advice anymore because the rules have changed. Actually, just tell them to be real. Stay off the digital world and just if you're somebody interested and just approach them. Be the unique individual in your social circle. Be the Freya. Like Freya is kind of a... Freya India (01:10:41.516) Yeah. Sean (01:10:55.878) removed herself from it and now she's the unique person in her circle. But the problem is, is what you know, Freya's indicating is that her generation would see these behaviors as odd and potentially threatening in some ways. Like if that, you know, that might be weird or strange. It's like you don't trust people's intentions anymore because that's why you get to know them. You sound older than me. Freya India (01:11:06.007) to you. Freya India (01:11:18.558) I think it's, if I think if you, my advice to young people would be to do that is to is to be real and get off the internet. Because especially if you want something like a long term deep meaningful relationship. So for example, there's a lot of young men looking for that, but they're looking for it on a dating app. And they're looking for it based off of looks or how someone presents on Tinder. And vice versa, you know, there's young women looking for a man to settle down with and they're basing it off how someone looks on a dating app. Whereas I think if you actually tried to approach people in real life and take yourself out, you're more likely to find people who also have those values and aren't valuing all of this superficial nonsense. So you might be an outsider, but you're probably more likely to attract what you want if you actually step out and be different. And I've said it to young women before, like if you're not posting online all the time what you're doing, you're gonna be attractive and mysterious and different because everyone is telling everyone what they're doing all the time. So you have a real opportunity to be interesting. And the right guy, if a guy is not interested in you because you're not posting half naked selfies on Instagram, he's not the one to settle down with anyway. the guy you want to settle down with will be very interested in you because you're not participating in that. And I think that's a message that young women aren't hearing from like influencers obviously or people in pop culture. No one's telling them that could actually be more attractive. Sean (01:12:58.942) I completely agree. I think it's a degree of self-esteem and confidence that to me would be very attractive. What she just said is our Instagram post. That's what you need to take that part out. And we put that on Instagram. I feel like the degree of anxiety is so palpable. There's new rules. It's like there's a game that's being played and I had to learn new rules through my clients. And I'll give a great example of it. Madison was showing me something on Instagram and she handed me her phone and she freaked out afraid I was going to touch the screen and like it. And I'm like, who cares? And she's like, Oh my God, don't see the like you can't like it. That'd be so weird. And then I said, well, can't you just unlike it? She's like, No, that's going to be even worse. They're going to see that you liked it and then they unlike that. And I was like, Oh, geez. I'm like, I'm afraid to touch the phone. I'm like, just hold it up for me. What do you want me to see? You know, and I get that in my sessions too. It's like, there's a certain amount of time that you have to wait before you return a text. Cause if you do it too quickly, like you can't like, likes are like akin to being cheated on. Like I'll have girls in my sessions who are literally in tears because the guy that they're seeing liked another girl's picture. And it becomes World War III. And I have such a hard time understanding that, right? That's another level of insecurity and fear that we can't connect with. Freya India (01:14:35.522) But I think these companies, like my sense is that these companies know that. So they know, for example, what can make someone insecure in a relationship or make girls go crazy or, or even guys worrying about what their girlfriends do, because they have all these features that seem to play on that. So if like, for example, on Snapchat, they've just released a new feature where it shows other people a rank order of who you Snapchat the most. So say you're boyfriend, you suddenly see that you're number two and some other girl is number one, or you can see like his Snapchat scores gone up so he's been messaging someone you don't know who. And all of these other even like tiny things on social media like if you send a guy a message and now you can see that he's read it. and not responded, like the tiny little spikes of anxiety that gives people and keeps them on their phone because they need to keep checking, has he been active, has he seen it, who's he liking? It creates this like obsessive hypervigilance all the time. And I think companies know that because like what a way to keep young girls on their phone is to make it, you need to be checking out what your partner's doing. Yeah, so I think it's. I feel really sorry for young girls getting caught in that trap because, you know, like I said at the beginning, they're kind of wired to feel insecure and anxious at that age and then companies are just exploiting that for every penny. Sean (01:16:12.046) I totally agree. And, you know, that's where I think the pharmaceutical industry has. Really aligned itself with like mainstream psychology, psychiatry, the mental health industry to drive more people to their product. And this is where Sean, you know, I get in trouble with this stuff because I'm one of the few people out that they're saying that there's no such thing as ADHD. And when I do, I just get killed on social media and you know, Freya India (01:16:34.326) Mm. Sean (01:16:38.246) people feel like they can call me all types of names that they would never have said to my face, right? But like on social media, they'll just like kill you. Like you're a grifter or whatever. I had to learn what a grifter was. Like I didn't even know what that was. But the truth is the matter is that our brains are working exactly like they're designed to do. And these industries have a very strong understanding of human attention and neurology. So like if you condition yourself to Only keep your attention to these reels that are on like TikTok or Instagram, right? It's very engaging. Um, but you're, you're conditioned to only keep your attention for a very short period of time, then you go to the next thing and then the phone is so addictive. And just like Freya was like stating is in the relationship with that cyber relationship world, you know, you can do all your stalking on there and you can see, you know, who your love interest is, is paying attention to and You can be anxiously awaiting their texts. And then when we put them into the world and we expect them to like read or to listen to a lecture, that becomes much more difficult because the brain is designed to attach to the most relevant stimuli. It's a survival mechanism. It's not a disorder that you can't pay attention to what you're reading, especially if it's boring or a lecture. It's exactly how your brain is designed to act. And of course they're gonna captivate a customer base around this concept that there is something wrong with them and they have a drug that's going to be able to help them with it, which it does, like a stimulant will for a short period of time, allow them to maybe increase a focus or attention, even elevated mood until it doesn't anymore because the brain adapts to it, you become dependent. And now it's a gateway into the mental health system. And Frey, I'm looking at the statistics in your country in the UK. And the antidepressant use for girls is like just as bad in the United States, if not worse. You know, culturally, what's happening there for driving girls to antidepressants? You have a different medical system than us. So you know, what I hear coming out of the UK tends to be a little bit different than what we're experiencing here in the United States. Why are so many girls being pushed to antidepressants? Freya India (01:18:46.372) Mmm. Freya India (01:19:06.854) I think it's this whole thing in modern life of a quick fix. It's like young girls will be feeling these really negative emotions, this real emotional suffering that's kind of inherent to being young anyway. Then they're growing up in the modern world, where as you said, everything is, so for example, the modern life is so intensely stressful and kind of stimulating and you're getting like, watching TikToks for six hours a day and then thinking you're ADHD. You know, there's all of these things in modern life, which they're having a normal reaction to, and then thinking that there's something wrong with them. And then there's two ways they can go about it. They can try, you know, to talk to their family about it. They can try and improve their lifestyle through diet and exercise. And like we said earlier, doing actual self-reflection. Um, but that's a lot of work and it's a lot of delayed. gratification. And so I think what they're being drawn to is this quick fix, which is like, I'm feeling so overwhelmed with my social anxiety. And, you know, one path could be slowly exposing yourself to more scary situations and putting yourself through the discomfort or the other is to get medication. And I think it's just know, it's very sinister in the US where you can advertise the antidepressants and there's like all these kind of companies literally delivering them to your door without you seeing a doctor, which I think are insane. But I think in the UK, it's there's a similar influence, but it's, in a way, it's kind of worse because it's very subtle. So for example, if you go to the doctor and you're filling out a form of whether you have depression, I'm pretty sure, I think it was James Davies did research on this and found that form is like funded by pharmaceutical companies or the language they use to describe the symptoms was obviously decided by the DSM board who are all like funded by pharmaceutical company. So it is all being influenced by these industries, but without us really realising that that's what's going on. But I think for young girls themselves, they just want a quick fix. Like if you go on Freya India (01:21:23.338) these forums that young girls are on, you'll see people saying, you know, I'm 12 and I'm really stressed. How do I get a antidepressant prescription and someone will give them a script of what to say to the doctor, like the words they need to use in order for that doctor to give them the medication. So if they want a certain social anxiety medication, they're told, okay, you need to say you've had symptoms for this long. you need to say that your parents said this to you and they're not allowing it. You know, and there's like, um, that's how much they want to fix it quickly. It's like they're actively searching for the diagnosis and the fix. Sean (01:22:02.962) Can we reverse course? Freya India (01:22:07.416) I mean, I do have some hope of what we said earlier that it might get so ridiculous that people start to think, you know, this is just too far. But I'm not, you know, hopeful about that because I just every day I see something which is some kind of mental health intervention or app or drug or new disorder that's coming out. to try and help Gen Z and people seem to think more and more mental health awareness, more and more mental health medication, more therapy, even though pretty much all the evidence we have now is showing that it's not making a dent and if anything it's getting worse. So the fact that people still think that that's the route to go down and I think, you know, our algorithm probably shows us people who are skeptical but I think if you went to sort of the average girls school and spoke to the girls there, no one would be skeptical of therapy or medication or any of these diagnosis they take it is so self evident. And I see it, you know, with my writing, I'm trying to talk to young women and girls, and it's really hard to engage them. Because the second they see me scrutinizing any of this, they think, you know, they reject any skepticism of the mental health industry. So it's it's incredibly hard to even get them to get to that level where they start being skeptical because they'll just switch off. So yeah, I'm pessimistic. Sean (01:23:40.854) I am more curious about the UK culture because from an outsider's perspective, I mean, I'm following some of the movements that exist in your country. Like I follow the work of Joanna Moncrief, James Davies, you know, I listen to Russell Brand's podcast because, you know, he's very anti-authoritarian and he's, I think, bringing a lot of attention to what's happened globally and, you know, the importance of like national sovereignty and liberty and small communities and Freya India (01:23:53.727) Mm-hmm. Sean (01:24:10.086) you know, things of that nature. It just, and now I'm following your work. It just seems like there's a little bit more of an uprising against this in the UK. Um, it's much smaller country than ours, but in the United States, there is a system that has been developed. Our medical system, it's all so aligned together. It's like fast food, like healthcare and industry is so powerful in our nation. Uh, it's, it's hard for. Freya India (01:24:25.289) Mm. Freya India (01:24:35.071) Mm. Sean (01:24:37.042) for professionals to function outside of that system. So even if like medical professionals who agree with my stance on things, um, they have a hard time finding a way to make a living and supporting their family outside of the corporation in which they're working for. Generally speaking for us, it's the large healthcare networks, the large hospital networks, because just our laws, the way the affordable care act was instituted in, you know, like 2008, whatever that was. Um, has just created it almost being possible to be independent. And then if you do something like I'm doing, which is kind of going to social media and having a podcast and speaking out about those things, I can do that only because I have my own practice, because I am independent. But that's, you know, it's really difficult to be able to survive in our country. What do you think's going on in your culture? Maybe I'm actually reading it wrong, but there seems to be like an anti-pathology. Freya India (01:25:21.345) Mm. Freya India (01:25:36.834) Hmm Sean (01:25:36.902) movement, even Dr. Jessica Taylor, who we've had on our podcast, who's really anti pathology and, you know, speaks about things, you know, from a trauma informed perspective. But I think she's what she's trying to do, and she's trying to protect the well being of young girls, especially who've been exposed to trauma, and to move away from slapping that diagnosis and giving that drug and trying to understand how a psychiatric disorder and how a psychiatric drug can really enslave you in so many ways. Freya India (01:26:07.194) I think my sense on it is that people in the UK are more skeptical of things being sold to them than in America. That's just kind of the intuitive sense I have because when I've visited America and I see the pharmaceutical ads on the TV and other ads for other things, there's something which I think is like a British response to it which is like, oh, this is just so wrong to be selling that kind of thing and it's so inauthentic. and they're obviously trying to do this and whatever. And it's, I think it's just because we haven't grown up with that kind of advertising. I think the advertising is very different here than it is in America. So, you know, even the way they advertise like the contraceptive pill and the way they talk about that is very alien to British people because we've just never experienced it being sold to us in that way. And so I think that probably explains some of the skepticism around when we hear things constantly like mental health awareness, you need to buy this, you need to go to therapy, you need to do this. When it starts to feel like an advertising campaign, I think British people, this is literally just my sense of it, have more of a reaction of, I don't trust what's being sold to me here. Whereas I feel like when I visited the US, the consumer culture is so strong that it's... that quick fix mentality seems to be very much part of the culture, which is like, I need to buy my way out of this problem. And I don't sense that as being as strong in the UK. And I think there is some hope of young people kind of getting ice. When I talk about it on Substack, I see a lot of young people in the UK kind of saying I'm so sick of being sold things. So I did this post recently about you can't buy an authentic self. so they keep trying to sell us our identity through like cosmetic surgery or mental health medication, whatever it is. And the amount of comments of people saying, I cannot deal with any more advertisements for, you know, beauty products or better help or whatever it is. So I think young people are sick of being sold to and selling themselves. And I hope that leads to like a swing back against some of this. Freya India (01:28:31.734) superficial consumer culture. Sean (01:28:35.646) One final question on the British culture. Traditionally speaking, it's always been a culture of people who valued resilience. Kind of like a stiff upper lip, buck up your British. Those of us who've kind of followed World War II and the World War II generation, I mean, your country was getting bombed and then as soon as the bombing was over, you get right back out and you'd kind of start life again. Winston Churchill, you know, kind of epitomizes that time period. Freya India (01:29:00.29) Mm-hmm. Sean (01:29:06.338) Then what has then changed in your culture where there are so much identification with kind of like the mental health industry? Has there been a pendulum shift in like how you culturally think about resilience in your emotional states? Freya India (01:29:20.214) Yeah, I think there's actually a huge rift in the UK between older generations and younger, like an inability to understand each other. You know, if I talk to my grandparents who were around during the war and talk to them about their experiences, it's so foreign to the way Gen Z talk about experiences. So like, my granddad lost his dad when he was like seven and never... kind of impacted him. He's he has had like a 60 year marriage. He's been the most stable, like, well adjusted person. There's no talk of trauma. There's no talk of victimhood at all. And I think that's a huge, you know, testament to that generation, but also the gift, the strange gift they had in the way in a way of facing difficulty. Whereas my generation, we like generally speaking have not faced that level of difficulty. We've not had these kind of threats to our survival. We've not had to, you know, pull ourselves together and just get on and being in that survival mode. And I think that's actually something that I feel really sorry for us for, because we've not developed any of that resilience. And there's no, like I was talking about this the other day, there's no language of defiance among Gen Z. You know, my dad died and I have ADHD and I still managed to accomplish all of this. I still managed to treat people right. I still managed, I did it, you know, overcoming the odds. There's no talk of overcoming the odds anymore. If you do overcome the odds, it was because you were privileged all along. You never really were suffering. Whereas, you know, older generations in the UK, it's very much like this happened to me and this happened to me and I got on with it. Whereas now, we younger generations see that as almost offensive. Like if you're telling me that I can overcome this, then you're telling me that it's not real. And I think that's really tragic and it's not gonna serve us well as we get into adulthood and have actual responsibilities or face tragedy in our life. We just have no ammunition to deal with that. Sean (01:31:38.418) Well said. I do believe if we are gonna reverse course, we have to begin to shift the conversation to resilience. You know, our perceptions become our reality and we are creators of our own reality. So when you were exposed to the Great Depression or World War II, or really every day was about survival, your perception of what is traumatic is different. Even though the... Freya India (01:31:46.548) Mm. Freya India (01:31:50.69) Thank you. Freya India (01:32:01.996) Yeah. Sean (01:32:03.422) data is going to suggest most people who are even exposed to a legitimate trauma don't develop PTSD symptoms and it reflects the inherent nature of our resilience. We are now overusing the word trauma. And I had this, got this discussion with Dr. Taylor. How can everything be traumatic? Don't we kind of cheapen the word in a lot of sense? Like if, if being broken up by your boyfriend is a trauma or being rejected by a friend is a trauma, then You know, what happens when someone loses their legs in a car accident? What if someone was raped? What if somebody lost a loved one who was murdered in front of them? We have to be able to distinguish the differences in the human experience and condition and what really does, you know, impact the psyche. Prolonged abuse and neglect and so forth has a different impact on us emotionally and psychically. psychologically than the day to day hurts. And I think we've misrepresented the word trauma that now is communicated in any sense of an emotional pain. Emotional pain is now trauma. Therefore, any struggle you have in your life is due to your traumas. And that is part of the manipulation of the therapy industry in my belief is that, you know, therapists have to also make a living. And so you need to have people who are going to see that as an avenue to resolving your struggles. That therapy is the path to resolving your struggles. So in order to do that, you have to kind of create an idea around your emotional pain. And I don't think people realize that. Like we are creating an idea around pain and trauma. It doesn't mean it's true, because we can all create our own ideas around our emotional hurts. For example, we can say, that experience as painful as it was has served me well in my growth. It is a blessing in disguise. Two different ideas around the same exact event. So how we actually think about our experience matters and that's the shift generationally. If one generation is being taught that your emotional pain is the reason for your struggles and you are a victim in an oppressed culture, while the other Sean (01:34:23.218) generation is taught that life is hard and suffering exists. And part of this path in our life is about overcoming that suffering, facing that pain and being able to move on and learn from it and seeing it in terms of a growth mindset. That's two distinct differences generationally. And to me, there's no doubt that the older generation's approach to that experience is much more healthy than what's being. conditions to this generation. Final thoughts on that, Freya. Freya India (01:34:56.847) Yeah, I think almost now we're being encouraged to search for something in our childhood to explain it. So you might have had like a very comfortable like middle class upbringing, no trauma, no suffering and you go to therapy as a teenage girl and you say, I'm really struggling with depression or anxiety or something. And I feel as if the therapist is now encouraging you to look back and find something. because obviously we want a sense of control. We want like a neat explanation. We want a narrative so we can say, oh, actually it's because my dad did this when I was six. He shouted at me and then actually it's because of my parents. And I feel like that can create so many other problems where one, you're not taking personal accountability. Two, you're not kind of growing from that because you're saying I'm wounded from this trauma. And it can also cause problems with things like estrangement from your family thinking actually my parents are to blame, my childhood is to blame. And you see a lot of Gen Z who had these like very comfortable upbringings talking about trauma they experienced. And I think again, it's one of these things that people mock Gen Z for but I actually feel extremely sorry for young people being encouraged to do that because You know, if you're constantly searching for an excuse while you feel unhappy, you're gonna do that for the rest of your life because there's gonna be a million things you could do that for. Whereas if you just, you know, have as your core belief, life is suffering, everyone has these traumas and struggles, and I'm gonna try and overcome the odds. As you said, that's a whole different narrative and it's a whole different sense of self and the world. So yeah, I think there's a lot to kind of cringe at and not understand about Gen Z, but I think actually it's a very tragic situation that we've put young people in. Sean (01:37:25.681) Yeah, it Yeah, certainly how you frame your reality. So Freya, we've kept you a while. I really do appreciate your time. Certainly I think our audience is gonna reflect on this, that you are wise beyond your years. I'm pretty blown away that someone of your age can have these types of discussions with the depth that you're able to have them. I mean, you have such astute observations and you're so articulate. It really was a blessing to be able to have this conversation with you today. Freya India (01:37:38.354) Thank you. Freya India (01:37:54.594) Thank you, I really enjoyed it. I think it's, again, it's so rare to have a conversation even between generations about these things and I think it's so valuable, so thank you. Sean (01:38:04.79) I am interested though if we can just kind of wrap it up on where you see your career going in the future. It seems like your writing is very successful and you're really kind of making a name for yourself as a writer but just interested in to know like where your passions, your interests, future directions are. Freya India (01:38:23.914) Yeah, well, my main passion is writing. I'm doing these podcasts and the kind of media appearances all to kind of bring back to my writing. So I don't really see myself as being like a media personality or kind of in that world. I think writing is really how I express myself the best. But I'm doing some work with Jonathan Haidt now to try and help him. He's gonna start a movement to go along with his book to free the anxious generation. So I want to be a part of that. And I think, yeah, for the foreseeable future, my focus is going to be trying to wake up other people within Gen Z to what's going on. And actually like, it's a cringey word now, but empower them to be like, you can escape this and you can lift that pressure off of yourself. So that's what I'm going to continue writing about. Cause I think it's really the only thing I write about that I really feel passionate about. And I think it's brings out my voice because I actually care and have experienced it. So I think, yeah, that's going to be my focus for a while. Sean (01:39:31.051) Yeah, I couldn't imagine a better person to really represent your generation in that cause. So I do wish you the best of luck. Where can people find you? Freya India (01:39:40.978) So I'm on Twitter, it's Freya India A, so that's just where all my writing is, and then I'm writing on Substack, which is freyaindia.co.uk, and then not on any other social media. Sean (01:39:53.454) Yeah, really I do recommend, highly recommend Girls. Read it. It's a different type of publication. You will feel enlightened. There'll be those aha moments. Probably a lot like listening to her today on the podcast. You're like, huh, yeah, that's an interesting perspective. I didn't think about it that way. You get a lot of those things from reading her work. I mean, it is absolutely excellent. So, Fran, I wanna thank you for. Truly a radically genuine conversation. Freya India (01:40:23.862) Thank you so much.