Disclaimer: The following article talks about suicide and mental health. If you or someone you know is in need of help, please contact the SAMHSA substance abuse helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
Depression and anxiety are issues that can affect anyone at any time, and yet there are still so many people in the world who have absolutely no idea what it is. It is an issue so common that it can happen at any point in time, but it is still so widely stigmatized in society. So why is this? It’s because people allow their ignorance to cloud their judgment and instead of learning about what mental health is, it is turned into an informal assumption or stereotype.
Last Friday, a popular rap artist named Malcolm McCormick, also known as Mac Miller, was pronounced dead in his Studio City, California home at 11:51 a.m. He suffered an apparent drug overdose and although the cause of death is yet to be confirmed, Mac has not hid his battle with depression in the past. According to People magazine, Miller had begun to rely on marijuana to cope with stress while touring. Soon after, the rapper turned to promethazine, codeine, and cocaine to manage his mental state.
As Miller’s career begun to further take off, his anxiety and depression worsened. During a Complex interview in 2013, Miller admitted to using lean — a combination of promethazine and codeine — to cope with his depression. Miller told Complex he attempted to quit lean multiple times, but wasn’t successful as the pressure and fame was too much for him.
A little more than a month before his death, Miller had released his fifth album Swimming. Many of the songs on the album focus on the aftermath of his breakup with pop star Ariana Grande, as well as his own struggles with depression and anxiety. He was slated to kick off a national tour in October.
Mac Miller had an entire life and career ahead of him, but unfortunately it fell short as his mental health got the best of him. When news broke out to the world, instead of tweets of RIP, there were various tweets calling Miller weak or blaming ex-girlfriend Ariana Grande for his death. Miller made his mental illness open for society, but when people were faced with the outcome, they chose to ignore it simply because they were unsure of what to do or how to handle the situation.
If you or anyone you know are dealing with signs of depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or any other mental illness, speak up. At the end of the day, the more people who are educated of what is going on in the world and what mental illness is, the more people we will be able to help and save. Mental illness can affect anyone so why not try to help and make a change; you never know who may need it.
Links used:
http://classicalfm.ca/zoomer-report/2018/05/08/depression-atrial-fibrillation-2/
https://people.com/music/mac-miller-dead-drug-use-sobriety-overdosing-not-cool/