Stop labelling me: Gen Z, self-diagnosis, and therapy culture

There’s a new epidemic in town. It’s not what you think.

I was eighteen when my therapist diagnosed me with Major Depressive Disorder. We were only a few weeks into sessions, but by then, I had already considered every possible condition for myself.

I spent my teenage years trying on labels like clothes, evaluating each fabric for fit and feel as I sought to make order out of the chaos in my mind. I thought that a diagnosis would help me—relieve me of the burden of proof. In some ways, it did. But in the process of getting there, confirmation bias propelled me to trust any source that affirmed my gut instinct. I went down late-night rabbit holes, doom-scrolled through Reddit’s r/anxiety page, cycled through “Am I Depressed?” tests made by strangers on a daily basis. By adulthood, I could no longer distinguish what was a symptom of depression and what was just part of growing up. I was trapped in a filter bubble that echoed my worst fear: I was broken beyond repair. Categorization was no longer a tool for self-understanding but a cage, confining me to an identity from which I could not escape.

At first I thought this was just my story. When I began sharing, however, I realized how many of my peers felt the same.

Self-diagnosis is the next cultural epidemic.

Mental health is a universal continuum that ranges from thriving to in crisis. We all experience varying places on that sliding scale. But too often, we flatten this spectrum into a binary. We are healthy or sick, fine or failing. Rarely do we discuss the paradox that is being both—an ambitious straight-A student, and a work-in-progress who can’t eat or get out of bed. Holding multiple truths at once is disorienting, and without the vocabulary to explain ourselves, we reach for labels instead.

I’ve noticed a cultural trend these past few years, in which my generation is becoming increasingly more obsessed with labels. We’re in delusionships with the weekly regular at our coffee shop. We’re fictosexual if we crush on that kind-of-hot book character. And we’re experiencing gifted kid burnout if we get a C on our econ midterms.

I don’t have a vendetta against these terms, per se. What bothers me is that we aren’t stopping with fabricated words; we’re also reimagining established language in new contexts, and in the process, changing their definitions entirely. We’re not well-kept if we hate the sight of dirty dishes in the sink, we’re so OCD. Our boyfriends aren’t forgetful because they’ve moved on from yesterday’s fight, they’re bipolar. 44% of Americans have diagnosed themselves or someone they know with a mental illness, and 1 in 4 adults say they have undiagnosed ADHD. Far fewer have actually consulted with a medical professional. Instead, we’re turning to TikTok, where “therapy-speak” is trendy and content creators diagnose themselves with mental illnesses based on a list of superficial symptoms.

Labels can be comforting, sometimes comedic, when used shorthand. When every feeling needs a diagnosis attached, though, we risk cheapening words that carry serious weight. What I wish somebody had told me, all those years ago, is that identity is a fluid thing. We can’t categorize who we are the same way a library shelf sorts books. So when we try to do so without consulting a professional, we risk more harm than good. We’re living in a world where more than half of the top 100 mental health TikToks contain misinformation, with a collective 1.3B views: a world where videos are viral not in spite of their lies, but because of them. It’s like we’ve forgotten that mental health is universal, that illness isn’t about the presence of symptoms so much as the severity to which they impact someone’s life.

Certainly, each of us faces valid struggles. The U.S. is far from perfect, having just dropped to its lowest-ever ranking (#24) on the World Happiness Report. But half of the country isn’t mentally ill, so distressed by our emotions that we are struggling to function. 78% of adults actually say they are more satisfied than not with their lives.

I think what’s happening here is that we’re so consumed by the need to categorize ourselves—to label every part of our identity—that we’ve rewired our minds to think in black and white. To classify ourselves as well or unwell when the truth is more of an ever-changing grey. Maybe labels help us reclaim control in an increasingly uncontrollable world. Maybe we crave validation for struggles which are so often stigmatized. Or maybe we’re just looking for community and belongness amidst the polarization that surrounds us. Either way, “therapy culture” is taking over, and we need to think twice about what we’re losing from it.

Is therapy culture destigmafying mental health—or romanticizing it?

Until the age of ten, I had never broken a bone. When a friend sprained her foot in elementary school, I begged her to let me play with the crutches. A few years later, a Christmas day run-in with the banister left me with a dislocated toe and a temporary seat in a wheelchair. Suddenly, I wasn’t having nearly as much fun.

It’s easy to romanticize struggle. Experiencing the thing for ourselves can change our perspective by previously unimaginable extents.

Here in lies my primary frustration “therapy-speak” culture. Young adults with mental illness take an average of 10 years to seek help. Once we do, many are us are ridiculed as “overdramatic” and “attention-seeking.” Some lose friends, or forever alter their family dynamics. All the while, the communities that disparaged our struggles are joking about the same conditions—and getting laughs, likes, and views for it. Those “weird loner kids” who hid in the bathrooms during lunch? They’re watching their bullies diagnose themselves with autism and ADHD because it’s trendy. That’s the biggest issue with “therapy-speak:” It minimizes real struggles, while actively rewarding lies.

Of course, we should never assume that those who talk about mental illness are ignorant of the subject matter. Since middle school, I’ve heard my peers make suicide jokes on the daily. I always check on them, in hopes of helping to stop even one person from making an irreversible mistake. But when the jokes are meant as exactly that—jokes—it makes my skin crawl in frustration. Ignoring them isolates me. Laughing them off removes significance from a phrase that I couldn’t admit to my family for six years of my life. And voicing my discomfort makes me “sensitive” or “lame.”

If we’re going to play in this game of categorization—this monkey-in-the-middle with labels that debilitating and lifelong—we need to be careful, before our words lose the meanings that once helped us heal. Nowadays, when I open up to someone during a depressive episode or panic attack, a common response is a shrug and a “Me too.” I don’t know how to explain that my depressive episodes are constant shouting matches inside my mind, desperate fights to convince myself I have worth. That a panic attack isn’t everyday stress, but a fist squeezed so tightly around my heart that I can barely breath.

We need to destigmatize mental health without oversimplifying the labels attached. We can feel under the weather without being ill*;* we can have a bad day without being depressed. Around 90% of people with burnout meet the criteria for major depression, but that doesn’t make them clinically depressed. Labeling burnout as “depression” collapses two distinct phenomena into one, erasing nuances that matter for treatment. Both struggles are valid, but we don’t need a disorder to be struggling, nor a label to hold onto our sense of selves. It’s time to be ambiguous again, to give ourselves permission to be fluid, ever-evolving people.

I’m not saying we can’t ever use labels, jokes, or “therapy-speak.”

Labels can feel like lifelines, giving us language to connect and understand ourselves in such a polarized world. Comedy can be a powerful outlet to release unpleasant emotions, too, and sometimes that means embracing more sobering topics. We see that in how comedians like Sarah Silverman, Helen Hong, and Aparna Nancherla have turned their darkness into their superpower.

Jokes are different from self-diagnosis, though. And when we describe ourselves with language that isn’t actually applicable to our situations, we blur medical terminology with mental health appropriation. So my point isn’t that we should stop using therapy-speak; it’s that, if we’re going to talk about something we don’t completely understand, we need to listen to those who do.

That’s all I’m asking. Just listen.

Too often, when we crack that familiar line, we miss the slight flinch, the flicker in someone’s eyes. I always have to remind myself: Never presume who is in the room. Never presume their history, never presume their hurt. Check in on friends, family, coworkers; regardless of which side of the joke they’re on. Invite discussions that go beneath what may seem like a hastily-made jest. And if someone asks to be left out of the jokes, listen.

Personally, my diagnosis was helpful when I was beginning to seek treatment. Nowadays, though, I don’t want my identity labeled on my behalf. I don’t need to identify as someone “in remission” to know that I’ve made progress with my depression. I don’t need a label for my sexuality to know that I love who I love. I support labels as an empowerment tool, but we are multidimensional beings, and my heart breaks when I think back to my middle school self, who formed so much of her identity around two words written at the bottom of a random internet quiz: “Severely Depressed.”

I’m still learning that I can be in progress without being incomplete.

I can carry a past without making it my personality, and I can hurt without calling it a disorder. My wholeness doesn’t come from naming every broken part, but from persisting through each challenge, one day at a time, until I begin to feel free.

Nowadays, “everyone goes through something” is a favorite mantra of mine. Since I started sharing my story, I’ve had dozens of people reach out to me with their own. I’m learning how to have conversations without comparing struggles, to share advice without falling into an echo chamber. I always encourage those who are struggling to educate themselves on possible causes, but also, more importantly, to speak openly and honestly with a trusted adult if they suspect something is wrong.

Looking back, I don’t blame the girl I used to be for searching so desperately for a label. She was scared and confused, trying to read a map with no legend. In some ways, language gave me that legend so that I could express myself. But just like I once begged to play with my friend’s crutches, it’s easy to romanticize illness from the outside. When we lose ourselves to this need for categorization—whether it’s through an obsession with self-diagnosis, or a passing joke—we also lose the chance to tell the difference between struggle and disorder.

To someone out there, that recognition might make all the difference.

Resources:*

• Eisenberg Family Depression Center at the University of Michigan: A fantastic series of toolkits on mood, stress, and anxiety.

• Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9): A tool to explore the potential of whether you may be experiencing depression.

• The Thinking-Feeling Connection by Back from the Bluez: Worksheet on self-talk

• The 8 Best Mantras for Mental and Emotional Health by Psych Central

*Note these are not intended to take the place of a professional evaluation or to serve as a diagnosis. If you suspect you may be struggling with a mental illness, please reach out to a doctor. If you are in crisis, please contact a support line or visit your local ER.