As someone who has both gone through mental illness and seen loved ones battle it as well, I’ve come to recognize that mental health is anything but a simple issue. While mental illness is an disease like any other, there is a unique kind of pain and complexity involved. Mental illnesses symbolize stigma, recovery, complexity, love, support, and survival. They are incredibly varied, and affect millions of Americans a year. They are not a sign of failure or selfishness or attention seeking or dangerous tendencies but rather a range of complicated diseases that rarely have straightforward solutions.
Yet pop culture does not see this complexity. Pop culture does not see a person or a serious condition or a broad range of emotions and circumstances. Rather, it sees an exploitable trope, a cheap joke with a forced laugh track. Pop culture and mainstream media portays mental illness as something “strange,” “dangerous,” “rare,” and “incurable.” TV Shows like “The Big Bang Theory” and movies like “Sleeping with the enemy portray anxiety disorders and OCD as “weird.” Movies put mental patients in strait jackets and make them murderers and unstable members of society. Careless news reporters equate mental illness with threats to public safety.
What’s worse, is that along with being inaccurate, they shape the public perception of mental illness. For many, the term “mental illness” is closely associated with words such as “psycho,” and “insane.” People are afraid of seeking health and come to believe that their condition is their fault. They feel ashamed and hopeless and come to believe that the media is right, that there is something “wrong” with them.
The stereotypes are frustrating and annoying and at times even heartbreaking. And there are so many things I wish people understood.
I wish people understood that being mentally ill does not mean you are “dangerous” or “unstable.” That the numerous portrayals of mentally ill people as criminals or mass murderers are only sensationalist news stories meant to boost ratings rather than educate the public on the reality of mental illness. I wish people knew that less than 8% of crimes are directly related to mental illness and the general consensus is that mental patients don’t pose a threat to public safety. I wish news anchors and pop culture figures would stop spreading unnecessary fear about mental illness.
I wish people would stop using the word “crazy” when they meant eccentric, quirky, or slightly unorthodox. I wish people knew how annoying it is to see memes and images like these that portray mental illness as something cool. That people would stop believing that having “OCD” is the same as being very organized, having depression means you are “poetic,” and having social anxiety is simply “awkward.” I wish people would stop equating mental illness with some kind of eccentric rite of passage or just part of being a teenager, when it is really a debilitating condition.
I think the following Tumblr post sums it up pretty nicely: mental illness is neither cute nor quirky, and treating it as if it were only trivializes the experiences of mentally ill patients.
I wish people would stop thinking mental illness is a choice. That people choose to become anorexic or bulimic, or addicted to drugs. That you can’t just “stop” being depressed or stop purging your body of food or having panic attacks. Believe me, if it were a choice, no one would take it.
I wish people would realize that you won’t find an accurate account of mental illness in a movie or TV show. Rather, you’ll find it in the countless people who share their stories despite the social stigma. You’ll find stories of survival, courage, and beauty among the endless blogs and online spaces that mentally ill patients create to share their narratives. You’ll find these stories in your parents, friends, siblings, classmates, and multiple others who have come forward to talk about their illness.
I wish people would replace condemnation with compassion, and stigma with support. I wish movie directors and media outlets would be more considerate of the way they frame mental illness, and take more care to create honest and accurate portrayals. Above all, I wish we as a society could recognize that combating the stigma is arduous yet possible. By educating, listening, and demonstrating compassion, we can create an environment that recognizes and supports mental health patients.
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