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Originally Posted by FluffyDinosaur
It would really depend on what's causing the emotions, so this can't be answered in a general way. Statements like "I have dealt with mental health myself" are dangerous. Just because you've dealt with one type of mental health issue doesn't mean that your experience generalizes to everyone else. For some people, going off meds can be truly disastrous. "Controlling your own emotions" is most definitely not always possible.
The distinction between environmental factors and "true" illness is not always that clear, because as some have described before me, people with clinical disorders such as bipolar are often much more sensitive to stress and other triggers than "normal" people. Even if an outside factor seems to be the trigger of a depression, for example, that doesn't mean there's not an underlying clinical condition that warrants treatment with medication.
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I totally agree with all you said in this posting. I am not sure that making a correct diagnosis (especially with how little time many psychiatrists spend talking to patients before making a diagnosis) is always that clear cut in every case. My first therapist said that she used the diagnoses of anxiety or depression for the purpose of filing insurance claims because they were less stigmatizing and are common but, many times she felt like she was not sure about everything going on with her patients. I appreciated that she did not feel like she knew all the answers and did not automatically "pigeon-hole" patients into certain categories early on in the therapy relationship.