> This is such the wrong take
And:
> "Teens faking mental illness” is a folk tale older than social media.
And I do not believe either of those statements captures the truth of the situation. Hysteria and group psychosis are also ancient phenomena, and not particularly well-understood, and so I think it's prideful and potentially harmful to preclude the current situation of mental illness, particularly when it manifests in hyper-connected online communities, from that possibility entirely.
I know you didn't really imply this in your post, but I can see in this thread others taking issue with statements like the above. Those opinions don't make me an opponent of mental health awareness, quite the opposite really. I just think we ought to be cautious and suspect when evaluating the current state of affairs, and not let current progress blind us of the potential for greater harm down the road.
If your argument is “there exist people who purposely fake various disorders” then sure you’re absolutely right. You can find all breeds of crazy if you go looking for it.
But what isn’t true at all is that the noticeable uptick in people realizing they have and being diagnosed with things like depression, adhd, anxiety is just the result of people faking it.