I have suffered from major depression and suicide ideation many times in my life, among other…

There's a difference between a low mood and depression, or even a short-term depressed mood and a major depressive episode, it's true. For…

I have suffered from major depression and suicide ideation many times in my life, among other disorders that are more stigmatized/demonized. I also am neurodivergent, and have suffered from the stigma that comes with my neurotype being medicalized and pathologized.

There's a difference between a low mood and depression, or even a short-term depressed mood and a major depressive episode, it's true. For me, a fully medicalized lens is not helpful for understanding my experiences with either. When I was at my most depressed and suicidal, I was also in an abusive relationship, a gruelling graduate program, and had no friends. When I have felt the most "crazy" is when I have been most treated as sick, rather than when I am treated as a person in need of material changes in my life.

That's not to say medical model treatment doesn't help, or doesn't save lives, it absolutely does. This is not an anti-medication piece. But I come to this lens and view of mental illness very very honestly, and I wish people would stop assuming that a dissenting viewpoint means a person must not belong to the same group... and then requiring people to self disclose in order for their arguments, which in this case I have not hinged on my personal experiences, to be given weight.