symphony
surving hour-by-hour
- Mar 12, 2022
- 779
This will be somewhat unorganized because I don't have super clear thoughts.
Ya know how it seems like some perfectly healthy and functional people trivialize mental illness, like, constantly? Or they use it as some sort of trendy aesthetic. Depression = back and white image of a tragically beautiful girl with mascara running down her cheek and bright red marks on her arm. Eating disorder = frail, dainty girl with a flower crown. OCD = I'm a neat freak, haha, I need all my things organized! Anxiety = oh, I really worry about the people I care about sometimes, everyone's a little bit crazy! ... and on and on.
As for me, I'm depressed. And sometimes when people say they're depressed or whatnot (particularly online) I have this visceral reaction to be like, hey, that's not what depression means. That's nothing. I've been to the depths of hell and lived there. Wanting to stay in bed in the morning isn't what it means to be depressed, fuck off. Like I don't want people whose suffering seems lesser than mine to come in and "co-opt" depression as this identity see in myself.
But then I also know what it's like to be really, truly depressed and told that I'm not actually depressed, for one reason or another. If someone was gatekeeping mental illness for me, I'd be pissed, ya know? But certainly there's a line there, certainly there's a point where people who aren't depressed at all but are saying they are, certainly that's not fair to the experiences of those who really are. It trivialized a debilitating disease. (As I said, this is just incoherent rambling from me here).
And the same could be said both ways for being suicidal, as I'm sure many here will relate to. Someone making offhand suicide jokes or maybe passively wishing they were gone once or twice in their life, certainly isn't the same as spending hours upon hours researching and planning methods or attempting one or more times. But at the same time, when someone implies I haven't really, truly been suicidal, that pisses me off.
So I'm not really sure what I have to say but this all has been bouncing around in my head and I thought y'all might find the idea interesting. So I'm wondering what you guys think about the matter.
Ya know how it seems like some perfectly healthy and functional people trivialize mental illness, like, constantly? Or they use it as some sort of trendy aesthetic. Depression = back and white image of a tragically beautiful girl with mascara running down her cheek and bright red marks on her arm. Eating disorder = frail, dainty girl with a flower crown. OCD = I'm a neat freak, haha, I need all my things organized! Anxiety = oh, I really worry about the people I care about sometimes, everyone's a little bit crazy! ... and on and on.
As for me, I'm depressed. And sometimes when people say they're depressed or whatnot (particularly online) I have this visceral reaction to be like, hey, that's not what depression means. That's nothing. I've been to the depths of hell and lived there. Wanting to stay in bed in the morning isn't what it means to be depressed, fuck off. Like I don't want people whose suffering seems lesser than mine to come in and "co-opt" depression as this identity see in myself.
But then I also know what it's like to be really, truly depressed and told that I'm not actually depressed, for one reason or another. If someone was gatekeeping mental illness for me, I'd be pissed, ya know? But certainly there's a line there, certainly there's a point where people who aren't depressed at all but are saying they are, certainly that's not fair to the experiences of those who really are. It trivialized a debilitating disease. (As I said, this is just incoherent rambling from me here).
And the same could be said both ways for being suicidal, as I'm sure many here will relate to. Someone making offhand suicide jokes or maybe passively wishing they were gone once or twice in their life, certainly isn't the same as spending hours upon hours researching and planning methods or attempting one or more times. But at the same time, when someone implies I haven't really, truly been suicidal, that pisses me off.
So I'm not really sure what I have to say but this all has been bouncing around in my head and I thought y'all might find the idea interesting. So I'm wondering what you guys think about the matter.
