Stop. Glamorizing. Depression.

04:49 khadijamuzaffar 4 Comments


Hello my friends! Hope you all had lovely eid holidays, as did I! I come to you today with a topic that's rather sordid, but its one that I feel we all need to discuss and understand. 

Depression is a serious mental illness. Maybe I should put that in bold; it's an ILLNESS. Like cancer. We wouldn't associate ourselves with cancer, or even the measles, then whyyyy do we rush to diagnose ourselves as depressed?? So many early-teens and teenagers are misdiagnosing themselves with depression, just because they get a little sad, or even VERY sad. We're humans, we're bound to feel sad some days. We go on tumblr and we see pretty photos with sad writing on them, and pretty girls with sad eyes and sad scars and we mistake them for 'angels who want to go home'. We want to be sad. Because apparently sad is unique and sad is quirky. Sad is mysterious. Sad makes us different, and someone will like how unique we are and kiss our scars and put out our cigarettes and make it all better. Or the world will see how bravely you've been suffering, how absolutely brave you've been. 

CAN YOU SEE HOW FLAWED THAT THINKING IS??? Life is not a freakin' John Green book. It's okay to feel sad, or angry or lazy sometimes. But if you let it take you over, if you say it's become a part of you, well you're just lying to yourself. Depression, self-harm, freakin' suicide are not beautiful, are not fun and should not be thought of as beautiful or fun. So next time you feel sad and decide to write that very sad piece you're going to write, just make sure you don't make it sound like you have a mental illness. It's very offending to people who actually HAVE the illness.

When I was 15, I too, like younger girls nowadays THOUGHT I was depressed. I suppose teenage is when you really start experiencing actual sadness over stuff. Before that you're too young to care about most stuff. Do you remember being truly deeply sad over anything as a 9 year old? Probably not.

So, I misdiagnosed myself. I mean, sad thoughts? Check. Trouble sleeping? Weight gain? Oh that definitely has to do with depression, not the fact that I'm shoving 15 kinds of cake in my mouth and quickly turning into Augustus Gloop. (who, if you'll remember, was great big nincompoop, much like 15 year old KD.)

  
Anyway, I started getting worried because in addition to thinking I was depressed, I thought I was Bipolar and also suffered from a Split Personality Disorder, and wasn't getting any treatment, oh no. So, aged 16, I went to my mother, told her everything, and she told me something that made so much sense. 
See, we're all humans, right? (No jokes pls) And we all have a brain that allows us to feel emotions like sadness, rage or euphoria. Sometimes, when the brain becomes ill as in the case of mental illnesses, it messes up and triggers waaaayyy more emotion than is needed. So those individuals feel excessively sad, or excessively angry, or even both for alternating periods of times. So basically those same standard emotions, are being portrayed in way more drastic amounts, leading to very serious illnesses. And because normal healthy people like us experience those same emotions, but in NORMAL amounts, we misdiagnose ourselves with something terrible. Makes sense, no?

And of course, sometimes, we feel like a mental illness is the perfect excuse to not doing anything, or not meeting anybody, or just being really anti-social in general. And I mean, I'm sure we can agree that our generation is the most anti-social one yet. So depression gives us an excuse to feel irrationally angry or sad or grumpy. I hope you're seeing the whole point of this post. If not, lemme tell you. The point is, illnesses are NOT to be taken lightly. Depression is not beautiful. Flowers don't grow out of scars. Suicidal people aren't trapped angels. Whats beautiful, is your life, and no matter how cliche this sounds, it IS very precious, and it's not eternal, unless you're a vampire, in which case hullo immortal being, SO TRY TO MAKE THE MOST OF IT. Stop brooding, stop being sad, stop thinking sad is rad because its not. Happy is rad. Happy is pretty. Happy is nice. BE HAPPY, YOU SILLY POTATOES. 
And now I will insert a cute little GIF of a doggie, because that makes me so very happy.

"I am the prettiest lady in all of the spains."


I just :') LOOK AT THAT FACE OMG ANIMALS ARE THE FREAKING BEST. As are you all! Let me know what your opinions on this are in the comments below. Stay happy stay kind stay safeee!
xxx
Khadija

(Top photo: Gala Darling)
(Augustus Gloop GIF: Paper Fury)
(Prettiest Lady of Spain: Reddit)

4 comments:

  1. Girl, I love this post so much! I completely agree with everything you've written. Mental illness should not be glamorized, or used casually in conversation. Don't say, "I'm SO depressed", or "I've got OCD", or "I'll have a panic attack".... because no, you are not, you don't, and you won't. We wouldn't say "Hahah, I have cancer", would we? Exactly!
    Anyways. Such a brilliant, thoughtful piece of writing.
    xx

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    1. Thank you so much Abby! You're so right! And I'm so glad to know sensible people like youuu xx

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  2. FINALLY!! so thought provoking <3

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