Is the Mental Health Conversation Making Us Sicker?

This episode includes candid references to suicide, depression and self-harm.

It’s just been World Mental Health Day. I’m asking a hard question with no easy answers. Is the mental health conversation helping… or are there places it’s making us worse?

I talk about the tension between compassion and consequence. The risk of romanticising suffering when public figures die. How awareness can accidentally normalise behaviours. Princess Diana speaking about bulimia and what followed. The pathologisation of being human. My own swings, labels I once clung to, and what it takes to pull myself out of a spiral without shaming the struggle.

This isn’t anti-awareness. It’s a call to evolve it. Less performance. More truth. Fewer labels as identity. More community and responsibility. Let’s bring the pendulum back to the middle.

In this episode

• The double-edged sword of public compassion after tragedy
• When “normalising” crosses into normalising the thing itself
• Labels, identity loops and the algorithm effect
• Appropriate pain vs “mental health” language
• Finding the line between care and a loving push to move

If you’re struggling

Please reach out to someone you trust. You can also contact crisis support in your country (e.g. Samaritans in the UK, CALM, or your local emergency services). You don’t have to carry it alone.

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