Experts target social trend romanticizing mental illness

For 21-year-old Aisha, mental health is a raw, lived experience, etched deeply into her family's story, with her father battling severe obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), mania and bipolar disorder for more than 40 years.

When Aisha's father first showed symptoms, mental health facilities were nonexistent in their village and those suffering from these illnesses were treated like outcasts. Aisha's grandmother told her how villagers would chain him at home.

So Aisha would become angry when she heard her classmates in college casually say things like, "I'm so OCD about my room" or "This assignment is making me depressed".