Some people think anxiety is a fad. Let’s take a minute to think about the concept of a fad or trend.
Remember when everyone was super obsessed with kale? Let’s totally make kale chips and pretend they taste really good. (I’m sure some of you succeeded in making tasty kale chips, but I did not. I still tried to make them though. Why did I attempt to bake them even though I’m the worst cook/baker/chef/ food handler in the entire world? I wanted to know what all the hype was about! Why was this vegetable blowing up online? Oh, I’m still talking about kale? It is so 2012. I should be talking about avocados. I mean we know guac is extra, and apparently it’s worth the extra $1.80. I don’t get the hype. I don’t like guacamole let alone avocados. Yet, I did put a half in a smoothie. Why? Was I trying to be healthy or again did I just want to take part in the trend?
Eating a vegetable because it suddenly is super popular is a fad (or a step to a healthy lifestyle, but you get the point). A fad is dabbing in snapchat stories or overdrawing your lips with liquid lipstick. Calling your friends “Bad and Boujee,” as a joke, is a trend.
Faking a mental illness is not a fad. Sure there are people who misuse the “I’m so anxious" phrase just like people misuse the phrases “you’re retarded" and “that’s gay." It may seem like anxiety has suddenly become a trend over the past few years because maybe we've just discovered it's depths. Maybe it has been covered more in the media, so we think it's brand new. It’s similar to how people think individuals are suddenly gay. Reality check: gay people have always existed, transgender people have always existed and anxiety has always existed. Now those topics may be an extreme comparison, but you get where I’m coming from.
The thing about anxiety is that some people learn to cope with it and some never do. It can be difficult to learn how to cope with it, especially with severe cases.
I have met a few individuals who have anxiety. Each case had a different severity. With each friend, came many people who would call their bluff behind their backs. They would say, “he’s being so dramatic” and “she just wants attention.” I can specifically mention anxiety here because of the situations I’ve witnesses, but this really goes for any mental illness.
Just because someone says they have a mental illness, it doesn’t mean they’re lying. Consider the fact that they might actually have it. It could be the day in age that makes mental illness seem so trendy. Maybe it's the media that glamorizes all types of mental illnesses and anxiety just so happens to be common.
I’m not saying there aren’t any phonies out there. That is a definite possibility, but as humans, we should be considerate. You don’t have to sympathize with people if you don’t want to, but you should try to understand where they are coming from.
Before you judge someone for pulling the mental illness card, consider this: maybe they really do struggle with something that you can’t see.
