Let me begin by saying this: Those of you who are suffering from a mental illness, I'm sorry you have to sit back and watch your sufferings be made trendy. It seems like no matter what website you're on, whether it be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc., people are glorifying and romanticizing mental illnesses.

A mental illness refers to a wide range of mental health conditions that affect a person's mood, thinking, social interaction, and/or behavior. Mental illnesses include, but are not limited to depression, anxiety, addictions, and disordered eating. The mediums these unhealthy habits and ideas are presented on are full of young kids (who probably shouldn't even be on them, but that's beside the point) and teenagers. Both of these populations are full of terribly impressionable kids. Images and posts are flooded with tags, like "thigh gap goals" or "depressed" or things of that nature. These lifestyles are not being presented in a way that will educate young people about the consequences, but rather a way that endorses them. These mediums are telling kids, "Hey it's cute to be this way. It's different. You want to be different." Here's my PSA to anyone relaying a message of that sort:

An eating disorder is not a perfectly dolled up face leaning over a toilet or refusing a cupcake because you want to lose a few pounds. It's a fine layer of hair growing over your entire body because it's your body's only defense mechanism against the brutal cold that is your reality. It's not that you are figuratively dying to be thin. It is that you are literally dying to be thin. Mood swings should not have the self-diagnosis of bipolar disorder and being sad does not qualify someone as having depression. Depression isn't looking out the car window, sad because your favorite TV show character died. In fact, sometimes it isn't a feeling at all, but rather a lack of any feeling. Getting nervous before a first date does not mean you have crippling social anxiety. Self-harm isn't pretty scars begging to be seen so someone can tell you you're still beautiful. It's water dripping down in the shower burning like alcohol in your wounds. Mental illness can be your parents arguing because they don't know what to do anymore and they're at wit's end. Sometimes it's losing your friends because you don't want to go anywhere anymore.Mental illnesses are being self diagnosed because it's "cute" and, for some reason unbeknownst to me, trendy. I'm not saying every teenager is faking their depression to get out of going to school. I'm not saying all mental illnesses always look like those described. My point is people do not get to choose to have a mental illness. Mental illness is real and there are people living with a diagnosed mental illness who wish they were just doing it to be "cute."

Mental illness is not cute. It's not trendy. It doesn't make you quirky or special or make people care about you. Mental illness demands recovery. It demands help. It is a monster that hides in your closet that no one can see, but you. It's a folklore or myth that no one wants to pass down, but genetics plans otherwise. Stop promoting teenagers to see mental illness as beautifully tragic. Stop telling these impressionable kids that mental illness is cute and romantic. Quit labeling yourself with a self diagnosis that some people would love not to have. Mental illness shouldn't be wished upon a worst enemy so why wish it on yourself?