„Stressiges Leben ist keine Krankheit“ – Hausärzte über Überdiagnosen der psychischen Gesundheit

Mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety being situational, or having roots in „life stresses“ is how it has always been, but GPs will never get to those root causes with patients, because that isn’t their job. Their job is either doling out medications, or booking referrals to the people who *will* get to those root causes with patients.

Plenty of „normal life stresses“ (bereavement, abuse, trauma, poverty, etc) can still very much make you ill. Pathologising „normal feelings“ doesn’t mean those people don’t still need or deserve help, so what is even the point of this being raised, if not to dismiss people who still need help? Huge and complex societal issues that need to be addressed such as isolation, loneliness, poverty, and social inequality aren’t solved by GPs throwing pills at them, they’re also not solved by GPs invalidating and eye-rolling patients they’ve made a snap judgement about based on a 10 minute appointment.

We shouldn’t wave people off who have „Shit Life Syndrome“, or just normalise misery solely on the basis that there are a *lot* of people now who are experiencing misery.. „Oh you feel like shit and wish you were dead because you can’t see a future for yourself? Yeah join the queue.. That’s just normal now..“ So sad how we got here.

eta – Reading the comments from the GPs on this article, makes me wonder how many of them have compassion fatigue, or how many are just bellends who never had it to start with.

Things like this scare me, it took me from the age of 16 to the age of 36 to finally be diagnosed with C-PTSD. In those 20 years all my GP could diagnose was „only“ depression and anxiety.

Why are we demonising the victims of decades worth of mental health being scrapped, even GP appointments scrapped.

And then people wonder why we end up with their commute halted due to a person on the track.