the romanticization of mental illness

While a large portion of society views the mental health community in a negative light, there is a growing number of people who aspire to be a part of this community.

In our society, it’s “trendy.” As a teenager, I was guilty of this- and that’s exactly why it kills me, because I know firsthand how dangerous it is to see debilitating illness as a goal.

Is it beautiful to spend weeks anxiously wondering if you’ll be allowed to graduate high school because you’ve missed so much school from not having the will or motivation to get out of bed? Is it beautiful to constantly worry about whether you’ll ruin another friendship or relationship because you push away anyone who could potentially leave you? Is it beautiful to see your mom cry the morning after your suicide attempt, because she just realized she could’ve been planning your funeral that day? To be compared to a child because you start crying in public after struggling with something as simple as fixing your hair?

Is it glamorous to feel like you’re tearing your family apart? Is it glamorous to pick at your skin until you bleed? To have to spend an hour working up the courage and motivation to start your day at work? To have to get up in the middle of dinner with friends because you’re overwhelmed with all the people and all the noises? To drink until the only things you remember the next day are all the things you don’t want to remember? To lay on your bathroom floor in tears every time you step off the scale?

None of this is glamorous when you’re killing yourself. It’s not glamorous when you see how it’s destroying those around you. Glamour is not sitting on the bathroom floor with black streaks of mascara all over your face. Glamour is not drinking yourself into oblivion to avoid feelings.

Think about that: think about how indescribably painful it must be to WANT to drink until you pass out and can’t remember anything.

Depression isn’t sitting under the moonlight, looking off into the distance, pondering your beautiful tragedy. It’s not living in sorrow until some hero comes along and saves you. Anxiety is not just, “quirky.” Bipolar disorder is not, “sassy.” There can be beauty in pain, yes, but pain is not beauty. We glamorize it because of the image we think it conveys to others, but destroy ourselves in the process. How is that worth it? I haven’t spent countless hours staining my pillowcases with mascara, crying in my mothers arms, and hiding my trembling hands to appear beautiful. I haven’t spent the past six years locking myself away to keep from scaring people off, and pushing everyone I love away, to be glamorous.

I promise you we feel less than glamorous at these times. How on earth could you want this kind of life? How could you want a life of anxious thoughts and feelings of worthlessness and emptiness?

As a teenager, I romanticized it. Granted, I actually had a diagnosis of clinical depression, but that doesn’t make the romanticism any less dangerous. I would go on blogs and search “depression” almost every night, hoping to find quotes that would put words to my feelings. I found that, but that was the least of it. I found so many blogs dedicated to self-destruction and suicide. These blogs had a way of making death seem beautiful- they emphasized the beauty in dying so that those you leave behind aren’t destroyed by your destructive behavior anymore. They had a way of making it seems like a heroic deed; like something that we should aspire to.

How is that so? I can tell you right now that I’ve hurt my mom; that I’ve hurt so many people I love. I’ve put my mom through hell the past six years, with my poor coping skills and misled attempts to find happiness. I can also tell you that she’d go through it again an infinite number of times before she’d lose me to suicide.

Mental illness of any type is not romantic, beautiful, or glamorous. It should not be trendy. It’s killing us. Literally killing us.

Think about the person that means the most to you- would it be beautiful to you if they committed suicide?

*photos by photographer Kelsey Weaver