Mental illnesses shouldn’t be “trendy”

Kylee Warren, Reporter

“I’m so depressed that I failed that test in history today.” “My backpack is completely organized, I’m so OCD!” “I’m being so bipolar today.” These are all examples of real mental illnesses that get tossed around as if they are common emotions.

Lacey Jones (real name withheld) said, “I am not ashamed of the disease that I have, I am who I am because of what I have learned from it. I am not alone, there are so many people who suffer from any of these that are afraid to get the help they need. We, in this world, need to truly be accepting of people. Then maybe we can all get the help we need without being a trendsetter.”

Mental Illnesses like Schizophrenia, obsessive compulsion disorder, anxiety, depressions, and bipolar have turned into trends when they emotionally cripple people who suffer from them. Life Science contributor, Benjamin Radford said, “Usually  the main motivation for faking an illness is to gain sympathy. People like being the center of attention.”

If individuals think about it, it does make sense.

People aren’t saying that the people who are undermining the term of mental illnesses are right, but if people aren’t feeling acknowledged they will do anything to get the attention they want, and this is damaging.

When everybody goes around throwing words around like depression, anxiety, OCD, bipolar, or any other mental illnesses, others will start to think that they aren’t real conditions that a lot of people struggle to live with everyday.

Sam Lee, junior (real name withheld) said, “Since I really don’t understand it, I have a hard time understanding why you can’t just be happy and deal with things without having to take medication.”

Somewhere along the way, the script got flipped and having problems or being on medication got turned into some sort of bragging right.

The people who need medication to survive everyday like a person who doesn’t have any mental problems are looked down upon because they are “just the following the trend”.

This needs to be heard. People need to know that whether or not they mean to, they are offending others with their choice of words. We should make more of an effort to put a stop to this.