As I was scrolling through Instagram the other day, I saw two teenagers commenting back and forth on a post. The two people were obviously friends and were casually insulting one another as a joke, you know, as friends do. But there was a comment that one of the accounts had made that made my heart completely sink. "Hahahaha kill yourself" was the comment. I continued to scroll but stopped again when I saw a photo with a caption that started with "Im going to kill myself because..." Again, my heart sank. Although I knew the people who made the comments, and I knew they were joking, I was angry, hurt and upset.
Personally, I don't understand how comments like these can be made without someone thinking to themselves "huh, should I really post that?" or "hmm, should I really say that?" and then immediately stopping. Suicide is not something to joke about. It is not something to take lightly. I don't know who decided to turn it into something that is mocked constantly and is joked about on the daily. It's not only on social media that these comments are being made, but I have heard people say these things in person. These things are not OK to say or post as jokes. It doesn't matter if you're goofing around with a friend and you have a mutual understanding that you're making a joke, to some people, it truly isn't a joke.
Suicide and mental health in general are two topics that are too often pushed to the side and dismissed when they are brought up, the world shouldn't work this way. It is immature and inappropriate that things such as suicide have become something that people can joke about without giving it a second thought and use as a common everyday insult or phrase of exaggeration. As someone who has dealt with mental health issues for as long as I can remember, it really starts a fire within me when I see people making these remarks. It hurts me to know that people are actually saying these things about wanting to kill themselves or telling other people to kill themselves as a come back, insult, or using it to be dramatic.
If you find yourself in a situation in which you personally would use one of these two phrases, stop to think about how it could affect somebody. Like they always say, you never know what is going on in a persons life behind closed doors, you never know who may be struggling with an issue such as suicide. Think about your actions, is telling someone to kill themselves really all that funny? Is what you're saying necessary? Is using the phrase "Im going to kill myself" appropriate?
With that being said, please don't use mental illness or suicide as your punch line.
