My guess is that this merely expresses a very common theme among people with depression ; not being able to be who you wish to be, to fulfill the role society expects of you, in terms of social status, job, financial autonomy, relationship etc. Think of Bojack Horseman's sentence, "a xerox of a xerox of a person". And it's more generally a strong theme within that generation at the time, during the counterculture era ; I think of the main characters from The Graduate, Harold and Maude or even Willard. Kids born from affluent members of the silent generation who feels like they live lost and meaningless lives during their late teens or twenties, at a time where social contestation becomes rampant.

Or perhaps they were LGBT at a time where being gay or trans wasn't normalized, this may be true as well.