In this article we problematise the stress girls experience in the light of invisibility and visibility, including the gendered tensions around the social constructions of girls as (in)visible. Our analysis is based on a rereading of narrative interviews with Swedish girls experiencing stress-related problems. Issues of girl's health and illness are found to be undeveloped in the wider sociocultural context of both health research and cultural youth studies. Our analysis suggests that stress as an illness among girls seems invisible and diminished, and also that girls themselves feel invisible and not good enough. We emphasise that girls' efforts and the external demands on them need to be acknowledged and addressed instead of individualised. Furthermore, we relate the tension between visibility and invisibility, which seems central to the girl's distress, to limiting norms of femininity and gender orders. According to our analysis the girls' efforts to create a visible self seem to come at a price.