There was plenty of mental illness in the past, it was just often swept under the rug, or when it was acknowledged it was termed a "nervous breakdown" (or "demo

There was plenty of mental illness in the past, it was just often swept under the rug, or when it was acknowledged it was termed a "nervous breakdown" (or "demon possession"), etc. Now a lot more people are coming forward and talking about it, whereas before people would just pretend they were ok, as much as they could. That pretense still happens even now, as there's still a stigma about it, but more and more people are starting to feel safe to come out of the closet. It doesn't help anyone to tell us them (us) that they just have "extra time and mental capacity on their hands to try to dig up issues where there aren't any". Not to speak for anyone else, but I've been crazy busy before (and every shade of busy in between) and still been very depressed and had severe trouble coping. Keeping busy might help with mild depression but it rarely works for moderate to severe depression. Depression is complex and has many different causes that vary from person to person, but if part of the reason for you is that you find life meaningless or find what you do meaningless, then staying busy isn't going to help you. Same if you hate yourself, or if your depression is related to trauma you've suffered, etc. That doesn't even get in to the "chemical imbalance" theories of depression, which I'm not a big fan of myself so I won't go in to them except to say that just keeping busy might not have enough effect on that either.