MHI or Mental Health Illnesses are enjoying a bit of a spotlight right now aren’t they?
We find social and mass media platforms spreading awareness about the diverse range of mental health diseases and starting positive and proactive conversations around destigmatizing MHIs- a historic and oft tabooed topic of discussion. Despite taking different forms in different people, MHIs stand united in the pain and suffering they inflict on their victims. The diagnosis itself makes for a difficult job. And the treatment again takes work. Hard, unglamorous, ugly work.
Mind (2018) reports that 1 in 4 people in the world experience a mental health problem. This number should however be interpreted with caution. The metric does not necessarily indicate that a considerably larger population is suffering from MHIs in recent times. It however does suggest that a larger population is reporting MHIs. This can be taken as a positive sign of the evolution of attitudes in our current society, in relinquishing its past reactions around such sensitive subjects and opening a dialogue of help and support for its victims.
Such dialogue has inevitably seeped into the world of TV, movies and music and has found a grounding in all sorts of pop culture. People are finding solace in virtual forums where they connect with sufferers sharing their stories of battling MHIs. The acceptance and demand for such content is ever growing. This is because online communities often bring emotional support as well as information on diagnosis and treatment of all types of mental illnesses. The good thing about these interactions is that it gives a voice to sufferers and humanizes their diseases. There Is a certain comfort in knowing that you are not the only person in the world having negative thoughts and feelings.
So if we are starting meaningful conversations and removing taboos around MHIs, then why is it so bad to glorify TV images of actors popping a few antidepressants every now and then, followed by their happily ever after, or to celebrate music videos where artists are jumping off rooftops or slitting their wrists to portray suicide.
The whole thing becomes a problem when MHIs are talked about only for the sake of being cool or trendy.
One should be wary of accepting the depictions of MHIS in mass media and social media. The depictions gracing our tv screens and newsfeeds are only telling of an easily digestible and palatable tale of mental health suffering. They over-simplify and go as far as to confuse the consumer of the distinction between what it’s like to experience an emotion at a point in time and what its like to experience a mental health illness for a period of time. We need to understand that momentary emotions can aggravate an underlying MHI or trigger it but they are not MHIs in themselves.
The distinction is crucial in diagnosing the sufferers. It is one that should be handled by doctors and not by the person we find under the comment section of a Tumblr post. Only professionals can find a course of treatment that is right and customized to a person and their suffering. Following generic advice that is rampant on social media can do more harm than good and make the MHI even worse.
It is common especially among young impressionable minds to idolize celebrities and protagonists on media platforms. When their idols either depict MII in media or uncover their own personal struggles, audiences can misinterpret the message and instead fetishize the MII. The search for an identity represents a common struggle amongst this age group which can sometimes result in dangerous and obsessive fascination and idealization of mental illnesses. They see it as romantic or glamorized and not for what the horrors it really entails. They think having some type of mental illness disorder and flexing their internal emotional turmoil will make them popular among their peers .
“Metalined interviewed about 1192 British students aged 12 to 17. About half of those students believed that having a mental illness makes a person unique. About 16% thought that celebrities have made psychological issues fashionable. Treatmentsolutions added that one out of three admitted having lied about their mental condition in order to be part of a group. One in ten described mental illness as something stylish”.
“According to the Dailymail, a government commissioned review on mental health problems disclosed more alarming data: one in ten children has a clinically recognizable disorder like anorexia or depression. Its twice more children than during the 1970s”.
“A recent Pew Research study found that 7 in 10 teens think anxiety and depression are the biggest problems their peers face. The medical journal JAMA analyzed the CDC’s data showing a dramatic increase in suicide rates among Americans 15 to 24-year-olds. Beyond young people, the CDC also cites the oft-repeated statistic that 1 in 5 Americans experience mental illness in a given year. The American Psychiatric Association reported an increase of anxiety and depression among boomers in recent years, too ”.
This makes one wonder whether MII is something that makes the younger generation feel special, or different, or unique, or with an interesting story to tell. One can even confuse it with a way to look more authentic or mature. These ideas are obviously extremely dangerous. They also go to show the remarkable power of media platforms in cultivating ideas and thought processes.
We often hear cases of teenagers falsely diagnose themselves (often unknowingly) with mental illnesses. A 2013 statistic based on data from the online therapy service mentaline.com reported that an alarming 34% admitted have lied about having a mental illness in the past. There is hence a blatant and serious problem with how such disorders are being portrayed and that is evidenced by the significant percentage of our population who is faking a mental illness. “With a 71 percent increase in mental illness diagnoses in adults aged 18-25 during the last 10 years, the trend of falsely portraying the mentally ill experience threatens the already fragile well-being of more young people than ever before ”.
This MHI trend has also split mental illnesses in two categories, one that are ‘cool’ to talk about openly and others that are not ‘flex-worthy’ and are less popularized. This adds to the problematic narrative as those suffering from less “popularized” disorders like bipolar, borderline personality, or schizophrenia feel isolated and left out of the conversation on mass and social media. These uncool MHI are deemed too taboo for esthetic appropriation and are consequently pushed deeper into the abyss.
This lack of aesthetic romanticism ailing certain MHIs is as harmful to their victims as the current surge in the aesthetic romanticism shadowing other MHIs is to its sufferers. It gives the former the message that even in the 21st century, where everyone boasts of being more accepting and perceptive of other’s emotions, their diagnosis is still not worthy of getting likes and shares. Naturally this group of victims feel alienated and are kept from them from feeling valid in their personal struggles. Mental health professional Aditi Verma notes that ““Answers we seek from a professional become answers we seek online…misinformation of mental health can lead those astray from gaining real awareness of their conflict they’re experiencing within themselves ”.
“These aesthetics imply that having one of the ‘cool’ illnesses grants you intelligence, uniqueness, and glamour. The inverse implication is that owners of an “uncool” mental illness are not only lacking in these areas but will continue to soak up whatever’s left of the transgressive ‘crazy’ stereotype 5”.
The trend of MHI depiction is itself debatable. MHI is hard to fully understand and even harder to portray. Even though we need more honest and real time depictions of mental health diseases, such depictions are not profitable for the makers. Their content is rendered too graphic or extreme for consumption and they are hence not considered ‘cool’ or ‘trendy’ enough to repost or share with one’s following on social media. We then resort to and make do with what Verma calls ‘beautiful suffering’- “a meme-ified version of mental illness that reduces anxiety and depression to a temporary feeling capable of being depicted through dark edits and simplified text ”.
Media platforms as well as famous brands are guilty of exploiting and capitalizing on these appetites of their audiences by pushing mental health content online or coming out with mental health themed merchandise. They claim to help start conversation and change public perspectives on MHI. But are the perspectives actually changing or is the stigma around MHI still alive and thriving? MHI is still a subject of misunderstanding by many. While people still use labels as psycho/weirdo/attention-seeker for mental health victims and stay clear of them, they would gladly don a “cute but psycho” tee for an Instagram selfie. Psycho is still derogatory in this new age of being ‘woke’ or ‘with it’. When you umbrella all disorders under such a pejorative, it can be hurtful and disrespectful to people who actually suffer from psychosis which is a serious mental illness with serious consequences.
People who do not suffer from such illnesses but choose to share mental health posts or wear mental health themed labels choose to propagate an image of understanding and support but they do not share the same burden or carry the same consequence of actually being diagnosed with MHIs. Even today, we see people still cast judgement on MHI sufferers. The victims are not looked at as being cool or popular. In fact, many sufferers feel abandoned and feel they are avoided ‘like the plague’. These people lack support-the kind of support that actively encourages them to speak up about their struggles rather than a passive support act of purchasing a T-shirt brandishing the “depressed” label.
Amidst the dramatic plot twists and finale climaxes on our screens, in our battle to humanizing such diseases we have in-fact dehumanized it even more. We forget that MHIs do not constitute a generalizable group, worthy of stereotype portrayal but vary so much from person to person. We also become inconsiderate in thinking how there is nothing edgy or praise-worthy about battling an MHI-there is nothing enjoyable or envy-worthy about it.
In reality it is anything but. The realities of MHIs are far from the photos of self-harm photos on online dashboards interspersed between from black and white sad-girl/sad-boy clicks, from tragic monologues about low self esteems and struggles with body images. They realities are terrible and desperate for those who live and battle their illnesses on a daily basis. When we romanticize and glorify MHI, we normalize it and make it something desirable. We also forget that MHI takes different forms in different people and that those who suffer from such illnesses do it every-day; for them there is no taking a break and turning their suffering off-it’s a constant battle.
The changing world guarantees an era where treatments of MHIs are not just limited to conversations behind locked doors but are encouraged to be addressed more openly. The scientific advancements in this area is providing an incentive to the sufferers to reach out for help from professionals who won’t judge them for their illnesses. Victims now have an opportunity more than ever to be accepted as a part of the society and lead a normal and healthy life that is suited to their needs.
While there may be some media and other outlets which are using their platforms for contributing positively to the growing movement of MHI acceptance, we should not forget that most of them are hopping on the bandwagon to profit form the current trend of MHIs. Media is a powerful platform to educate and spread awareness and hence it should be used more responsibly. It can help those who do have mental illnesses to find comfort knowing that they can be much more open about sharing their experiences. But mental health is not a social currency, it should not be sold or bought, merchandised or commodified like a discount deal at New Year’s.
Eli Siegel, author of The Philosophy of Depression wrote nearly a century ago about a phenomenon we find much relevant to the current times. He wrote that “in order for depression and other psychiatric disorders to be understood, the afflicted person’s reality ‘must be seen’ ”. The unrelenting, grueling and messy realities of MHI deserve to be told through real accounts of sufferers. These are the sort of brutal and unyielding stories that need to be facilitated by professionals and that truly warrant support from the public. While it is true that not all experiences can see the light of the day, but even if a few authentic, true-to life depictions can make it to the forefront, it is an effort worth championing.
MHIs are real struggles that real people face everyday of their lives and if these struggles are romanticized and glamorized for the sake of being trendy or cool, then there is a serious danger of the seriousness and the gravity of such struggles being written off completely.
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