#worldmentalhealthday reminds me of high school

to have a mental illness is to constantly be hyper-aware of the divide between those who suffer and those who do not. those who suffer are generally pretty good at hiding themselves (a necessity if you wish to have any semblance of dignity), but those who do not make themselves known pretty quickly. they are the ones who approach you with condescending “hey, pal”s, who excitedly tell you about how they started meditating last month and all their stressed disappeared, who shoot you confused glances when you are slumped over hiding under your sweatshirt on the sunday morning subway. they are the ones who say they want to help, until you actually need their help.

they are the ones participating in #worldmentalhealthday.

no one in high school gave a fuck about my depression. i don’t mean this with any bitterness, i never really gave them a reason to. i was content to suffer in silence, putting on a good student persona for the school day and then softly crying myself to sleep on the bus ride home. they were all perfectly nice people. i could have reached out to any of them at any time. however, because of that aforementioned hyper-awareness, i knew it would be pointless. i didn’t want to go through the agonizing process of explaining to another person how i don’t necessarily want to kill myself but it would be great if i could just somehow become dead only to be told to try yoga or eat more kale.

one day everything became too much to handle and i ended up spending a week in a psychiatric hospital.

when i returned to the human world i distinctly remember my facebook inbox being completely full of love and support. people who i had never talked to before nobly offering their shoulder for me to cry on. “i missed you so much!” “let me know if you need anything!” “i’m here if you ever want to talk!”

an army of non-sufferers using my suffering as a way to reassure themselves that they are in fact a good person. there was absolutely nothing wrong with what they were doing, it just ended up feeling more patronizing than anything else.

that’s the same way i feel about #worldmentalhealthday. there’s literally absolutely nothing wrong with it at all, not even a little bit. in fact it’s probably a really good thing. if this stupid hashtag helps one confused kid feel less alone in the world, then all the eye-rolling will have been worth it. however for me, when i see my twitter feed flooded with vaguely supportive “u will be ok!” messages, more than anything else it reminds me that a significant amount of people in the world will never be able to truly understand what it’s like to live with a mental illness.

the goal of understanding mental illness is an undoubtedly noble one, i just wish there was a way to do it that didn’t remind me of high school.