What does it mean to be human? That is an unnecessarily vague question with a multitude of answers, but a few things may come to mind: to have a body, to have a soul, to be created by God, to seek truth, to believe. We might also define humanity by its problems: We get sick, we make mistakes, we hurt each other, we hurt ourselves. We are flawed in any number of ways.
In an excellent piece in The Free Press, “Nobody Has a Personality Anymore,” author Freya India argues that modern man has been swept up in a storm of diagnoses: that anything “wrong” or “different” about us isn’t just part of our personality, it’s a disorder and it should be fixed.
“Anything too human—every habit, every eccentricity, every feeling that’s too strong—has to be labeled and explained,” she writes. “This is part of a deeper instinct in modern life to explain everything—psychologically, scientifically, evolutionarily.”
We aren’t responsible for our actions; our diagnoses and disorders are to blame for everything.
India’s excellent piece put into words an upsetting trend that (hopefully) many Americans have noticed: It now feels nearly impossible to talk about oneself without feeling the need to explain why and how we are the way we are. We don’t simply admit we made a mistake and apologize for being late or forgetting something: We say we have ADHD and because of that, we can’t be on time or remember things. We aren’t responsible for our actions; our diagnoses and disorders are to blame for everything.
As India puts it: “You are shy and stare at your feet when people talk to you, not because you are your mother’s child, not because you are gentle and sweet and blush the same way she does—nope, it’s autism.”
Awareness of the growing trend of over-diagnosing every part of ourselves should not downplay the importance of knowing if we suffer from diagnosable and treatable ailments, psychological or otherwise. Advances in science and medicine that make it possible for us to understand and treat ailments of the human mind are important and worth pursuing. No one should have to suffer unnecessarily from something that can be helped and improve quality of life.
But recently, it seems that every misstep, mistake, or annoying habit becomes evidence of a diagnosable disease—and many times, a way to excuse them. Stigma about mental illness has faded to such a degree that much of social media is filled with people self-diagnosing serious ailments and narrating their journeys in ways that feel more narcissistic than informative.
According to a 2024 study India quotes in her article, 72 percent of Generation Z women said, “Mental health challenges are an important part of my identity.” Read that again. It doesn’t say that 72 percent of Gen Z women deal with mental illness or even have officially been diagnosed with mental illness. It said that they view those mental illnesses as part of their identity. This should shock us and show us that a large percentage of the up-and-coming generation defines itself by its problems, not its capabilities. This is misguided and concerning. Our identity should not be defined by what we might find in a medical chart.
Those who do suffer from diagnosable and treatable mental illness should be diagnosed and treated.
Those who do suffer from diagnosable and treatable mental illness should be diagnosed and treated. But those diagnoses alone do not a person make. The experiences—good and bad—that come with the human condition are just that: part of the human condition. They are not only data points to be charted, treated, and stuck to us like nametags.
“Every heartfelt, annoying, interesting piece of you, [is] categorized,” India writes. And later: “There are no experiences anymore, no phases or seasons of life, no wonders or mysteries, only clues about what could be wrong with us. Everything that happens can be explained away; nothing is exempt.”
India hits this nail on the head but misses one key thing: We are the way we are because God made us that way.
But if the study India cites is to be believed, modern man often defines his identity by what limits or constrains him, often using that “identity” as a shield or bubble to keep them true when engaging in the world. God is not part of the equation, so the idea that the way we are made is perfect—flaws and all—is not even on most people’s radar.
More and more, as people (especially the young) diagnose, attribute, categorize, and explain their personalities (or “problems”), we drift further from the Catholic understanding of man. But the Church can help.
As the saying goes, the Church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints. God accepts our imperfections and allows us to struggle with them. There isn’t a story about a great saint that doesn’t include a line about something challenging in their lives or a sin they struggled with, and that’s exactly why we should rely on them as examples of what it means to be fully human.
We’re still left with a mystery, though. Why do some people seem to have to deal with more suffering than others? We don’t have answers to that question, but we do know to whom our questions and wonderings should be directed: our heavenly Father, who created each of us to be unrepeatable and perfect, even with our flaws. The mystery and beauty of humanity, even in its brokenness, is what makes the world a diverse, organic, ever-changing, ever-growing place.
If science is the ultimate good and diagnoses the ultimate answer, where else is there to go?
Modern man’s drive to categorize, explain, treat, and eliminate all “disorders,” even if they are nothing more than parts of us, continues to draw mankind further from an understanding of life that accepts and appreciates the unknown. And, even more tragically, it argues that our stories are “complete” when they are diagnosed. If science is the ultimate good and diagnoses the ultimate answer, where else is there to go?
Faith tells us that there is more. There is trust in our heavenly Father, who seeks our good always. There is trust in the redemption of Jesus Christ, who suffered for us and gives us an example to follow. There is trust in the Holy Spirit, who guides us and breathes life into our suffering. And of course, there are the saints, who provide concrete examples of what it means to be fallible, flawed, suffering humans and yet glorify God.
India writes, “It takes courage not to explain everything, to release control, to resist that impulse to turn inwards. We are thinking about ourselves enough.”
If we spend all our time focusing on our problems and how to solve them, we’ll miss opportunities to grow in holiness and see the magnificent world for all that it is. If we spend all our time Googling our symptoms, we’ll miss the chance to learn about our ancestors who may have suffered the same way.
“My worry is that . . . a generation might realize that the only problem they had, all along, was being human,” India beautifully concludes. We cannot let our preoccupation with finding, naming, and eliminating sources of suffering lead us to eliminating the human condition itself. Instead, let us look to God and his Church, allowing his grace and love to help our “flaws” shine.