Being sad is not cute. Being depressed is not “glamorous.” There is nothing “hauntingly beautiful” about self harm or eating disorders or whatever it may be.
I’m going to get personal because ever since last summer, this has been bothering me. Ever since I was little, I had always dealt with mood swings and severe anxiety and when I was in kindergarten, I was diagnosed with Early Onset Bipolar Disorder which later turned into the “official” diagnosis of Bipolar I w/ Rapid Cycling & Psychotic features.
Last July, I suffered a psychotic episode, one that was severe enough for me to completely lose touch with reality which caused me to hear voices that told me to hurt myself and I eventually took an overdose as a way to try and escape all of the voices in my head. I lived (clearly because I am sitting here and writing this), and spent a week and a half in a psych unit.
One of my first days in the hospital, we had to go around and say what got us in there. One of the girls, maybe 14 or 15 years old, looked at me and told me that she wished that she had a “real” diagnosis like mine instead of hers, which was depression, and that she wished that her self-harm had left scars as bad as mine because hers were fading and she did not want them to.
This has bothered me ever since and continues to bothers me when I see people on Tumblr glamorizing mental illness. I just don’t get it. Why would you want your self-harm to reach a point where it gets completely out of your control to the point where you have to be locked away and kept under 24 hours watch in order to stop you from hurting yourself? Why would you want to be your own worse enemy? Do people think that makes them beautiful? To be sick? Do people even realize that having a mental illness means that you’re sick?
I’m gonna let you in on a little secret that you may or may not know: mental illnesses are not little personality “quirks” that you can just use to seem more “interesting.”
My bipolar disorder is not a personality “quirk.” My anxiety does not make me “awkward and cute.” My self-harm scars do not make me “tragically beautiful.” If anything, very few of my friends know about my mental health issues because they are not something to parade around and be proud of.
No, while I was in the psych ward, I did not meet a guy who was just as “broken” and “flawed” as I am, nor did he kiss my cuts and scars and made me feel less alone. In fact, I have a boyfriend and he gets extremely frustrated and sometimes angry when he does not know how to help me when I can’t get out of bed to go to class, or when I keep him up at night because I’m too scared to sleep.
No, there is nothing “beautiful” about having to constantly be worrying about summertime and wearing shorts and short-sleeved shirts and obsessing over how you will hide cuts and scars and obsessing over the mere thought of cutting and fighting off those obsessive thoughts and having your therapist get disappointed when you reveal to her that you caved and broke your 6 month clean streak and having to see the look of shame on your parents’ faces when you accidentally slip up and forget to bandage a wound or having to hold your arms at a certain angle around your boyfriend’s parents so they don’t see the scars on your arms and see you as a danger to yourself and their son. Is that really beautiful?
As someone who has been heavily medicated since the age of 6, I can tell you that it is not “quirky” nor is it something to wish that you had.
The fact that depression, eating disorders, and self harm are being glamorized not only leads to the over-diagnosing of mental illnesses because now people are confusing being “sad” with being “depressed”, but also paints mental illnesses in a COMPLETELY inaccurate light.
Celebrities like Lana Del Rey, who use the whole “boo woo look at me I’m so depressed” image to make money are dangerous. Dangerous in the way that she teaches this idea to young girls which is later spread and emulated by “soft grunge” blogs on here. By teaching young girls that its is “beautiful” to be depressed, the cases of teenage depression are going up as more and more young girls want be that “sad mysterious girl who no one gets.”
Self loathing does not make you beautiful to other people. Mental illness is not a trend.
If you are seriously suffering and need someone to talk to, my inbox is always open.
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