To think we medicalise the normal throes of life?

Nope it’s exactly the opposite, serious mental health difficulties are under diagnosed. It’s hard to get a diagnosis of depression- too often it’s dismissed as low mood and things are just left to get steadily worse.

Yes, I’d agree with this. There’s a big difference between feeling anxious now and then, which is normal, and suffering chronic debilitating anxiety, and I’d say the same about depression having suffered with it. Actual depression is nothing like just ‘being a bit down’ or being sad about a certain thing. I think we have become more aware of mental health problems as a society and I’m so glad the stigma around them is lessening, but I do also think that it has meant some people think that any anxiety or unhappiness at all must mean they have a ‘mental health problem’. I don’t think on the whole that it’s medical experts who are over-medicalising, they usually know what chronic anxiety or depression looks like, but rather it’s more people self-diagnosing themselves

I agree with this. We live so far from what we probably should be living like, right from birth

Yes. Diagnostic appropriation bottlenecks the system so that people with significant impairments are waiting in line for support behind people who believe they have an anxiety disorder because they feel nervous before things like exams/work presentations etc. Normal negative emotions are being conflated with mental illness and it diverts attention and resources away from the people who need it most.

You are not being unreasonable.

In the late 90s I was under the care of a psychiatrist. The 90s was a horrible time for people with mental illness; so much stigma, and goodness knows we don't ever want to go back to that.

The stigma needed to be challenged, and so we had lots of much needed awareness raising.

But we have overcorrected to the point where diagnosis has been so normalised that the ups and downs of everyday life are increasingly pathologised as illness. We have lost sight of what mental illness actually looks like.

I'm questioning the people who self diagnose, who don't say they're worried or nervous about something but that it's 'triggered their anxiety', often as an excuse to avoid a committment or responsibilities, tjough sometimes it's just to sound more complex and interesting.

And I'm increasingly coming across people who are claiming anxiety, or OCD, or ASD without any medical input, without it having much of a negative impact on their lives, but generally allows them to claim special treatment.

I think that many of the self-diagnosed don't actually have the anxiety, OCD and ASD they claim, and this leads to misunderstanding about the need for supports for those people who do have a condition which can benefit from medical support.

It's very difficult to be accepted for assessment/treatment by secondary care services as thresholds are incredibly high, and they are ridiculously underfunded - it's appalling, especially when you need specialist help. But most mental health diagnoses (depression/ anxiety) are given within primary care, by a GP, within a routine ten minute appointment, and antidepressants are almost always offered / prescribed. I have literally never heard of anyone who has gone to see a GP about low mood who has not come out of the room with a diagnosis of depression in their medical notes and an offer of antidepressant medication, regardless of whether the low mood is situational or pathological. I think it's this side of things that people are questioning

I've done mental health training with Mind and one very clear point was that we all, often, lack the ability to name and understand the myriad emotions that we all feel. So I disagree that naming emotions - including anxiety etc - is 'pathologising'. I think it's healthier to say 'I've been feeling sad and anxious since my break up' than it is to say 'I've been going through a tough time since my break up'.

That's different to clinical anxiety or depression but recognising emotions and the stressors that could tip those emotions into poor mental health or mental illness (so when feeling anxious becomes a diagnosable anxiety disorder, for instance) is surely more healthy than obfuscating and as a result, not putting in place measures to cope.

I don't necessarily think we do.

I mean was it normal for an 11 year old to feel depressed?
Was it normal for a 12 year old to self harm (not knowing how what that was or that anyone did it-talking pre internet here).
Was it normal for a 12 year old to try and strangle them self with a school tie in the toilets?

Probably not. But that's what I dealt with, oh and the first suicide attempt at 15?

It annoys me when people generalise and say "oh we are just medicasising normal emotions". Because what I've experienced for the past 27 years of my life, is not in any way normal nor should irbe considered so.

Im a child of the 80s. I existed before the internet even really existed.

There was no social media. Nobody told me that something was wrong with me. I didn't seek it out. In fact tbh my first experience with knowing what the word "depression" meant was taken from a text book in the school library. I just happened to read it (whilst hiding from my bullies) and realise I was experiencing all ofthe symptoms )..I didn't know that just self harm was until my best friend encouraged me to talk to the social.worker who came to school, who explained why it was and that others truffles with it.

She did offer me therapy but due to being under 16 it would have required my parents consent (thought ended up under CAMHS anyway after my suicide attempt)

It's easy to say we are medicalising "normal" emotions but I feel it plays down the seriousness of what many of us experience when younger which as led to a lifetime of mental illness

“I can’t do that because of my anxiety” seems increasingly common. Yes, some things cause anxiety and this is a perfectly normal state of mind. It is not immediately a reason not to do something.

I recently had a TA working with me who wouldn’t answer the class phone because of her anxiety. She thought it was reasonable that I stopped teaching a lesson rather than her talk to the office. She’s no longer working in a school, it just wasn’t possible to give her tasks to last the day which didn’t involve talking to people, supporting children with additional needs or providing personal care. All of which apparently triggered something. I’m not really sure how she thought special education would work.

I agree. Mental health is like physical health. It rises and falls in relationship to the circumstances around a person. I do think poor MH is more prevalent now though, probably a lot to do with social media and living in a more uncertain world.

Im not sure if it’s anyone medical that’s over-labelling though, it’s people with dr google. And controversially maybe, I think some people look to diagnose themselves with labels as a way of not facing that they have some emotional problems that only they can fix.

Yes. OCD is one which drives me mad. When people say they have ocd cause they like a tidy house (for example). Whereas OCD is an absolutely debilitating mental health condition which can ruin lives. It's nor a term to be thrown round and in my opinion, offensive to the poor people who actually suffer from it.

I disagree, I think modern life as it is is unsustainable and is making people unwell. If you look at animals who are “depressed” or “anxious” a decent vet or trainer would tell you to change their environment to improve their life. But with life so demanding and pressurised from such a young age it is impossible for people to change things. We respond to our environment the same way as any animal.

Totally agree, and the drug companies are laughing every inch of the way.

I meant more the casual way those terms are thrown around, especially online or in day to day conversations. Of course people can feel anxious or low without having a clinical disorder but I sometimes feel like we jump to pathologising very normal human emotions. I’m not saying real diagnoses aren’t valid, just that we might be overusing the language in ways that blur the lines a bit.

People do that with medical conditions all the time. Loads of people are very quick to label someone as a narcissist on here too, when all they mean is someone was a bit of a cunt. Or "gaslighting" instead of "lied to me"

I'm someone who suffers with debilitating anxiety. I literally shitting my knickers after a lift wouldn't open and I was stuck for ten mins, they won't be calling it anywhere near the same type of thing if being a bit nervous.

It consumes my every waking thought and I push though so much every day but sometimes my body still goes "NO! TOADY WERE GONNA VALIDATE THAT FEAR AND MAKE YOU SHIT YOURSELF IN PUBLIC and for good measure here's a new OCD ritual, press the butting to floor D and this will happen again. Hahahaha you should have cancelled and stayed home, told you so"

I have to go there a few times a week for various treatments over the next month and im panicking about having to press button D. Sounds stupid and I feel stupid but there we are. Using stairs isn't an option due to the disability that's for me there so frequently and fighting the stupid thoughts im having "just cancel, you're so useless you aren't worth the NHS time and resources anyway, scared to press a button, you shouldn't be in the gene pool" "if you go and press that button it's your own fault if you get stuck again" and those are just the milder thoughts and it's 24/7.

I feel absolute stupid some days over this stuff and it gets harder to bounce back.

It’s an interesting question… I don’t really care either way but tripped over some articles years ago while I was researching something tangentially to this subject.

There is some feeling relating to what the Op says in the first post. I don’t know if the DSM is used in the UK or not so these particular articles may not be hugely relevant but I wouldn’t be shocked if the same thing was being felt over whatever your diagnostic criteria is.

https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/is-psychiatry-shrinking-what-we-think-of-as-normal

www.nursingtimes.net/news/controversy-over-dsm-5-new-mental-health-guide-24-08-2013/

I agree OP. Not about formal diagnosis necessarily as that's not always an easy or quick path, but I agree that we are increasingly self diagnosing and labelling normal experiences and feelings, rather than just seeing them as part and parcel of real life and trying to manage them.
It's perfectly normal to feel anxious, experience high levels of stress at times, but a change in language increasingly suggests a person experiencing stress or anxiousness 'has anxiety' or 'poor mental health' and I think this in part has led to a feeling that we should seek to be medicated.
Another example is HRT. I'm doing just fine without it, but have lost count of the number of people who tell me I should be taking it and are perplexed that if it's freely available why would I not seek it out.

It’s a diagnosis, not a label.

if someone is physically unwell we need to know what exactly is wrong with them to know how to treat them and prevent the pain they are experiencing. We don’t call it “labelling someone as having cancer”, we call it diagnosing, so we can use all the right tools and treatments to help the person.

the same goes for mental health. A diagnosis, whether that be anxiety, depression, or a neurodivergence (no not suggesting ND is a mental health issue but the same principle applies) means that person can understand what they are experiencing and use this understanding to access the right support to reduce the pain they are experiencing as a result.

The men have to rock, paper scissors over it first before it goes in there and to discuss if they could possibly be diagnosed with it. If possible they could it will never go in. If it can make money then yep it is in there! 😂

You mean opposed to people suffering with their “ nerves” back in the 1970s and getting Valium for feeling down?

You're clearly suffering from Life Event Normalising Disorder. It's not in the DSM yet, but it will be when someone discovers an expensive treatment for it.

Far more often though women are suffering throughout perimenopause and menopause, or much younger, and their symptoms are dismissed by GPs as women's problems that you just have to put up with.

I think it's good having the language and words to use- I have been anxious all my life but didn't really know it was anxiety.

I do think sometimes medication is given too easily because the support isn't there in terms of mental health- I know someone who was a bit low, struggling with work etc, instead of getting help with anxiety got put on very strong antidepressants and things have just got worse and worse for her.

It happens with other MH things too. I have a PD diagnosis, and it was blamed for my broken foot.

Strangely enough when a psychologist said I have anxiety along with sever post natal depression. I said I didn't feel anxious/ nervous about anything, he said that what I had described though was anxiety disorder.

Being regular anxious about an event or something does not mean anxiety disorder.

Similarly, with the depression I said 'but sure most people feel like this' he not to that depth and not all the time. Looking back now how I felt about myself was actually horrendous, but I really thought I was grand.

I think people throw around the words without really knowing what they mean