When myths become diagnoses: Why mental illnesses remain so misunderstood

Conversations around mental health have grown louder over the past decade. Understanding and care, however, have struggled to keep pace.For decades, popular culture has turned complex psychiatric conditions into dramatic plot devices. Today, social media and AI-generated content are adding to the noise, making it easier than ever for misinformation to spread alongside genuine medical information.Thus, awareness without accurate understanding can create a different problem in itself. When psychiatric conditions become internet buzzwords or fictional tropes, myths often travel faster than facts.To understand how these misconceptions take shape, three serious but among the most misunderstood mental illnesses have been analysed - schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder (DID) and bipolar disorder. Each is medically distinct, yet all three have many attached stereotypes that continue to influence how society views mental illnesses.According to the WHO, one in every eight people globally lives with a mental disorder.