Bring "Neurotic" Back

Bring the term "neurotic" back! We’ve pathologized every single human emotion under the sun and called it mental illness. You're e not allowed to be overwhelmed, sad, annoyed, obsessive, moody, bored, or sensitive anymore — no, now there is something wrong with you - you're mentally ill and need therapy and meds. Congratulations. You're a walking DSM entry!

The so-called mental health professionals don't even recognize the term neurotic anymore - it's not diagnosable (ching-ching). Neurotic used to be a normal descriptor — a little anxious, a little overthinking, a little intense. You know, alive. But now? God forbid you call someone (or yourself) neurotic — they’ll accuse you of "stigmatizing mental health." Not EVERYTHING is a disorder. Sometimes, you’re not depressed; you’re just tired because you’re drowning in emails, a sh*tty job or relationship, and two hours of doom-scrolling before bed. Sometimes, you're not anxious — you just realized that you're getting older and will die someday - and you have no idea what happens next. That's not an illness. That's existential awareness.

We’re getting gaslighted by Big Pharma and the mental health industry (yes, it's a profit-driven industry) into believing that being human is abnormal and needs to be treated. That we need pills and therapy and labels to justify our pain. But here's a radical idea: maybe life is just f*cking hard, and you’re reacting like any sane, slightly neurotic person would.

We’ve turned quirks into symptoms and personalities into pathologies. Everything has a name, a needed pill, a 12-step treatment plan. But no one is getting any better (1 in 4 Americans are taking mental health medications) — they’re just learning how to talk about their pain in clinically approved ways.

Bring. Neurotic. Back.

Let's be strange, messy, dramatic, a little nuts, and spiral for a moment without assuming we're broken. Let's feel things without medicalizing them. Let's stop slapping a mental illness label on every one of life's discomforts. I don't say this because people don't suffer - they most definitely do. I say this because we are much, much stronger than Big Pharma and the mental health industry wants us to believe.

For most of us, we are not mentally ill. We are just neurotic. And that's just fine.