Mental health is an issue that lacks general understanding and requires substantial examination and discussion both publicly and privately.
Stigma is very much a contributor to maintaining or exacerbating mental illness and derives from hundreds of years, (if not thousands), when humanity had little to no understanding of 'different' or 'aberrant' behaviour. Lack of any satisfactory explanation meant that all manner of supposed 'causes' were posited and accepted and utilised, not only by health professionals but by social and legal authorities.
The dominance of religion, often even stronger in dictating or influencing social belief, (as it can still be today), has also been a highly significant force in the insidious conditioning of people to believe that unusual behaviour or demeanor or even ideas were indicative of abnormality, craziness or insanity. This was particularly true in relation to women, who were until relatively recently, regarded as the property of their husbands and even if unmarried subject to the dictates of authority almost if not entirely male. (This is still the case in many nations in the World and its legacy still extant even in modern 'free' and democratic societies.)
Indeed, certainly up to the 20th Century it was not unusual for women to be certified insane and committed to mental institutions, (effectively prisons), on the basis of claims by their husband and/or a male doctor. They were committed on allegations of the most outlandish and concocted nature, often complete falsehoods and, even when containing valid elements of fact, ignoring context, behaviour or treatment by husbands, or others, and differences in the nature and human life experiences of male and female.
Today, a major legacy of this is notably, the aims of feminism and the 'modern woman' who asserts her right to make her own choices, to be valued for her own attributes and abilities, to be respected and treated as a person not an object to be either put on a pedestal or demeaned as a whore, nor to be cast aside when she no longer is able or willing to satisfy what a man wants her to be or provide.
Depression and similar conditions, as you have ably illustrated, are almost universally misunderstood by the majority. Introverts, those who prefer to live quietly and engage in solitary pursuits, those who reject common prejudice that is accepted and practiced by many because it has become the 'norm', and even worse, those who willingly stand up and speak out strongly against inequity, inequality and wrong-doing are all liable to be seen as having some form of mental dysfunction.
Yet, again as you point out, these individuals may be 'the life and soul of the party', 'the leader', 'the teacher', 'the poet', even and in fact so often 'the comedian.'
No human being can really know another, no matter how close, loving, caring or empathetic. We are all unique and our minds individual so, regardless of universalities or even subscription to common groups or causes, we will all have variations in our views. Only the individual can truly understand who they are and most of us spend our lives attempting, consciously or unconsciously to do that.
So, yes, we can change. The question is: should we? Of course, that has to be a personal decision. What it oughtn't to be, I believe, is a decision effectively brought about by society's expectations or even those of a 'life coach', 'a doctor', a 'psychologist' or 'a psychiatrist'.
For those who can acknowledge an issue for themselves and who desire a change, what has been shown as most effective is the modelling and help of others who have experienced or still experience mental illness but have essentially 'recovered.' They have come to terms with themselves and accepted themselves on their own terms, rather than those of others. The result is that they do understand and so are best placed to help.
Fortunately, many institutions and individuals who purportedly are engaged in assisting those with mental illness are now recognising that recovery does not necessarily mean elimination of a condition but rather the understanding and management of it and that this can be and often is most successfully assisted by those who have accomplished it.
One last thought I'd offer is that, in my view, when one considers the state of humanity as a whole and the appalling injustice, insecurity, disease, dispossession, cruelty, injustice, conflict and disdain for human life and human well-being, let alone that of our environment, nature and a beautiful planet, - perhaps it is those who do not display signs of depression, anxiety, even hopelessness, who are the suffering mental dysfunction.
