I think it is better not to judge in general. You never really know unless you are maybe aware of that person's state of mind and how they think and work, but even then... someone who is a trained medical professional may be able to see things you can't and they are the ones properly equipped to fully handle the symptoms.
In general, actual proven medical cases seriously should be brought into light and society loves to make things a 'sensation'... really, it's about awareness for diseases that are shurked off. The pill popper part of culture has been around for a while now and is a separate issue I think... however, I would say the pill popping does almost certainly increase cases in which treatment is not thoroughly explored or misdiagnoses occur because doctors believe in only medicating away the symptoms.
I was in church for Easter when a family came and sat in front of us. Their kid was totally out of control. Most people's inclination would be to judge, criticize, humiliate the family... but the whole time, no amount of parenting, as much as they tried to talk 1-1 on with him was working and he was just cognitively unaware of the significance of anything told to him or going on around him. It was like he was in his own world and his cognitive and social processes were sped up x 1000. Clearly they were overwhelmed and I felt bad for the mother who looked understandably worn and overwhelmed and she could not focus on the service for even a second without him interrupting with something. I don't really believe in medicating away problems, but I think in some cases the counter-stigma that is created by the thought we are over-medicating our kids might've actually stop some people from seeking treatment... I don't believe in medication and it's heart-breaking to want to admit maybe something is wrong with your child mentally, but I think they were completely overwhelmed and the parent's attempts to solve it as if it were a behavioral issue saddened me because clearly it was not working at all.
For myself, I have a chronic pain syndrome that took me 7 1/2 years to get diagnosed. Believe me, I had plenty of doctors who tried to medicate my issue away instead of actually helping me. Actually, haha--a funny thing... the doctor who let me go on 3 months with a serious infection without treating me kept trying to diagnose me with depression though she was not a therapist. I kept telling her I was in so much pain and having problems and she kept shrugging it off and asking me all kinds of personal/mental stuff that was generally not her business. My grandmother had to threaten them to get my records pulled so I could go to a legitimate doctor. She was a quack I think. It was a nightmare and for most of those years I went home with every excuse you could think of just generally ignoring the problem, because the doctor(s) had no explanation and myself and my family was in denial anything was wrong. I have worse problems now as some things have progressed, so it's not ignorable anymore anyway. However, I was finally diagnosed in '06, and it has been interesting road in life up until now...
So even despite all that crap, really I have more reason to be angry about 'depression' being overdiagnosed than any, but I still just think... there are always two sides to the coin. As much as the negative side effects of our culture are "annoying", how often does that effect the average person? It's understandable if you have met someone who has had a problem you thought legitimately was misdiagnosed, but it shouldn't go against the grain of helping those who legitimately have the disease. It does also in some ways help bring to light some other diseases that otherwise may go unnoticed because we are taking those situations more seriously.
I was part of a research program for my issues and my grandfather's side (also I carry it) carries a gene that develops another rare disease that also my mother, my and my grandfather who are disabled with also participate regularly in research for a cure. I know first hand doctors and modern medicine is not perfect--and that there are still many diseases that need more awareness to get proper funding and research for them. For every "unnecessary" diagnosis, you have a disease that is getting more and more attention and funding to research that will help those who are legitimately sick in the longrun. So for me, it's the tradeoffs of the realities of life. That is just life in general. Society is not perfect, but I'm glad for the awareness the diseas(es) are getting as a result of the "pandemic" mentality that is probably more overblown in the media far more than there is an actual pandemic.
