Life is hard. No one can argue with that. However, for some, life is made harder by a mental illness that they have no control over. Mental illnesses are just that; a sickness. They are not a characteristic, they are not a quirk; and for the life of me, I cannot figure out why people act so that it seems they have a mental illness. Many people, especially in my generation, no longer can draw the line between a serious illness and a rough patch. This is the most evident on social media, where you find black and white pictures plastered with words romanticizing suicide and anxiety. It is a terrifying phenomenon that needs to stop.
Everyone will go through sadness and heartbreak. Everyone will get to know emptiness and loneliness. However, there is very little reliable advice to be found on how to deal with these parts of life so they are not as acknowledged to be as much a part of life as happiness or eventual success. People don't know how to have a conversation with the aim to feel better because sadness isn't normalized, it is romanticized. Melancholy is recognized by the media to be the major indicator of depression, which isn't completely true. People have turned a normal human experience into a heartbreaking battle fought given to this world's toughest soldiers. I'm not trying to undermine people who are struggling with mental illness at all, they deserve recognition and compassion for what they are going through. What I mean is that people assume that happiness and peace are the factory settings of the human mind and if you are not feeling those things, there must be something deeply wrong with you. The truth is that human emotion is not set from a fixed point from where all other emotion is rebelling from, it is a continuous flow. It is not a movie, with a happy beginning, sad middle, and an even happier ending. It is a painting, with all of the emotions there, laid out from the beginning and life points your perspective to different parts of the painting as you go through different experiences. You may be noticing the deep blues for awhile, but it does not mean that you have depression or anxiety or OCD. We should be encouraging people to open up and make it so negative emotions are no longer taboo so people who really do have a mental illness can be taken seriously.
Mental illnesses are de-habilitating. Like any other serious illness, they can consume one's life. Depression is not and will never be beautiful. It will not make you beautiful. Going through a hard or confusing time where you feel sad or lonely does not mean you have depression. Anxiety is not and never will be tender. It will never make you cute. Being afraid of something or nervous about a situation does not mean you have anxiety. Eating disorders are not and never will be misunderstood. They will not make you fulfilled. Being unconfident about your body or needing attention does not make starving yourself of the things you need to live is the answer. Buying into pictures like the one above is helping no one. Suicide is a very real and very serious issue that should not be plastered as a solution over pretty pictures in pastels or black and white. Suicidal people are not angels that want to go home, they are people who are in drastic need of help because of everyday they live in pain they cannot escape on their own. Mental illness isn't a choice and it is a disgrace that it has become glamorized to the point where kids are constantly seeing messages that value the struggle and the illness over human life.
I have talked to so many people who honestly believe they have a mental illness but have never reached out for help or gone to get an actual diagnosis. I'm not pretending that reaching out is easy but high schoolers should not be each other's main resources in terms of mental illness. This is creating scary power imbalances in relationships where one person is afraid of acting a certain way or seeking help for their friend or significant other because the person they care about is holding their safety above their friend's head. Unless you have actively hurt someone, you are not responsible for their actions. Yes, supportive relationships are necessary for everyone, but by allowing self-diagnosis to become the norm, relationships are becoming more toxic and manipulative every day. It is no secret that if you have the flu and research your symptoms online, you are likely to come upon a very wrong diagnosis of your ailment. Doctors have not gone through years and years of medical training for people to merely go online to see if they have a life-threatening disease when really, it is a new allergy developing. So why do we treat mental illness so differently from physical illnesses? While the internet can be a valuable resource in determining that you may be sick or finding possibilities of what you have, a licensed doctor should be the next step in your diagnosis. If it turns out you do not have a mental illness, it is still okay to continue to seek help from a professional. You do not need a mental illness to reach out.
As awareness about mental health is spreading, it is important that we keep the conversation focused on how to keep the illnesses in question in perspective. There is still a stigma around mental health and it is absolutely necessary that we enforce a way of thinking that encourages conversation about negative emotions and an understanding of what mental illnesses actually entail so people can get the help they need.
