**Trigger Warning: On Depression and Suicide**
With the help of social media, you’d think it would be easier to talk about mental health. I recall sharing on my personal Facebook back then that I had been struggling lately and the people in my social circle were extremely responsive with them sharing their own experiences and telling me that it gets better. A few going insofar as to thanking me for speaking up on such a matter, considering how mental illness is still stigmatized... as if I needed to renegotiate the terms and conditions of how I choose to cope with my mental illness to strangers in the first place.
However, there doesn’t ever seem to be an “appropriate” place or time to talk about mental health. I don’t know how to talk about major depressive disorder to people in general or explain to them that my brain ceases to fully function due to a lack of dopamine and serotonin because it seems to scare them away, so I keep quiet and hide behind a facade. Online and off. This worked until a couple of years ago after my hospitalization, when a professor made an offhand remark and said to me after class, “Amy… how do you manage to be so happy all the time?” as he walked past me far enough without hearing me choke back a sob and suppressing the urge to yell at him or cry.
No, I get it. Mental health is not easy to talk about. There are so many triggers, so many things that neurotypicals can say that are more harmful than saying nothing at all, but I’ve been trying to demonstrate for awhile now how transparency can be illuminating for those who don’t experience depressive episodes or bouts of mania or anxiety by being “open” with my experiences. Sometimes it works, and most of the time people like to think that “it’s all about perspective” when in reality, it is difficult to achieve when the pills that are supposed to “cure” you of your disease sends you to back to hospital where you were supposed to be “happier” from “trying” harder to change your frown upside down.
And I’ve been meaning to talk about how pervasive mental health has been on my mind since I checked my Twitter feed that Kid Cudi had talked about checking into an in-patient facility due to suicidal urges on Facebook. It’s been on my mind since my favorite comedian, the late Robin Williams, had been struggling with Lewy Body Dementia but was unforunately misdiagnosed and committed suicide later on. Since Kehlani spoke of her ongoing battle with anxiety and depression earlier this year, but was hospitalized soon after and posted it on Instagram. Since my favorite artist of all time, Donald Glover/Childish Gambino, was hospitalized for a suicide attempt a couple of years ago around the same time I was and shared his more “controversial” thoughts written on a hotel notepad via Instagram and Twitter.
So it doesn’t help that the last couple of days have felt somewhat… familiar, yet distant all over again. Weather’s getting colder, but the sun is still shining down and my depression lays dormant all winter. I’m fine though, really, I am. Managing depression as a high-functioning depressive is the least of my worries nowadays. The best thing for me to do during Fall/Winter is to remain busy. Don’t think. Stay active. Have faith. And keep on, keep on swimming. It’s silly to repeat, I know, but these daily mantras have a calming, staccato-like effect that sends a message to my brain to rest easy like the pills that were force fed to me did for my nonexistent neurotransmitters.
Transparency with mental illness over social media, especially if you’re a celebrity, is usually a hit-or-miss. For Kid Cudi, he received an immeasurable amount of support from fellow artists, fans, and like-minded individuals around the world who eagerly empathized with his mental condition. I too was heartbroken when I found out that he was in recovery again because I knew he’d always been struggling with depression after listening to his music along with his Ted Talk… and I naively assumed Cudi was able to recover through his success with music. Obviously, I should have known better considering how difficult it is for those who suffer from major depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and/or schizophenia (any mood-related disorder, really) -- with or without the spotlight -- because managing depression is kind of like getting your braces off but having to wear a retainer for the rest of your life. If you want your teeth to remain forever straight, you need to keep wearing your retainer. The dentist won’t tell you this, but sometimes your teeth may still end up crooked even after paying for all those expensive procedures. In this case, recovery from depression is never guaranteed. It’s temporary, sometimes fleeting, but you hang on for dear life that these pills will work this time or that your therapy sessions are working… that you still matter, even if you don’t feel like you do. But you keep going, or you at least try, even if the retainer is too painful to put on sometimes.
For Kehlani, the reaction towards her mental health over social media was different. Despite her consistently positive demeanor, the backlash against her speaking out on suffering from mental health was almost criminal. Chris Brown, a fellow R&B artist, who also suffers from bipolar disorder called her cries for help as “attention-seeking” and mocked her suicide attempt as a way to “flex” for Instagram. And while I deeply sympathize with Kid Cudi, I’m shocked as to how different the public’s reaction was to Kehlani’s mental illness. Never mind the fact that she’s a young, grammy-nominated artist who continues to dole out amazing work or that critics were saying she was blowing things out of proportion insofar as attempting suicide after people were berating her for going back to an ex while she was still “in a relationship” with another man… I don’t know. I don’t particularly care as to who she was with when she was trying to cope with her inner demons, but that seemed to be the tipping point for her athlete-friend’s fanbase (some were even her own fans) to attack Kehlani for “sleeping around” with the enemy.
Well, I don’t know what else to say other than, “Shame on you.” It’s already too much to struggle with mental illness on top of the stigma, but to be automatically considered weak or selfish even for being a woman who suffers from poor mental health -- while hailing a man for speaking out on his mental health issues -- serves to be the double-edged sword as to why women can’t “talk” about their mental health, their feelings and emotions, or anything related to women’s health for that matter.
But that’s not the point. Mental health shouldn’t have to be a men’s issue or a women’s issue. I’m genuinely concerned for all of us and I think it’s important that we have this conversation by aiming for transparency with the advent of social media entering the public sphere. The negative stigma attached to mental health is still there, but I’m hoping we can use various social media platforms--no matter how seemingly superficial--to address serious issues surrounding the different mood and mental health disorders that plague the lives of children, men, women, the elderly, the disabled, the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, and other marginalized groups.
With that being said… I want to leave you with some food for thought. Why is it so difficult to treat mental disorders across the board as something as equally devastating as finding out you’ve been diagnosed with a physical ailment? When the affordances of social media can provide a necessary platform for marginalized groups to speak on their experiences, why is talking about your own mental health considered “off-limits” or a social faux paux that leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths? And most importantly, how do we spread awareness or start conversations that are personal without bordering the “promotional” forefront of sharing too much information? How do we demystify mental health and come to an agreement that more research needs to be funded by our government to treat mental health, on top of age-related diseases that affect comorbidity like Lewy Body dementia and Alzheimer’s?
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