When Suffering Finds a Name

No one suspects a fractured leg of being fashionable. No one rolls their eyes at an X-ray. Yet when the conversation turns to mental illness, society suddenly becomes suspicious. For no other reason than its invisibility in most cases.

Surely, as many say, there are more “labels” now such as anxiety, ADHD, and depression that have led to one of the most buzzing questions of society: Is mental illness over-diagnosed now, or simply better recognized?

At first glance, the skepticism feels understandable. Mental health vocabulary floods social media. Influencers casually speak of burnout, panic attacks, and emotional exhaustion. When I ask my father his opinion on the same, he feels that many of these reels are simply chasing clout. However, he also puts forward a point worth considering. Exposure to such unmoderated content may lead teenagers to mistakenly believe they suffer from disorders they do not actually have. Feeling devastated after failure is not automatically depression. Being nervous before examinations does not necessarily mean one has an anxiety disorder. Emotions are not software glitches to be diagnosed the moment life becomes uncomfortable.

I am not saying these concerns are entirely unfounded either. Social media often compresses complex psychological conditions into thirty-second videos and aestheticized infographics. A teenager who occasionally struggles to focus may suddenly become convinced they have ADHD. Someone experiencing a difficult month may diagnose themselves with clinical depression after watching a few online videos. The danger lies not merely in inaccurate labelling, but in trivializing genuine psychiatric disorders when every uncomfortable emotion is treated as pathology.

My father also asked me, “How true are these diagnoses?” I was left speechless. I had never really stopped to question an official word. Naturally, I searched up “official misdiagnoses” online. The most popular case that appeared was the Rosenhan experiment of 1973, frequently cited by critics of psychiatry. Healthy “pseudopatients” entered psychiatric hospitals with the single complaint of hearing voices. They were admitted and later diagnosed with serious illnesses despite behaving normally afterwards. The study shocked the world and fed long-standing doubts about psychiatry’s reliability. At that point, I almost certainly believed mental illnesses were over-diagnosed.

However, a few searches later, I found something unexpected: criticism of the criticism. Later investigations by journalist Susannah Cahalan revealed significant flaws in the experiment itself. Since the study relied on deception from the very beginning, it blurred the line between the validity of admission and the validity of continued diagnosis. Only a handful of hospitals were selected and that need not have meant all hospitals would have offered the same experience. Many of the said patients’ records were missing. some experiences appeared selectively reported.

One of the patients who actually had a positive experience was completely left out of the report. Suddenly, what I had considered irrefutable proof looked far more complicated. Rather than proving mental illness was routinely fabricated, the controversy highlighted something else entirely: the need for better diagnosis, better systems, and greater scientific rigor.

Now, I am not saying nuance does not matter. Not every difficult emotion deserves a clinical label. Life is uncomfortable sometimes. Human beings are wired to feel sadness, fear, grief, disappointment, stress, and heartbreak. We should be careful not to medicalize every ordinary struggle.

However, perhaps the greater issue is not that too many people are being diagnosed, but that too many people were once ignored. History is filled not merely with diagnostic errors, but with the far greater tragedy of diagnostic absence.

Not very long ago, in Erwadi, Tamil Nadu, twenty-eight people diagnosed with mental illnesses were charred to death. In a so-called faith-healing centre, they had been inhumanely chained to poles. When a fire unexpectedly broke out, the staff fled and left the patients behind to burn. Their lives were treated as disposable. Yet perhaps even more horrifying than the flames themselves was what they revealed: the social chains of ignorance, stigma, and fear. Their illnesses did not suddenly begin in the twenty-first century. Only our willingness to name them did.

History offers quieter examples too, ones without flames or headlines but no less devastating. Not very long ago, women who spiraled emotionally after childbirth were often dismissed as unstable, dramatic, or simply “bad mothers.” Severe postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis were poorly understood, leaving many women isolated in guilt, shame, and confusion. In some tragic cases, untreated mothers harmed themselves or their children, not because they were evil, but because they were deeply unwell.

Today, because science has learnt to recognize these conditions, mothers receive therapy, medical care, and support systems that often save lives. A woman who may once have suffered silently is now more likely to hear the words: “This is real. This is treatable.” Recognition may begin with labels, but sometimes labels become ladders. They give people language to explain what they are feeling and pathways toward help.

Sometimes, the difference between judgment and compassion begins with a single word. Even language quietly reveals how stigma survives. We say someone “died of cancer” or “died in an accident,” yet when it comes to suicide, society has long preferred the phrase “committed suicide,” as though the person committed a mistake or moral failing. The word committed quietly carries the weight of blame. It’s a word often used along with sins and crimes. Language cannot undo loss, but I think it shapes how we understand it. The same principle quietly works in smaller ways too.

My mother is genuinely glad that, unlike her parents, my father understands my occasional mood swings during my menstrual cycle as a hormonal interlude rather than teenage rebellion. To some people, this may seem insignificant, but I have noticed that small recognitions quietly prevent large misunderstandings. What may once have become arguments now turns into patience.

On my part, I have also been able to better explain to older relatives that some of my mother’s behavioural changes during menopause are not sudden eccentricities or intentional irritability. They are biological transitions accompanied by significant emotional and psychological shifts. To be clear, neither menstruation nor menopause are mental illnesses. Yet they reveal something important: when science provides understanding, judgment often softens into empathy.

I have seen this transformation elsewhere too. A close friend of mine struggled greatly with mathematics and science during middle school. Her poor grades were repeatedly attributed to distraction and social media. But as her friend, I believed the opposite. Social media was not causing the problem; it was helping her escape the frustration of constantly feeling incapable.

Luckily, after her father received a transfer and she moved schools, she had access to a counsellor who helped her and her parents better understand her strengths and struggles. Instead of forcing her into subjects she dreaded, someone finally listened to what she actually needed. She shifted toward the humanities and commerce stream and began thriving. Today, she tops her class. Watching her journey made me realize something important: sometimes people do not need fixing. They simply need understanding.

Recognition has also improved because science itself has become more inclusive. Consider ADHD in girls. For years, diagnostic models focused largely on hyperactive boys who disrupted classrooms. Girls who displayed inattentive symptoms often went unnoticed because they were quiet rather than disruptive. As awareness improved, many women finally received explanations for struggles they had silently carried throughout childhood. What appears to be an “explosion” in diagnoses may sometimes reflect something far simpler: people who were once overlooked are finally being seen.

Nevertheless, I am not saying over-diagnosis never happens. Some people undoubtedly receive labels that do not accurately reflect their experiences. Some self-diagnose after watching social media content. Some professionals may occasionally diagnose too quickly. Recognition should remain a tool for understanding rather than a shield from accountability or discomfort. The challenge lies in balancing empathy with honesty.

Perhaps the rise in diagnoses says less about society becoming fragile and more about society becoming honest. Modern life has also undeniably changed the scale of pressure. Teenagers today are expected to perform constantly: academically, socially, digitally, emotionally. Adults juggle careers, finances, caregiving, and expectations that rarely quieten. We live in a world that celebrates productivity while quietly exhausting the people trying to survive it.

Mental illness today may be both better recognized and occasionally over-diagnosed. However, when weighed against centuries of silence, ridicule, neglect, and misunderstanding, I think the greater historical problem has overwhelmingly been under-recognition rather than over-recognition.

Society has always labelled suffering. The difference now is that we are finally trying to label it with more science and more kindness. The wiser question may not be, “Why are so many people being diagnosed?” but rather, “Why are so many people hurting?”

No one accuses a fractured leg of being dramatic simply because the cast is visible. Yet invisible wounds still seem to require proof. Perhaps mental illness has not suddenly become fashionable or exaggerated. Perhaps, for the first time, people no longer have to suffer in silence to be believed.

And if more people are speaking today, maybe that is not evidence of weakness. Maybe it is evidence that, after generations of whispering through pain, humanity has finally found the courage to say: I am struggling. Please listen.