Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels

The lovable aphorisms we had for people with character quirks were largely from our original support systems. What no one is talking about is the reason therapy-talk has become so pervasive is because all those support systems: family, friends, and local communities (religious or otherwise), have all degraded so severely for most that therapy is the only option for reaching out and getting help.

I agree, though possibly for different reasons. Those support systems may or may not be weaker than they were in generations past, but they are certainly more likely to say "I can't help you, go get professional help" than in the past.

In some ways this is a good thing. It is good if bipolar people get the medication they need faster, and can start living their best lives. But as someone who almost died to depression, the "help" out there is criminal. It is not a disease we have a cure for, in fact it's not clear to me it's even a disease in most sufferers, but a healthy and rational response to societal decay. I do not believe some disorders will ever be satisfactorily explained by individual-centric medicine, in the same way history will never be satisfactorily explained by great man theory.

Yeah, calling depression a "disorder" sometimes misses the point entirely when despair is a logical response to how things are

Cheer up! For the average HN user, things are better now than they ever have been in human history.

If my finger is broken and someone says "Cheer up! Your neighbor lost his leg and is in an incredible amount of pain", I may feel sympathy for my neighbor but, crucially, my finger still hurts just as much.