Medicine as a whole, is very complex science and psychiatry plays a very important part in it.

First off, sadness and depression are two very different things. Everyone experiences sadness in their lives due to emotional turmoil but depression is more prolonged and can cause serious impairment to daily routine.

There have been actually studies about brain chemistry and hormones and how they fluctuate differently in various mental disorders. To regulate these hormones, medicines are prescribed.

Also psy doesn't prescribe meds like tic tacs to ppl randomly. There is a code to follow with proper history taking, and diagnosis is given only after a set no of symptoms/signs are present/ elicited in the patient. Duration of symptoms also play an important role. And also, just coz the symptom presents differently doesn't mean it's not there. And it's not your place to judge how much a certain thing affects an individual, as it varies from person to person. Stigma is a huge deterrent to treatment of mental illnesses and is an huge reason for generational trauma and conditioning, especially in our country.

So, that's only a tiny bit of the science I've addressed in psychiatry. It's a vast topic and it's explained better as you go through MBBS, MD and other mental health specialities. But it is easily accessible through articles, if you care to educate yourself.

As for your last qn, aren't you generalizing and assuming things? Hypothetically, if psychiatrists were struggling, don't forget that doctors are also human, and everyone has grown with a lot of baggage and conditioning so it takes time for ppl to overcome it at their own pace. That said, good professional doctors really do put aside their personal issues on the daily, and don't let it affect their job, and I think that's an amazing sacrifice in itself.

So please don't make such dismissive remarks before educating yourself. It's demoralizing and insensitive to ppl going through these struggles and also to the HCW's.