High-Functioning Mental Disorders are Killing Our Society
It’s never the ones you expect
I opened my Facebook feed and saw posts littering my feed, all saying the same thing.
R.I.P, Dead, Deceased, We’ll miss you.
My heart stopped. What the hell? The more I read, I came to understand the horrifying conclusion. One of my high school classmates was dead. More specifically, he committed suicide.
It left everyone in a state of shock. Nobody saw it coming.
He was one of the happiest, funniest guys in class. Right?
Hiding in plain sight
Does this sound familiar to anyone? It’s not uncommon for people to lose a loved one and have no clue they were even struggling to begin with.
Often, the people who appear the brightest and funniest are the ones that struggle the most.
What do you picture when you hear the word ‘depressed?’
You picture people looking blue and lonely. People who have been isolated in their homes, living secluded. They lie in bed all day, huddled up underneath the covers.
This is far from what depression looks like. In reality, depression looks just like you and me. It’s because there isn’t a look to mental health.
Mental illness hides in plain sight.
It looks like your friends, your neighbors, and your coworkers. People across the world struggle with mental health, but there is no one look to it.
Often, it’s hidden. Your friend is feigning a smile, but on the inside feels like they’re dying.
Uncomfortable with depression
Mentally, sometimes it’s like we’re still living in the dark ages. It’s uncommon to talk about your feelings. Generally, you’re told not to feel your feelings.
We live around this narrative that feelings are for fools and one must be strong, no matter how they feel.
This is a damaging and harmful narrative, but it’s a part of our society. It lives with us, inside us, and it’s perpetuated in our beliefs and the way we live.
It’s the belief that “Boys don’t cry,” and “Girls are too emotional.”
“Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong… It is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum not as two opposing sets of ideals.” — Emma Watson
Internally, you’re taught to not feel. Feelings make you weak. Feelings make you spineless. You can’t be strong and have feelings.
You’re not supposed to feel, so you minimalize your internal states. You blow them off, thinking it doesn’t matter.
Now, you struggle with the fact that you don’t want to feel. You struggle to turn your emotions off, but you can’t. You want to get it out, talk about it, get it off your chest, but when you do, you’re judged.
Expressing your feelings might as well make you a leper.
All of this only propagates the problem.
You’re not supposed to feel, so you struggle with your feelings. You struggle with your feelings and want to let them out. You know that if you do so, it’s unlikely to be received well. You keep it in, letting the emotions fester, until one day you blow up.
You could avoid the blow-up all together if it weren’t taboo to talk about mental health.
Photo by freestocks on Unsplash
Can’t recognize mental health
You know what it’s like to have depression. You know what it’s like to get up every day and go about your life.
It’s labeled ‘high-functioning’ as if the mere presence of a mental disorder means you can’t function. It’s talked about as if one version of mental distress is better than the other.
“At least you can get out of bed and go to work, right?” It doesn’t invalidate your depression that you can function like a human being.
Your body was made to withstand hurricanes, earthquakes, and typhoons. It can survive a few bad emotions. It seems like a big deal that you aren’t incapacitated by your mental illness.
As if the only way your mental illness is valid is if it incapacitates you.
Everyone is hurting in their own way. You can’t tell by looking at people, and that’s the point. You can’t tell based on someone’s appearance whether they’re depressed or not.
Depression doesn’t have a look. It comes in all shapes and sizes.
Talk about it
We have to start discussing mental health. We have to stop pretending it isn’t real. We have to allow people to feel.
Rates of depression and anxiety are increasing worldwide. Given the state of the world, it’s no surprise. That shouldn’t deter the conversation. If anything, it should open the doors of conversation wide open.
The reason I talk about mental health is that it helps people feel less alone. When you know someone else is hurting as you hurt, it hurts a little less.
Once you open up and talk about it, the pressure starts to fade away. Talking about it is like shining a light in the darkness. Depression no longer has a place to hide.
So, let’s talk and shine a light on it.
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