I can't log into Tumblr without seeing it all over: black and white pictures of Anna Karina in Vivre Sa Vie, showcasing tragic subtitles; pictures of girls crying, text posts with tens of thousands of likes. Mental illnesses and low self-esteem are horrible things to experience. But it seems like now instead of trying to de-stigmatize them, we are actually gloryfying them; and that is not okay at all.
Everyone needs to stop glorifying mental illnesses because they are not cute, or fun. Having a mental illness is deafening. Your body says one thing, but your mind tells you something else. Just a quick question for you..What does it feel like to have a mental illness? If you have not experienced it, you will never ever know; so stop making people think it's all fun and games.
Depression is not crying when you listen to a sad song, feeling sad when something goes wrong, binge watching Netflix while eating a tub of ice cream. Depression is emptiness. Complete emptiness; it's the sudden urge to break down in tears even though it seemed like everything was fine a minute ago; it's the feeling of drowning inside your own mind; being convinced that you are broken and unable to be fixed. Depression is a nightmare.
Anxiety is not butterflies in your stomach before a test; biting your nails; something you claim to have when you are anticipating a result. Anxiety is actual jitters and constant figeting from always being on edge; endless worrying about absolutely nothing and everything at the same time; staring at your exam with tears in your eyes because somehow you can not remember a single thing that was mentioned in class and you know you are going to fail; and having so many thoughts at once therefore you can't think and shut down. Having anxiety is basically worrying about everything, all day, everyday and it's absolutely horrible.
On another note, mental illnesses are serious and should not be joked about. I can't even tell you how many times I have seen people joke about suicide on Twitter; way too many. Why? Why do people think that it's okay to joke about these types of things? I just don't get it really. Do people even realize that some people out there really do struggle with sucididal thoughts? Do they realize that it could trigger someone? I hope they realize sometime soon because it's horrible and could cause something tragic.
Just remember that there are people out there dealing with things; you may think something is okay to say on the internet, but in reality it's really not. Look out for others, not just yourself. Be kind because you don't know what everyone else is going through.
