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"If a person, by medical standards, has a mental illness, but they themselves are happy and don't feel that their mental health is compromised, do they still have a mental illness?"

This made me think about my own situation with depression. As of now, I feel fine, happy even, and haven't felt down in a few weeks. I don't consider myself to be depressed right now, though I think that I am, medically speaking. Many people do not know that they have mental illnesses until someone else diagnoses them with such, but just because they are ignorant of it doesn't mean that they do not suffer from it. Your question made me think, if a person is taking medications for a mental illness and therefore no longer feels the symptoms of the illness, then that doesn't necessarily mean that they do not have that mental illness anymore; they just don't feel all of the effects of it.

I think you also bring up some interesting points regarding the cultural context of a mental illness. One out of every ten people in the United States will suffer from depression at some point in their life. This site says that 10 times more people suffer from depression now than in 1945. My initial thought was that maybe people feel more comfortable asking their doctors about it now than they did then, that perhaps there is less stigma now, but I'm also wondering about misdiagnoses. In class someone (sorry, I forget your name!) mentioned the high rate of Mawrtyrs who are prescribed Adderall. I find it hard to believe that there are so many people on this campus with ADD. My explanation for this is misdiagnoses. So I wonder how many people today are truly clinically depressed and how many people just suffer from the occasional blues.