I’ve been watching the evolution of therapy culture from the inside for a long time. Something’s shifted—and not in a good way.

I’ve noticed a pattern. A kind of language has emerged online—a mental health milieu—and it’s changing how people see themselves.

It sounds like self-awareness and healing, but it reads like a script.

​

Phrases like anxious attachment, people-pleaser, triggered, narcissist, and trauma bond are everywhere. Not as tools—but as identities. And it’s not helping.

​

A growing number of people have adopted what I call a diagnostic identity—a way of understanding themselves primarily through clinical labels and therapy-speak.

​

It’s not that psych diagnoses aren’t real. Of course they are.

It’s that something else is happening now.

​

Almost all mental health content on social media suggests that normal human experiences are symptoms of mental disorders. People are absorbing fragments of therapy language and turning them into fixed self-concepts.

​

Therapists are noticing it too. But many of the loudest voices online are caught in the same trap—performing their own diagnostic identity like a brand:

​

“I’m neurodivergent.”

“I’m triggered.”

“I’m healing my inner child.”
It’s endless.

​

Here’s the thing:
Not every strong reaction is a trauma response.
Not every pattern is pathology.
Not every personality quirk is a disorder.

​

Sometimes, there’s nothing wrong with you at all.

​

And yet—people are encouraged to do mental gymnastics, constantly tracing discomfort back to childhood. The assumption is that if you feel something strong, it must be trauma.

But that’s not always true.

​

This kind of thinking can keep people stuck—ruminating, anxious, and chronically self-critical. What starts as an honest attempt at understanding turns into reverse-engineering a pathology, and then searching for evidence to confirm it.

​

When people label strong emotions as a trauma response, it implies their lens is damaged. That they can’t trust themselves.
But most strong emotions are just that—valid responses to distress. And they can be navigated with clarity and basic skills, not diagnosis.

​

I have so much more to say. I’m not just here to critique–I have solutions.

​

Be Intentional. Live Freely. 

​​

​