“It’s Okay to Cry”, and “Things I’m Done Feeling Guilty About”. These are the titles of some of the flyers hanging in my dorm hall at the moment, and I think they’re wonderful. They let people know that stress and anxiety are common and acceptable during college, and they encourage a conversation around mental health, that, in recent years, has become a popular topic in our culture. Taking care of one’s mental health (especially during a pandemic), is really important and necessary for anyone trying to get a degree in this dystopian year of 2021. And while the topic of mental health should be a regular conversation in colleges and universities everywhere, it leaves out a term that should be equally important- mental illness.
I know you’re probably asking “aren’t those the same thing?”
No, they’re not, and I’ll explain why.
When you think of mental health, what are some things that come to mind? For me, the first words that come up are “self-care”, and “social media.” I think of things like the flyers in my dorm hall, and self-care accounts giving tips on things like test anxiety, or giving advice on how to relieve stress by taking a shower or going for a walk. Sometimes, if you’re really into the self-care/ mental health community, you’ll even get tips for managing mild anxiety or depression. These are all great. Everyone has a brain, and everyone should take care of it. However, it leaves out a big part of the conversation, and the whole reason the mental health conversation started in the first place.
This is where it gets complicated, because in my experience, when mental illness comes up in conversation, one of three things happen- it (or the person experiencing it) becomes the punchline of an unsolicited joke, the subject gets changed very quickly, or, if you’re lucky, the conversation will continue like normal, which normally only happens when both parties have experience.
Talking about things like self-care and feeling anxious sometimes have become almost okay for everyone. But the words “dissociation”, “mania”, “delusions”, or even “intrusive thoughts”, are still mostly banned from public conversation. This is a problem, because it leaves out the percentage of students who do experience these things. For people with these symptoms, taking a walk or a shower or crying it out just doesn’t cut it. Most of the time, it doesn’t work.
Of course, I’m not saying we should be putting up flyers for every single mental illness or symptom out there. And unless you are a licensed therapist, we definitely should not be giving people advice regarding these things. What I am saying though, is that we need to expand the conversation beyond just “feeling anxious”, or “feeling sad.” We need to stop shunning these topics from discussion. We need to stop giving people odd looks or red flags when they talk about their mental illness, and there needs to be clearly established support for anyone suffering from it. If we want a truly inclusive society, the stigma has to be eliminated. The mental health conversation has to include everyone.