I know you probably wrote your post in good faith, and you appear sympathetic to the posts you've replied to in this subthread.
I can see how you would jump to the assumption that there is something "wrong" in the person's life, as this is a universal reference point;
Something bad happens in your life, and you feel bad about it.
But the fact is that most mental illnesses generally aren't a results of anything like what you've described.
There's no meaning behind them, and they're not rational - which is one of the reasons why they are described as illnesses.
This, in addition to severity, is some of the difference between an anxiety disorder and an anxious mood.
So the assumption made is basically dependent on your healthy perspective, and does not take into account the experience of people affected by mental illness.
If you really don't know much about mental illnesses (as you say in your post) I urge you to try to read up, as ignorance and stigma (which is to some extent a result of the former) are huge problems, even though mental illness is very common and affects around 20% of people, depending in the source (NIMH says 18.6 percent of all U.S. adults had a mental illness the previous year in 2012 [0]).
I can see how you would jump to the assumption that there is something "wrong" in the person's life, as this is a universal reference point; Something bad happens in your life, and you feel bad about it.
But the fact is that most mental illnesses generally aren't a results of anything like what you've described.
There's no meaning behind them, and they're not rational - which is one of the reasons why they are described as illnesses.
This, in addition to severity, is some of the difference between an anxiety disorder and an anxious mood.
So the assumption made is basically dependent on your healthy perspective, and does not take into account the experience of people affected by mental illness.
If you really don't know much about mental illnesses (as you say in your post) I urge you to try to read up, as ignorance and stigma (which is to some extent a result of the former) are huge problems, even though mental illness is very common and affects around 20% of people, depending in the source (NIMH says 18.6 percent of all U.S. adults had a mental illness the previous year in 2012 [0]).
[0]: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/any-men...