I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but mental health is a big topic in our world today. It often comes in books, discussions, music, TikToks or Instagram reels and other forms of social media, and more.

And while I believe that mental health is a really under-addressed topic today, I also believe that it is addressed too much and in the wrong way. You might be wondering, how can mental health be addressed too much? Surely that’s good–bringing awareness to people who are suffering, right?

Well, yes and no. It’s become addressed as a trend. On TikTok there has been this trend where people diagnose themselves with a mental disorder based on their astrology signs.

So for example, one person might say, “I’m a libra, so I have depression.” And then it becomes a cute fun thing for them to talk about. Some people even went as far as to diagnose themselves with schizophrenia because they were born in a certain month, even though some people with schizophrenia (that is officially and accurately diagnosed) would not think it is cute or fun.

Really, this is 1) horribly disrespectful and 2) horribly inaccurate!

Maybe you’ve seen people doing the ice bucket challenge. It started on Instagram recently and you nominate people to have a bucket of ice water dumped on their head for ‘mental health awareness’ since it’s May, mental health awareness month.

Now, I don’t have a problem with awareness for this sort of thing. It’s cool. But there are some things that are tripping up the whole ‘awareness’ part: the biggest being the fact that it’s an Instagram trend. That doesn’t automatically make it bad, but it makes people join the bandwagon even if they don’t give a hoot about mental health. They do it because celebrities or their friends are doing it.

Lately, mental health has been a fun, cool, trendy topic. Everyone talks about it because it affects everybody: either you are experiencing it or someone you know is experiencing it.

And I think that that alone shows that it should be a more respected topic–we shouldn’t be making jokes out of schizophrenia, anxiety, and depression (or mental health in general) just because some people on TikTok are doing that, and we should actually realize: these are serious issues, and these issues often lead to suicide.

And then! When people who actually have these issues and are actually diagnosed by a doctor see these things? Their self-esteem is lowered and their light is slowly diminished. Which will lead to further thoughts like, ‘My problems don’t matter,’ and ‘Nobody cares’ and ‘It’s all just a joke’ and ‘I’m the only one who has _______ and is suffering.’

Which leads to what? Suicide, self-harm, and other harmful habits that will wreck their lives.

So what am I saying?

First: if you know people who are struggling with their mental health, let them know that you care and that they aren’t an outcast because of their mental health difficulties.

Second: learn how to address mental health correctly. You can find classes at Mental Health First Aid where they teach classes about addressing it the right way and knowing people who are struggling with it.

And third? Think before you judge mental health. It varies in every single person’s life, so if you have depression and your friend has depression, you might be having a totally different experience. So judging isn’t a clear option since we haven’t walked in their shoes.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this post.
~Willow