I'd argue it isn't. The first edition of the DSM was published in 1952 [1]. This is right after "the routine annual comprehensive physical examination (PE) became a fixture in American medical practice" [2].
Add 25 years for a generation to be educated, another 25 for the old guard to retire, and you'd expect the paradigm shift around mental health to land around the millenium. Unless you have evidence we had a nonlinear jump between then and now, I'd argue the trend is analagous to folks becoming aware of and culturally assimilating the concept of blood type.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_Statistical_Man...
I do think that there is a component of fashion or social currency that has piggybacked on medical awareness, or perhaps as a byproduct of its mixing with moral credentialism of disadvantage.
People have been stigmatized and isolated for generations for being “different” in some way. Emotional and psychological reasons included. People are all different. We all have different issues. We all have different experiences. No one should be shunned for seeking out others with similarities to get advice and support. And how can you do that without making people aware?
Do we have more mental health issues than in the past? I don’t think so. I think we’re more aware and more accepting than past generations.
Some health care professionals are becoming hesitant to talk about diagnoses because it hurts the patient when they start identifying with the diagnosis it makes the condition worse when the patient starts to act more like the diagnosed condition because that's how they're supposed to act
And it's interesting to me that we now have the UK government talking about providing mental health support to try to foster grit and self-reliance - https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/16/much-needed-...
I used to be dismissed as lazy, and I simply had to live with my apparent moral failure. Man, I tried so much self-improvement advice, and none of it worked.
Now I know that this is not the case, that there’s nothing wrong with me, and I found a huge community of like-minded people. Turns out there are quite a lot of self-improvement tools for autistic people, and they actually work.
(I believe many ADHDers feel the same way about their diagnosis.)
I am likely to have ADHD. Was never diagnosed as a youth because I never allowed it. Seriously! Growing up during the late 70's and 80's was a weird time for these things.
My mistrust in all of that came from watching friends get diagnosed then medicated. Then most of those people kind of shut down. Some presented very differently, generally not in a good way, as far as I was concerned.
A few personas I loved just got medicated away.
So... nope. Not gonna happen. I threw up a barrier that took well into maybe my late 30's to come down.
I had decided very young that I was in charge of who I was, nobody else and was fairly aware of all that during formative years. My trust was literally zero on that front, unless knowing someone would, in my eyes, be good for me.
From there, I identified with who I thought were pretty great people and the rest got the Okie Dokie, next treatment.
These days seem different for sure.
I knew damn well I was not neurotypical, a word that did not appear for many years ahead of my own struggles, and frankly that had to be OK, because I needed to be OK to exist as me. Who were others to say otherwise?
Today, seems like we live in a more permissive society than we did before. I do know my own perception is keen for having managed my own struggles. I can reach others and help. No meds needed, just real trust and the right experiences.
Sometimes meds are needed too. I feel they are used in lazy ways too often. Other means should be first.
And my beef with the meds boils down to how effective the right experiences can be.
Kid has anger management issues?
Medicate!
Or.. maybe put then into a wrestling club and see them mello right out and become a great, fairly tolerant person.
Both can work well, and both can go badly too.
It mostly boils down to how the humans in charge of debugging and empowering the young humans handle problems and the tools they use.
IMHO people reached for the meds far too often back then.
Maybe we are now too permissive, not doing enough to tease out the best in people, coping instead.
What I like most in your take is you are self aware and have others like you to build on.
I did not. Or, I did, but finding them and experiencing what you are was a lot harder, due to how less connected everyone was back then.
What I did was seek good mentors. Found them and came up OK, and capable. You appear to be getting after the same thing.
Good!
It all starts with self acceptance and awareness. From there, many who achieve those things can build on that and live a fine life.
I bet you do. Thanks for sharing a little perspective. It is high value.
I've never, ever been as stressed out as during school, grades 7-12. If the rest of life had been that stressful or worse, I'd have checked out a long time ago.
Every single time without fail (except maybe the jump from kindergarten to school) what actually happened was that the adults around me breathed down my neck a little bit less and I got access to a little more freedom to do fun stuff.
Being a kid in school is horrible. You're entirely reliant on your parents to buy you everything and enable you to experience things, nobody trusts you, everything is full of arbitrary rules.
The jump from school to university was especially stark - I kept being told it was going to be really hard, I'd need to work way harder than in highschool etc etc. Turns out what actually happened was I went from 6 straight hours of unavoidable class a day to maybe 2 or 3 much more interesting ones that were recorded and posted online and could be skipped when needed with no consequence, roughly the same amount of homework and I got to live with people my age 5 minutes walk from a 24 hour McDonalds.
And working... they pay you quite a lot of money to be there (seriously even a minimum wage job is unfathomable to a kid, do you know how many gameboys you could buy with that?), there's no homework and you get to do something you're really good at.
Also, all that, plus you're not getting paid for it.
Before that period? I don't remember much. After that period? Everything gets downhill. Being an adult in a society sucks and I hate it. Normal people lifestyle, with its routines and "work/life balance", with everyone around you having expectations around random customs, with having to do everything in tiny bite-sized chunks, because there's not enough time left after work, chores and family - that's just not compatible with my mind.
Yeah, I guess, this could be a mental health issue.