April 22, 2025

"Psychological Tragedy"

Show Notes
Transcript

Are the kids really alright? The Gen Z'ers are faced with multiple hurdles from economic instability to the polarization of politics, all while still feeling the profound effects of the Lockdowns. "The brutal reality is that we're watching a psychological powder keg detonate in real-time across American campuses," Dr. McConkey notes. Let's Talk about it!

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Any health related information on the following show provides general

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information only. Content presented on any show by any host

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or guest should not be substituted for a doctor's advice.

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Always consult your physician before beginning any new diet, exercise,

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or treatment program.

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It's time to stand up, speak out, get involved, and

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let's speak.

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Intention Hello and welcome to Intentional.

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I am your host, Mick mel It's really good to

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be with you guys today. It's good to see you

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and I pray that you are blessed beyond belief wherever

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you are. Thanks for being with us today. Now, if

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you're catching our show live right now, be sure and

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drop a little comment in the chat and let's go

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you subscribe, hit that like button and then share out

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this interview. I really do appreciate your support on that.

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Now it's time for us to be intentional, and it's

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time for the catterwall. So let's get going today. I

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want to talk about something that I think is very disturbing,

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and that is the mental health of our youth, particularly

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the gen Z and the the interaction there were the

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link together with school shootings. Now after the last school

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shooting at Florida State University. I was doing a bit

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of research and I came upon this article from KFF.

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They do independent health types of policy research, and they

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published an article that was called Examining School Shootings at

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the National and State Level and Mental Health Implications. And

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we'll go ahead and scroll that article for you. I

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want to read to you a little bit of what

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was reported. It said that since the Columbine school shooting

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in nineteen ninety nine, there have been over four hundred

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and twenty school shootings across the United States. More than

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one hundred and sixty of these shootings occurred after the

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onset of the COVID nineteen pandemic, indicating a signific can increase.

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Now that's a serious statistic, folks. According to the Washington Post,

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at least three hundred and ninety thousand students were exposed

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to a school shooting. And they're calling exposure as being

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defined as a student attending a school at which a

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shooting has occurred during the current school year. And that

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has been three hundred and ninety thousand students that have

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been exposed since the nineteen ninety nine Columbine shooting. Now,

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KFF did an analysis of the rate of student exposure

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to school shootings over time, and here's a few key

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findings that they had. The US average yearly rate of

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student exposure to a school shooting has increased threefold over time.

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It's gone from nineteen per one hundred thousand students in

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nineteen ninety nine to two thousand and four to fifty

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one per one hundred thousand students from twenty twenty to

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twenty twenty four. And the schools that had the most

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exposure of students included Delaware, Dcutah, Arkansas, and Nevada. Now,

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children exposed to gun violence may experience some really significant

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adverse effects anxiety, PTSD, suicide risk, substance abuse, I mean,

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the list kind of goes on and on, and some

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of the safety measures they indicated at the schools, like

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the active shooter drills, may also negatively affect the student's

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mental health. Then this past January, Forbes came out with

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an article and they titled it gen zs are stressed,

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burnt out, and face mental health issues. We have that

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article as well to scroll for you, and here's some

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of what they reported. They say that gen Z faces

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a unique set of obstacles as they navigate their careers.

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They cite economic instability and high inflation rising costs. They

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also cited some financial insecurity for many young professionals now.

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They said additionally that the COVID nineteen pandemic has had

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a profound impact on gen Z's social development and mental health.

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Extended periods of isolation during lockdowns have led to diminish

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social lives and difficulties informing meaningful connections. The predominance of

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digital communication has exacerbated the feelings of lowliness and disconnect

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with many jay Zers. Gen Zers excuse me. They go

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on to report that the research reveals that gen Z

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is grappling with elevated levels of mental health challenges compared

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to average employees. Percent of gen Z workers report feeling stress,

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thirty five percent experience depression or faith have anxiety, and

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that's significantly higher than the twenty percent that's on average.

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They also say that forty four percent of the gen

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Z employees feel burned out and thirty percent report feeling isolated.

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Now they had that compared to workers aged twenty one

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to twenty five from twenty eighteen and then today's gen

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Z's employees report lower levels of success, happiness, and engagement

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in their professional lives. So I don't know what's happening here.

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It's really disturbing to me as a nurse. But do

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you remember what President Trump said in twenty twenty.

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Down cost lives lost a lot of problems. The cure

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cannot be You got to remember, it cannot be worse

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than the problem itself. And I've said it many times,

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and when you look at what happens during a lockdown,

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I just say it very loudly, it's horrible what happens

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with drugs, alcohol, depression, loss of jobs, business closures.

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It's a terrible thing.

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Well, that is a significant and disturbing view to me,

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and it's a reality that we are being faced with

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right now. We are witnessing what I'm calling a psychological tragedy.

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It's really unfolding before our eyes. But today we are

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very grateful to have with US Air Force colonel and

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combat physician Josh mconkie. He's going to be here to

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discuss this critical emergency with US now. Doctor McConkie has

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treated both battlefield trauma and hundreds of civilian emergency room crises,

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and he has seen some serious parallels between the two.

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He is also the author of the book Be the

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Weight Behind the Sphere. So welcome with me, Doctor Josh McConkey. Hello, sir, how.

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Are you being very good? Thank you for having me

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on the show today. It's a pleasure.

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Well, thank you, thank you for being with me. There

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was a lot of statistics that I gave at the beginning,

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and as I was going through and doing research, it

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seemed like everything that I was pulling up, as I

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was looking at school shootings, as I was looking at

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the impact of lockdowns, as I was looking at just

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the amount of depression and anxiety, everything kept pointing back

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to Generation Z. But before I jump in, I want

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to thank you so much for being with us today,

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and I wanted to kind of maybe have you talk

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a little bit about your background and experience, because you

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are a practicing emergency room physician. You served in the

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Air Force as a flight surgeon in wartime and in

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peace time, and you also received the Air Medal and

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the Army Commendation Medal for exemplary service during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

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So before we jump right in, I'm going to back

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up a little bit here, backpedal, because, first of all,

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I want to say thank you for your service, and

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second of all, I'd like to see if you could

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give us a little bit of background and experience. It's

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very impressive.

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No, thank you very much. I grew up in a

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very small town in rural western Nebraska, an entire family

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lineage of railroaders. My father, my grandfather, and my great

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grandfather were all railroaders. I broke the mold. I could

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not be contained but to college. Was the first Maconkie

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to do that. And I've done medicine for over twenty

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years now. Went to the University of Nebraska for medical school.

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I've been an emergency physician, served on the army side

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of things in Iraq in two thousand and seven, and

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now I'm a military commander, a flight surgeon who was

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a critical care physician in the Air Force Reserves. So

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I have a lot of experience with these on the

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combat side, on the civilian side, unfortunately, and the increase

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that we've seen there's a very close tie to the

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mental health issues with anxiety, depression, and suicide that I

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see every day in my emergency department, and it has

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a lot to do with this I called the COVID

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generation the last half of Generation Z. It turns out

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shutting them out of schools and their churches and isolating

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them from society for three years was not good for

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their mental health.

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Yeah, yeah, I can tell you. I mean I think

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those of us I told you right before we came on.

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I'm a nurse. I think those of us in the

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medical profession saw in it or should have seen it.

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And you have.

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Quite a perspective. You know, you spoke about you've done combat, military,

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You've done emergency room. I mean those are two high

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intense areas. I mean combat right, there's I don't think

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there's much more higher than that. But you did make

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a statement that you were seeing some serious parallels between

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combat zone stress and the crushing psychological pressure that's consuming

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Generation Z and then the lasting mental health toll of

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just the COVID nineteen lockdowns on young people. I mean,

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it is prevalent in the research everywhere now. As a nurse,

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I mean, the very first time I heard the word lockdown, sir,

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I was like, oh Lord, have mercy. I mean I

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could just all of the images were going off in

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my head. But I'd love to get your perspective and

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how those two really kind of ALIGNE.

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So you know, people always respond to situations differently. You know,

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generations before. If you look at the World War two generation,

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where that's the greatest generation, what they went through was

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like far exceeded anything that I was exposed to in Iraq.

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Certainly I had a lot of some combat stress and

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saw a lot of death and destruction. But when you

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look at prolonged periods of time, you know, the correlation

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that you're seeing there is that the rates, the rates

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of the anxiety and depression in suicide amongst this entire

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gen Z generation, the entire cohort are very closely paralleling

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what you would see more in combat situations with combat

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stress PTSD depression. You know, that lends itself towards the

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alcohol and the drug abuse and the suicide rates. It's

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quite alarming, and I have a unique perspective in that

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I see that on the civilian side of my emergency department,

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and then I see that on the military side as

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a military provider and now as a commander. This generation

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you eating eighteen to twenty five year old kids, maybe

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a touch older than that, where they lack the resiliency skills.

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There's tremendous amounts of mental health, anxiety depression. They fold

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very quickly, and I was concerned enough to write a book.

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You can't fix the problem unless you recognize it. So

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that's my prescription for the problem.

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Yeah, and tell us a little bit about how how

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you are recognizing it. What are you seeing in your practice,

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and what are you seeing in the military, So you.

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Know, the perception is reality. So for you know, prior

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to the Gen Z generation, social media just wasn't didn't

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have a prominent part of our lives. I mean, I

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certainly use that with you know, with book marketing and

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you know business, I run a nonpromit the organization, the

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way behind the Spear Foundation and those things are important.

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But for this generation, this was the first generation that

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was really born and has not known anything prior to that.

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So instant information, Instagram, Twitter, x, Facebook, TikTok, all of

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this has just been omnipresent in their lives. It gives

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them really a false sense of reality and that they're

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seeing everyone's best and shiniest and funniest videos that that's

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not real life. And then you couple that with some

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of the parenting techniques that you'll see now We used

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to have helicopter parents. Now we have lawnmower parents who

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just mow down every obstacle in their children's path. It's

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not good for their emotional development. So in addition to

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then shutting them out of their schools, shutting out of

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their churches, and just isolating them for society for an

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entire three years, this is the generation that had difficulties

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communicating anyways, difficulty with resiliency. It's a perfect storm, and

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unfortunately that's what comes into my emergency department. I see

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the anxiety, I need the depression of the suicide, and

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I sit down with those families and I've cried with

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so many families. It's it's clearly getting worse, and we

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have to recognize that as a society and do something

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about that.

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Yeah. Absolutely, you know, sir. When I was looking at

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the research surrounding the struggles, particularly related to mental health,

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all generations had an impact, I mean every single one

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of them. But the gen Zers always rose to the top,

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regardless of the symptom. I mean, I could look up depression, anxiety,

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being completely overwhelmed, stressed out, suicide, it didn't matter. Gen

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Z was at the top.

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So why Jen Z.

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Those people who were born what they call the generation

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like nineteen ninety seven to twenty twelve, Why do they

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have such an intense challenge related to.

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All the other generals, the things that they that they've

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been challenged by, and you know, just the you know,

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their environment, everything has been a bit more sheltered, and

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just the Internet, social media, all of that. That's been

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their entire life. They've never known anything but that. And

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you and I may not have been affected as much.

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And if someone pulled as you online or you see

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something posted on Twitter X, I don't I don't put

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a whole lot of stock into that. There's always plenty

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of Twitter trolls out there. But this generation, that's their life.

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That's all they've known, and that perception is their reality.

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So whether people agree with that perception or not is

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completely immateial That is their life, and so we have

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to find a way to get through to them, to

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communicate with them, to teach them some of the basics

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and fundamentals and resiliency. We have failed to do that,

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and then during that big portion smack down in the

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middle of high school or college, you just shut them

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out of everything that that wasn't a good policy decision,

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and we're seeing the repercussions of it now. So we

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have to pick this generation up. They are going to

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be our future. I have to retire at some point,

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and we've got to hand the keys over. This is

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the generation that's going to have to step in there.

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I know most business owners recognize that it's a big

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challenge working with this generation, but we have a lot

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of work to do.

256
00:17:17.480 --> 00:17:20.839
Yeah, and I was reading that it's something like thirty

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percent of the gen Z population will be in the workforce,

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and it seemed like they were having or at least

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the articles that were out there that I was researching

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and reading, they were having very difficult times at work. Difficulty. Now.

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I haven't worked with many of the gen Z ers,

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but they were like, you know, they weren't able to focus.

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They weren't able to do things more than a couple minutes,

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which kind of relates to being on social media, right,

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you got to click and you know, nothing over two

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minutes and then you're on to the next.

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Strong attention spans, video games, social media, everything's in thirty

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second or minute videos. Just that's that's how they were raised.

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That's everything. It's much different than generations previous to that.

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I think there's a large generational gap from that generation,

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and we have to find a way to bridge that gap.

272
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Yeah. Absolutely. You know, since twenty twenty, in some form

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or another, there seems to be what I termed rage

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in the streets. It's this mentality it seems to be

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been promoted and normalized. You know, you've got like the

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riots of twenty twenty, then we have the LGBT and

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the anti Jewish turmoil and violence in the schools. A

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vast majority of them we're taught through this lens of

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social emotional learning. They even state that our castle, who

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promotes social motional learning, you know, promoted as say, self

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management through regulating emotions and behaviors, where they're making these

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little like social justice warriors and the goal of critical

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race theory. They were either taught they were an oppressor

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or a victim. So what are your thoughts about the

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culture creating or or maybe even exacerbating this psychological state

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that we're seeing.

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Life. I've seen a lot of terrible things. I've seen

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it in the emergency departments, I've seen it in combat.

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You know, around the world. The world is not a shiny,

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happy place, and the faster that you realize that, you

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realize and you learn that you can you just control

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what you do. You can't control what other people do.

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You know, this victimization where oh I'm a victim and

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I'm offended and I'm outraged by this, it's it's not helpful.

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It's not teaching them how to adapt in unfriendly environments.

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It's not teaching them resiliency skills.

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You're not always going to be happy, you know, hopefully,

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as that you have seen in this.

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Country is a great example of that. Life is not

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a pain free state. If you sprain your april, it hurts,

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don't walk on it.

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It doesn't mean you have to take and opiate or

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you know, mic it in or something like that to

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dull the pain. That's your your body's doing that for

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a reason. It hurts, Or do that, let it heel.

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And so in this generation where they can be offended

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by anything in everything, and they don't have to feel pain,

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they can just take all these drugs and if it

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goes on and on, that's not real life. You have

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to teach them how to overcome these types of obstacles

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and deal with people that you may not like. You

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don't have to agree with them that you do have

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to get along this environment that they've been brought up

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and taught. It's uh, I couldn't disagree more.

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Yeah. Yeah, we've got a couple of comments. We've got

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some interaction going here. Billy says, what is between gen

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Z and gen X and what other things do you

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think changed between gen X and beyond?

319
00:21:06.880 --> 00:21:08.880
Well, you know you have your you know prior to

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nineteen ninety seven. You know it's your, your gen xers,

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00:21:12.400 --> 00:21:17.000
the millennials, and that right there, the inception of the iPhone,

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and if you look for a turning point, literally so

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if you look at these space the space light of

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the moon landings in nineteen sixty nine, there's more computing

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power in the telephone that you hold in your hand

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right now than what put man on the moon. So

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it's incredibly powerful if you if you put it in

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00:21:33.039 --> 00:21:37.319
that aspect, it's just it's incredible. So the advent of

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the iPhone onwards, you know, the comb eye generation iPhone,

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the iPads, that instantaneous information, the rise of social media,

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the online bullying at just twenty four to seven, you

332
00:21:49.400 --> 00:21:52.599
can't get away with it, you know, generations Prior to that,

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they weren't carry around cell phones. They're out playing and

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out in the yard and you know, maybe they came

335
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home and the lights came on, Mom yelled at them

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for dinner. This generation is where that changed and that

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onset of that technology. If you look right at the

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iPhone from then on, that's it.

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Such a valid point. I mean, everybody does everything on

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their phone. And I don't know how many times I'm

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walking down somewhere and I just see this where they're

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00:22:19.039 --> 00:22:22.759
just you know, scrolling, They're not even watching where they're going.

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00:22:22.839 --> 00:22:27.160
I mean, everybody is connected. It's it's almost I mean,

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00:22:27.200 --> 00:22:30.839
it's almost like a drug being addicted to. I can't

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00:22:30.880 --> 00:22:34.519
put my iPhone down. You know, that's just me.

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But we have grace, which the world is the world

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we live in now, and we have to find a

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way to adapt and overcome that because barrier is not

349
00:22:41.880 --> 00:22:44.640
an option. You know, like the suicide rates and this

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00:22:44.759 --> 00:22:47.599
mental health issue, we are going to have to address that.

351
00:22:47.599 --> 00:22:52.839
That's right, continue, that's exactly right now. I heard you

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make a statement, and I really believe that everybody needs

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to kind of to heed this. You said, what happened

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at Florida State university isn't just another isolated tragedy. It's

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a devastating symptom of a far worse epidemic that I'm

356
00:23:12.400 --> 00:23:16.079
afraid is going to get worse. Can you break that

357
00:23:16.279 --> 00:23:21.599
down for us, sir? What warnings are possibly being ignored?

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And what do you see on the horizon? What do

359
00:23:24.599 --> 00:23:26.279
you see in the future.

360
00:23:26.279 --> 00:23:30.039
So you know, just recognizing that issue, the mental health crisis.

361
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If you take all of the school shooters in the

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last twenty years and just looked at the mental health

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00:23:36.079 --> 00:23:38.880
side of things, how many of them came from a

364
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two parent household, a detended church on a regular basis.

365
00:23:43.000 --> 00:23:47.480
Yeah right, I mean, you know, it's just as things

366
00:23:47.519 --> 00:23:51.000
have changed over the last one to two decades, the

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00:23:51.079 --> 00:23:55.079
more we remove ourselves from something bigger than ourselfs faith,

368
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family structures, just sitting down at your dinner table and

369
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having dinner at night, talking with your kids, how'd your

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day go because you have made some different decisions that

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00:24:03.519 --> 00:24:05.759
might have changed the outcome of that. I mean, just

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00:24:06.039 --> 00:24:09.400
at those times and those family bonds. Things have changed

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and stretched so far with technology, and we're getting away

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from the very basics that really make us human, that

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have defined our humanity. For thousands of years. We're getting

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at that point now, and the further you get away

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00:24:22.519 --> 00:24:26.079
from that, the further it's just a degradation in our

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00:24:26.119 --> 00:24:29.480
society and of our culture. And it's hard to watch.

379
00:24:29.559 --> 00:24:32.640
But you cannot discount that. You can't. Everyone wants to

380
00:24:32.640 --> 00:24:35.200
place blame on other things, but you have to look

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at the actual The mental health crisis is everything right now,

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00:24:39.440 --> 00:24:41.599
and it's a symptom of the greater disease, of just

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the decay in our culture. And we have to make

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a decision as a country and people in communities to

385
00:24:48.119 --> 00:24:51.279
get involved. That's the whole. Be the way behind the spirits.

386
00:24:51.279 --> 00:24:55.519
It's a personal leadership ethos. Engage your community, coach little league,

387
00:24:55.839 --> 00:24:58.640
volunteer in your church, go out and go to your

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00:24:58.640 --> 00:25:02.400
local animal shelter, help them those animals, become emotional support animals.

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I mean, all of these things. Your government's not going

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to save you, Okay, It has to be you. Has

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to be individuals. Get out in your communities. People just

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want to pass the buck. No, it has to be

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you right now. Get out in your community and be

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a part of something or someone that matters. Be the

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way behind the sphere for somebody.

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"Psychological Tragedy"

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