Mental Health Day

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MENTAL HEALTH: THE VOICE BEHIND THE DIAGNOSIS

Why lived experience belongs in the conversation.

Written from lived experience | 4 October 2026

October is recognised in South Africa as Mental Health Awareness Month, with World Mental Health Day observed internationally on 10 October. This year’s international theme, “Lived experiences heard: real voices, real change,” places the experiences of people living with mental-health conditions at the centre of the conversation.

We hear many words associated with mental health: depression, anxiety, trauma, burnout, panic, bipolar disorder. We may know what these words mean, yet that knowledge tells us little about what it actually feels like to live with the condition behind the word.

I know this distinction from personal experience. Living with mental-health difficulties has taught me that understanding a diagnosis intellectually and understanding what it means to live with it are two different forms of knowledge. A diagnosis can help explain what is happening, but it cannot fully describe what that experience feels like from inside it. That difference has changed how I think about the way we talk about mental health and the people who live with it.

It also made me question how much we assume we understand when we know someone’s diagnosis. A diagnosis can tell us something important, but it cannot tell us how that person experiences it, what it means in the context of their life or what support feels like to them.

The same diagnosis can therefore look different from one person to another. Symptoms, life circumstances, coping mechanisms, treatment and relationships can all influence how that diagnosis is experienced.

We can know the clinical definition of depression without knowing what depression feels like for the person sitting in front of us. We can understand the terminology surrounding trauma without understanding what a person’s history has taught them about safety, relationships or themselves.

Lived experience adds another layer to what we understand about mental health. It can show us how a condition is experienced in the context of a person’s life, how individual circumstances influence that experience, and what support can feel like from the perspective of the person receiving it.

For people living with mental-health difficulties, being heard means more than having an opportunity to speak. It means having their experience taken seriously and recognising that it can contribute to how mental health is understood and supported.

“A label can tell us something. An assumption can tell us something. Lived experience can tell us something neither can fully explain.”