On popular websites these days, there seems to be a certain love affair with mental illnesses, such as depression and anxiety. Search either of those words on tumblr and you’ll find a treasure trove of images of beautifully tortured souls. You’ll discover poems comparing depression with flowers. There will be posts telling people who struggle with depression, or any mental illness for that matter, to hang inspiring quotes on their mirror or to start talking to someone new each day to try and be happy. There will be ironic jokes about how someone wants to jump off a building on a daily basis and several people will retweet or reblog or share this hilarious statement. What few people seem to realize is that these tortured souls are all too often not very pretty at all. Most of the time, these mental illnesses that now seem to be almost an object of desire, are not even slightly beautiful. And almost anyone who struggles with them on a day-to-day basis will be the first to affirm this.

I was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) when I was in second grade, generalized anxiety disorder in fourth grade and depression in fifth. I have often jokingly referred to my brain as a "basket of mental illnesses." And even more often, I refer to my brain as an entirely separate entity from myself. When I’m having a bad day, I’ll tell my friend that my brain just isn’t quite cooperating with me. I have very few memories of feeling what is considered "normal." There are perhaps a handful of memories I have of being a carefree and overall happy person. Instead I remember having to habitually tell my mom I loved her when she left the house because if I didn’t my OCD and anxiety teamed up to convince me that she would get into a car crash. While most kids can look back on their childhood fondly, I recall having to teach myself in the bathroom of an elementary school how to breathe through a panic attack. My "basket" is one that was permanently glued to my wrist and one that I have repeatedly tried to shake free throughout my life. I had to learn at a young age how to make it look like you hadn’t cried just ten minutes previously and how to formulate the perfect excuse for why I couldn’t stay at a sleepover if my anxiety was a little over the edge that day. These memories I have of faking a smile and struggling to feel generally happy for more than a day or two, these memories are not beautiful. They are not poetic or exciting.

Mental illness is a grotesque and horrifying monster. It is an ongoing war you fight with your brain — one that all too often, you tend to lose. It is not being able to get out of bed for class because your depression exhausts you, but then having your anxiety set off a panic attack because missing class could lead to failure. It is getting nine hours of sleep and still feeling like a zombie the next day. It is random bursts of tears that you must quickly try to hide and poisonous convictions that everyone actually hates you. My mental illnesses are not a beautiful field of flowers; they are a dusty ground with no water in sight.

I am all for encouraging those who are struggling with inspiring advice or tips to feel better. I am all for making people feel beautiful. But mental illness is not a person, it is not poetry, and it is not pretty. And sometimes, it just flat-out sucks. So instead of telling someone struggling with a mental illness to talk to a stranger each day or that Sylvia Plath’s sadness was beautiful, it might help a lot more to tell them that yeah, this situation is kind of awful, but it’s okay to be upset about their brain’s imbalances and to keep pushing forward in the best way that they can. If that means staying in bed slightly later some days and needing to text a family member every few hours to get through a day, well, that’s okay too. This isn’t an attractive struggle, it isn’t one that can always be solved with a few sticky notes on a mirror or a kiss on the nose. It isn’t romantic. Acknowledging this fact might just help those with mental illnesses more than all the poems in the world.