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We’ve all noticed the recent increase in mental health awareness. Many people credit this to the recent rise of social media (within the past 20/30 years). People online have begun to come forward and speak openly about what they have gone through and their experiences with their mental health. This is usually looked at in a positive light, but I disagree. I’m not saying mental health awareness is a bad thing, but I do think that with this rise of “social media mental illness” specifically, we see people who don’t really experience these disorders come forward and pretend they do, just to seem cool or get attention from others. They might even be falsely led into believing they have said disorder due to all the misinformation being spread about mental health. Normalizing mental health is important, but this new trend of glorifying mental illness shouldn’t exist, and it does more harm than good to people who genuinely suffer from mental illness. People start to believe mental illness is a fun and quirky thing, completely disregarding the daily struggles of people who actually need to focus on their mental health. These disorders are not to be taken lightly, and they significantly affect the lives of many people. I asked a student at Winthrop who struggles with some of these disorders to share how they felt, and this is what they said:

“I personally see the effects that the media has on glorifying mental illnesses way more than we should be seeing. Lots of people have been saying their mental illness is an ‘era’ for them, which is extremely harmful for those who do face mental illness. People like myself with mental illnesses are now struggling when it comes to looking for validation for their struggles because many people say they are ‘depressed’ when they are just feeling sad for one day. As someone who has struggled with depression and anxiety for almost 6 years, it is extremely painful to see so many people try to fake and glamorize such a severe and dangerous mental illness” (Anonymous).

Mental illness is not something to be joked about. We all need to try to find a balance between awareness and understanding. Mental illness shouldn’t be hushed up and ignored, but turning it into a desirable and cool thing doesn’t help either. We have gotten over the hurdle of openly speaking about mental health, but now it’s time to take it seriously.