In the past decade, we have made an effort to alter the mental health awareness conversation from something taboo to everyday conversation. From infographics on Instagram accounts like anxietyhealer and what.is.mental.illness, to even popular Youtubers like Emma Chamberlain opening up about their struggles with mental illness, people are taking more candid approaches when talking about their anxiety, depression, or other mental health problems.
However with normalization, like many pressing topics, comes trivialization. Leading to people who do not truly know the severeness of depression using it as an adjective for simply being sad– or anxiety for being nervous about an upcoming exam. Sweatshirts that parade “I’m cute, but psycho” and “I have depression” undermine the definition of the illnesses, and those affected to quirky pop-culture lingo to be printed onto merch.
The problem has progressed to an even vaster dilemma. Now, many are using their traumas as excuses and even as bragging points in a fictitious battle of who’s life was harder. Some internet users even go as far as to say that “people with trauma are funnier” and if one isn’t funny, they must not struggle with mental illness.
While at first a harmless attempt to unionize people with mental illness in a neurotypical world, now has engulfed into a dumpster fire of not wanting to get better and feeding into harmful coping mechanisms.
On Twitter, a video of TikTok user Bella Horiszny (bellahoriszny) went viral and received ample amounts of backlash. Captioned with “I hate happy people” Twitter user kthsk8tr tweeted this video and likeminded user commented their sentiments with the video. This TikTok showed Horiszny documenting a day in her life where she wakes up early, works out, eats vegan and other rather healthy meals, and spending time with family and friends.
The majority of comments were negative stating that Horiszny made the video to make people feel bad, how she is entitled, and how she is mentally healthy. In this, a lot of users were romanticizing the idea of having mental illness by stating she is ‘boring’ for not having such. Nonetheless, these are simply assumptions. We do not know how she lives her life or even if she is mentally healthy.
This shows even larger issues with how we interact with social media in general. We compare ourselves to people we do not know and whose lives we only see 60 seconds. It is not only unfair for us to judge people’s mental state based on images and short clips, but also unfair to ourselves. We will never know how it feels to be in Horiszny’s shoes, so why act like it?
There is still a long way to go, along with this idolization of having a mental illness, not as “trendy” mental illnesses like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) are still mocked and largely misunderstood.
We have created this detrimental narrative that struggling is “trendy” and along with a diagnosis is an acceptance to an exclusive club. While having a mental illness can empower and edify, it is also a story of anguish and what feels like constant inner turmoil. Despite this, it is okay to get better. It is okay to want to improve your mental health for yourself and the people around you.