When I see a new hash tag or Internet campaign on social media advocating mental health, I get mixed feelings. One the one hand, everything we can do to alleviate stigma surrounding mental health is absolutely necessary, however there is a culture on the internet of narrowing and boiling down mental illness into easily relatable clichés.

Anxiety and depressive symptoms are the most widely experienced mental illnesses, with 7.8% of the British public meeting the criteria for a diagnosis and reducing the stigma around them to make people feel less alone is undoubtedly very important. But I worry that much of the online discussion around them is creating a sugar coated idea of what mental illness should look like for people who would otherwise have no idea, and creates a misguided set of expectations for someone experiencing mental illness for the first time.

Every single mind is different, everyone’s bodies are made up of a unique set of genetics and chemistry, everyone has been through a unique upbringing and set of circumstances, so it makes sense that everyone who experiences mental illness will express their symptoms in different ways. However, there are issues that crop up a lot, and ones that are covered much less often. There is a disturbing trend of list articles with titles such as “10 things only people with anxiety will relate to!” and I have noticed they do tend to be based around anxiety symptoms, and I’m concerned that’s because it’s likely to find the largest audience for clicks to their website therefore creating advertising revenue. They tend to be aimed at a teen and young adult audience. Here I’ve stumbled across a list article of vague anxiety symptoms and a gif of Spongebob Squarepants to illustrate a panic attack.

You never see one of these articles say something like “your arms go numb and you think you’re going to die!” or “your circular thinking is replaying an annoying laugh you did three hours ago over and over again!” Lots of us are nervous around the phone, but this doesn’t make someone pathological. Is talking about illness in a cute way reducing this stigma? Or is this at its best normalising and at its worst glamourising a potentially crippling illness? These articles tend to hone in on the experience of a middle class, young, often female audience and do not even attempt to address mental illness in the terms that it can cost you a job, relationships, a house. Just that it can stop you going out with your friends and having fun. They only makes illness socially acceptable up to a point.

The click-bait titles often use very definitive lexicon, (21 Things to understand about people with depression) as if their definition of a disorder is the be all and end all, totally ignoring the fact that everyone has a different experience of everything, and yes, being able to relate to someone is important, but massively generalising and toning down to the point of trivialising the severity of a condition in order to appeal to more teens and procrastinating uni students is extremely troubling. This article talks about anti-depressants being “frickin’ amazing”. If you’ve ever had antidepressants you will know that they can definitely be a great help, but they are not a cure, and the side effects can range anywhere from a mild headache to hallucinations and suicidal ideation. I’ve needed anti-depressants before, and I’m not sure I would unironically call them high-five worthy.

In amongst all of this, there are certain stereotypes around the more exotic mental illnesses that are yet to be properly challenged, especially in the mainstream. In the eyes of much of the media (which informs our worldview to an extent we don’t even realize) people with schizophrenia are dangerous criminals, people with OCD line their pens up and flick lights on and off, people with eating disorders are vain and fragile, and people with bipolar are mad narcissistic celebrities. People can have a hard time considering the person behind these illnesses, and don’t take into account the wide spectrum of symptoms and the expressions of these symptoms which people can display (“you don’t have OCD you’re not tidy enough!”). Rectifying this kind of misinformation is the key to alleviating stigma, and a broader discourse is desperately needed if we are to begin to truly challenge these clichés in the mainstream.

refs:

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/statistics/mental-health-statistics-most-common-mental-health-problems

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jennaguillaume/things-only-anxious-people-will-understand?utm_term=.bgbAmZ5KM#.qmZr4kVeG

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/body/health/a28007/understand-people-with-depression/