Dear friend, family member and passing stranger,
Despite what you may think, my depression is not an endearing quality, and my anxiety is not cute. I do not cry quiet tears that smudge my perfectly winged eyeliner. I will not magically get better when I fall in love. Up until this point, it was OK for you to see my mental health issues that way. I can't blame you, with all the romanization of mental illness in mainstream media. But from now on, you no longer get to look at me that way. The mental illness you see in movies is not how mental illness is for many people.
The realities of mental illnesses are much more harsh. My disorders present themselves in much more dramatic and much less pretty ways. My mental illness is tears streaming down my face, mascara stinging my eyes and adding black streaks to my red, puffy and probably snot-covered face. My anxiety is me cowering in a bathroom stall during my global issues class, praying that I'm only having a panic attack and that no one is going to find me dead next to a toilet.
Panic attacks are more than just shaking. I feel like I am going to die. My depression is my sorority sisters threatening to call campus safety on me if I don't eat something, if I don't at least come down to the chapter room with them, if I don't do something besides lay in bed in the dark and cry. My mania is not a perfectly cleaned dorm room and neat stacks of perfectly organized new projects, but half-finished essays, thoughts pushing through my mind faster than I can actually think them and a kind of quaking panic that can only come from three consecutive sleepless nights.
My mental illness isn't a pretty sight. It isn't cute or angsty the way media would lead you to believe. Some days I cannot leave my room because I am too tired and too sick to get out of bed. Some days I cannot leave my room because the anxiety of all the things that have to be done drag me into a crying mess, curled up on the floor.
It wasn't your fault you thought this illness was cute. You didn't know before, but now you do, so spend some time finding out what mental illness really looks like for those you love.
