Stop Making Mental Illness a Competition
End the Stigma, they said…
by EMILY BAKALOS ★ MARCH 6, 2023
During a stressful week, my friends and I were having a conversation about mental health when I noticed us starting to one-up each other on who had it worst.
“I was diagnosed with depression in high school,” said one of my friends.
“Well, I’ve had anxiety since 6th grade,” said another.
Hearing this, I took a step back and was astonished. Why are we competing for who can be the most mentally ill? Our generation has been trying to end the stigma around mental illness since we knew what it was, but it looks like we’ve taken things a little too far.
Society has come a long way since the time our parents were kids. Back then, therapy was for “crazy people,” depression was just “a bad day,” and anorexia was a “healthy diet.” Now, we’ve normalized being able to ask for help when we need it, which is a great step. The shame surrounding mental health would lead people to hide their troubles and shy away from getting help. I’ve had friends struggle with depression yet act happy on the outside because they don’t want people to see them hurting. Ending the stigma has allowed people to not feel embarrassed and has saved them from extremely dark times.
However, our generation tends to take things to the extreme. Take cancel culture, for example: yes, calling out celebrities on their wrongdoings is important, but they’re human too and make mistakes. Second chances are possible.
The positivity surrounding mental illness seems to be another thing we’ve taken too far, turning it into a competition and—dare I say—a trend.
TikTok is one platform that perfectly exemplifies the idea of mental illness as a trend. A recent sound had users stating, “when people say ‘oh my anxiety is so bad’ but…” and continue saying something they used to do as a kid. TikTok users quickly realized that if they want to blow up on the app, they should participate in this trend and expose the traumatic events in their life in hopes of getting likes and views.
From what I’ve gathered, people like the idea of struggling. Is this some sort of reaction to social media and how our generation grew up? Do we need attention and feel that this is the best way to do it? These questions have been numbing my mind for weeks. Despite my realization, I’ve found myself doing the exact same thing.
So I took this issue into my own hands and decided to do some self-discovery on why I personally feel the need to feel the worst. I am a triplet, and I grew up constantly being compared to my sisters. It was hard being heard in my household. Expressing myself through my struggles was something I did to gain attention from my parents.
As society allows mental health to be an open topic of discussion, it has also become an option for attention, another way for us to gain popularity. It sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud, but we’ve normalized this. A little healthy competition is good here and there, but when it has to do with a person’s well-being, it becomes toxic. Talk to your friends and open up, but don’t make it seem like your problems are worse than theirs. This battling only leads to people you care about feeling like they can’t talk to you for fear of being invalidated. And if people feel like they can’t be open about their issues, they’ll bottle them up. Then we’re back to square one: a society where people aren’t comfortable sharing their feelings. And that’s the one thing we’ve strived so hard to get rid of.
The next time you’re having a conversation with your friends about mental health and realize you’re starting to compare and compete, take a step back and ask yourself why. Let’s make it a goal of ours to stop making mental illness a competition.