Tom Kirsting is a licensed psychotherapist, a family counselor. He's the author of Raising Healthy Teenagers and also Disconnected: Getting Your Kids Off Those Devices. You can find him on X at Tom Kirsting. Super easy, Doctor Tom. Welcome.
Thank you for joining me on the Brian Kilmeade Show. Hi, what's going on, Mary? How you doing? Good to talk to you. I'm doing well, thank you.
So I saw this this article and I said to Allison, I said, "I think Doctor Tom on this. This is a really good story." So this comes out of the UK. It's a telegraphed story, and it's titled "How Having a Disability Became Cool." And I have noticed this with some people that I know. Their child is diagnosed with ADD, or time blindness is another one. He just can't get up in time to go to school, and so they kind of wear the their child's disability on their sleeve.
And yep, he has to have more time to to finish tests. You know, because he he can't get to school on time, he's got this accommodation, that accommodation, and they wear it. They wear it as as almost a, it's almost a Munchausen's by proxy. I think in my world, so I want to start off talking about the parents' influence on all of this first. In the UK, they say one out of four British people is now labeled disabled.
It's the it's a higher rate of disability than the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. What's happening? Right, I read that entire story. It's lengthy, and anybody listening should read it. And you know, I saw the term sickfluencers, right?
Yes, and that's part of the issue here. Is all these, you know, social media is all these influencers, and they have sickfluencers, and you have looksnacksing, all this other stuff. And the the issue, not to discredit some people having disabilities, but when you look at, you know, the numbers just escalating so high, everything is a disability now. And even talked about autism, you know, and autism has has skyrocketed in in the in the last like I think it was like one out of every ten thousand fifty years ago. One out of every thousand now it's like one out of every five or something, whatever the number is.
And part of that is. You know that spectrum of autism used to be used to be some called Aspergers, right? Which is a milder form.
So now Aspergers, if somebody is a little bit awkward, right? They can't really look you in the eyes. They seem a little different. Yeah, that would have just been considered like a shy kid or a kid that might be a little strange back in the 1980s. And now there's a diagnosis labeled on them.
And and I look at our whole society. To your point, with parents and everything, it's Running for for a label, and again, we don't want to discredit those labels. But at what point, you know, do we do we look a little further into this, particularly in in the education system, which is strangled now, you know, with um, you know, with special education law and and and the cost that they have to cover, you know, for kids that that have these disabilities, and you know, it's really has a trickle down effect. And yeah, and to your point, like this Munch, I've dealt with that in the past, Munchausen by proxy with the parents. You know, sort of taking their kids to doctors over and over again, trying to find an ailment, and the symptoms may be there, but the the doctors can't find the ailment, and that's called psychosomatic.
Yes.
So, but the parents—why do parents now all of a sudden want to have a child who is considered disabled in some way, shape, or form? That's just weird to me. Yeah, it could be. You know, sometimes it is to get those added benefits, extra time, and accommodations through the school system. But I think you know, as a society now, there's just too much information.
Right in our faces all day long, right? And there is this sort of, you know, this this sort of painted masterpiece of everybody having to to be the great student, the great athlete, the great this, the great dancer. And if you have a kid that may not have those qualities, that may be a little shy, they're not the life of the party. It's almost like you know the parents feel bad for themselves and their child, and are looking for for reasons instead of just. You know, instead of just wrapping their arms around their kids and letting their kids be who they are and flourish and find themselves during the you know the progression of life.
And it's also not fair. What I think is, it's not fair because I was listening to my this one person that I know who just his whole identity is his disabled child, and I just like I I think a lot of it has to do with the parents because he's like, well, you know, he just can't get out of bed, so he had he had to drop out of college because he just couldn't make it on time to classes. I'm like, who's paying his bills? They are, of course. I'm like, why didn't you do what my mother used to do?
What we didn't want to get out of bed to go to school? She opened the drapes. The curtains in your room, bright light. She's like, get it up and get it out the door because I'm not. And if you miss the bus, you're walking because I'm not taking you.
You know, there's some parenting that's involved. I think in all of this, and they're doing their children a great disservice because the kids cannot function later in life, which gets into these sickfluencers that you talk about. These kids go on social media and they tout every every diagnosis they have, and they go from one to the next to. The next, and the next, and the next, and I got pots, and I got this, and I got that, and and that. I guess they make money just by touting their mental illness.
Well, I think I don't even think it's that, Mary. Maybe that's part of it. I think it's more, you know, those individuals they just they're in desperate need of of being noticed, of having some sort of an identity. It's like you know, you hear of somebody who's famous, and then there's somebody who's infamous, right? The infamous person, let's say it's some you know whatever school shooter or mass murderer, right?
They're now infamous, and in many people's minds, it's better to be noticed, even for something negative, than to feel invisible. And that feeling of invisible, that's you know, that's part of the whole self-esteem spectrum. I tell people when I give lectures, you know, what is self-esteem? It's how I feel about me. It's not how others has nothing to do with other people.
It's not called others' esteem, right? And we talk about that, and yeah, that the this idea of self doesn't exist in this virtual world, and the attention that you're getting from everybody else. Because nothing from the outside is actually going to fill whatever void is missing internally, and that's got to be discovered from self in the silence, reflection, controlling thought instead of being controlled by thought, and digging deep within oneself and extracting you know the skills and qualities that are God given to all of us. It's interesting. It's such a different way of parenting.
It's switched in a generation. You know, Gen X. We grew up with parents who didn't give two thoughts about our self-esteem whatsoever. They didn't care, right? They were they were just like sucking up buttercup and get going, and and and I'm sure my brother, my youngest brother, loves to read his old report cards because like in his first grade kindergarten, it says he should be evaluated for possible dyslexia, and my parents totally ignored it and just set him on his merry way.
He's like, he's like, I'm disabled, and you totally ignored me. My mother's like, you're fine. It's funny you bring that up. I remember looking at like my kindergarten, first grade report card that my mother still has, and it always said, you know, Tommy is on cloud nine, right? And Tommy, if that was a modern day Tommy, I would have been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder.
But no, I was just a dreamer, right? And I just, I did, I did well in school, but I just, my mind would wander. I think about great things. I think about God, right? I didn't have ADHD.
I just had a A mind, you know, that like to go in other directions. We'll call it. Right, and every now and then the teacher would come up behind you, smacking the side of the head, and tell you to pay attention. Catholic school, yeah, that's what you get with Catholics. Yeah, and Catholic school.
Well, I I saw a couple kids manhandled in public school, and and I think sometimes that's what.
So, I guess my question is, I want to know where does this go? Do we have an entire generation coming up that's going to live off the public dole because they have ten thousand disabilities, which apparently that just puts you on the gravy train to never having to work. And you know, in the article, it's like a lot of a lot of the it's a lot of young women. I think it was in the UK, right? Yes, yes, and that was the other thing.
Yeah, yeah, and you know, I you know, when I read it, you know, they'll go to their doctor, go to many different doctors, and the doctors like, you know, there's nothing physiologically wrong, physiologically wrong with you. This is you know, this is somatic; it's in your mind. They don't want to hear it. Right, they say the doctor's old school. They don't know what they're talking about, and then they, you know, and then they they collect the following.
They post the stuff online, and they, you know, it's like a collective consciousness, and everybody's on their side. And now, you know, the physician is is the moron, and you know what I'm saying. And it's not how it works. But your point, yeah, what's going to happen? How are they going to function out in the real world?
Are they going to be able to go get a job, show up on time, do it with vigor? The answer is likely no. And does that mean now it's going to? Yeah, they'll be living on the public dime, probably. Yeah, that's something we got to stop.
And to your point about physicians, you know, my my husband's a physician, and he'll tell you, you know, when he sees, he can tell without even looking at a birthdate how old a patient is based on the number of diagnoses that they come in with for all of their disabilities. And what's interesting is that a lot of times they just self-diagnose. He's like, "Well, how do you know you you you have depression? Oh, well, because I I on Google, you know, Google Doctor, you know, WebMD. They went on that and they self-diagnosed." Diagnose with these things, and they are.
I'm sorry to interrupt. Yeah, exactly. I'm just excited to say what I'm about to say.
So, I get a lot of people coming to my private practice, right? And they often use the term "my anxiety." Oh yes, yes, anxiety. And you know, I remember I had somebody not too long ago, and I said, and somebody who I'd been seeing for a while for other things, but she would use the term my depression while my depression. I said, what do you mean by my depression? She goes, well, my.
Well, explain what you mean by that. She says, well, my depression. They said, "How about this for the next week? For the next couple weeks, what I want you to do is every time in your mind you hear yourself, and I'm not discrediting that she feels depressed. I'm not trying to do that.
Say, how about every time that comes into your mind, say my gratitude, my joy, my wonderful life, right? And and she started doing that. And Kiki, guess what happened? Oh, she wasn't depressed anymore. Yeah, she started feeling it, and then kind of.
And again, I'm not saying that that's the solution for everybody. There are people that are genuinely depressed and crippled and can't function. But you know, when you when you kind of slip in that name tag name tag label on yourself, right? Yeah, at some point when you sit back and reflect and look around and say, "Hold on a second," right? Yeah, I get anxious.
Here, here, and here. I do sometimes, right? Right. But I'm not saying my anxiety. That's in many cases just normal, right?
Anxiety is often normal, right? It's not always something that has to be slapped on with a diagnosis and it's an impairment. And sometimes it does. Right, you know, I try to get people to understand. Yeah, like if I go on, you know, I go on national TV all the time.
You know that sometimes my my heart rate starts going up a little bit because I know there's a lot of people watching. Doesn't mean I have a an impairment or a disability. It means that I have a sympathetic nervous system in my brain that's trying to protect me. Yeah, that's evolutionary.
So we got to look sometimes look at it like that from that perspective.
Sometimes I just want to take a quick second here. We got in the couple in the time that we have left to talk about Cornell, about what's going on there, and I just want you to hear this. Cut fifteen, Eric. This is a Cornell student talking about the atmosphere at Cornell and why they think that's partly to blame for this. The main thing that failed her was the Cornell administration.
The Cornell administration fosters a culture where sexual assault and rape can go unpunished for long periods of time, and we do want to work on changing that. But here's the thing. From what I understand, but initially she agreed that this was all consensual, and the guys all said it was all consensual. When Cornell investigated this, now two years later, it was not consensual according to her. And you know, I'm not getting involved in any of that.
I'm not taking sides in any of this. But have we come to a this point in our society where, like, yeah, do whatever you want. You know, be. You know, it's your body, your choice. You and she's and and she supposedly agreed to all what happened initially.
Whereas I got to tell you, my generation again, Gen X. I'm not that old, you know. That that never would have happened. No one would have voluntarily, that I know, would have voluntarily agreed to something like that. Did it happen sometimes?
I'm sure, but it was not something that people talked about openly. You know. Yeah, and you know, even that I read those, you know, those emails as well, and you know, based on that information, you know, you can you can you can somewhat conclude that it was consensual, right? You could say that, but even if that's the case, let's say that is the case that it was consensual, we really don't know yet. If they had those emails, you know, I guess the jury's gonna have to decide on that.
Yeah, but even if it was consensual, you know, in Cornell. You know, their invent. I would find it hard to believe that you know Cornell, if they had a you know clear cut look which looked like a rape case, that they would rush that under drug. I find that hard to believe. And you know, the person that you that just made that comment is is an individual that, no matter what, no matter what evidence is presented to that person, they're they're not going to they're not going to change their position.
That's part of the issue that we're dealing with right now. Even if that person that just made that comment, even if That girl came out like the Duke thing many years ago and said, "Oh, right, you know, I really was, and I made it all up." That person's not going to change their position. They still want those guys, you know, going to jail and their lives ruined. And that's the problem with this whole thing. You know, the the names of the accused are on the front page, and you know she maintains her her secrecy.
You know, her identity is concealed. And one of the guys already lost a job. He was already fired just based on the accusations alone and the circus that's surrounding this. And I fear that they're going to be railroaded because of Letitia James, and that does. No justice.
Yeah, and there are millions of people out there like that young, the person that you just that you just mentioned that got fired. Even if this thing comes out and it was, and you know, all the evidence shows that it was consensual, they didn't commit rape, right? There's still millions of people out there that are going to still say, "Well, that kid deserves to lose his job anyway." Right, you know what I mean, and that's the that's the problem I have. We again, I can't, I don't know what the outcome is going to be. I don't have an opinion on it, but you know our system here, it's not the court of public opinion.
It should be done, you know, by a jury and a judge, the proper way. And you know, even nowadays, those things. I'm not a lawyer, but they seem to be compromised. Yeah, it's very interesting how society just changed in that arena so quickly, so fast, overnight. And I think we we've gone from one extreme to the other as we often do.
Dr. Tom Kirsching again, his books, Raising Healthy Teenagers and Disconnected. Follow him on X at Tom Kirsching. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Mary.
