Ella+R’s+2017+OpEd+Article

You are not OCD, Depressed, Bipolar, or Mentally Ill Unless You Actually Are by Ella Rajala

Stop thinking you know everything about something based on how they appear on the surface. More specifically, stop thinking you know their state of mental stability, what they have overcome, or may still struggle with this very instant.

Looking at someone, we are very quick to assume what we want to about them. You are extremely skinny, therefore you probably starve yourself. You are homeless, therefore you must just be lazy and have a poor work ethic. You look “fine” to me, therefore you can’t possibly be suffering from depression or suicidal thoughts. Most people, upon first meeting me and taking in my blonde hair and blue eyed appearance, not extremely athletic build, and tendency to be smiling or laughing for a majority of the day, might not immediately assume that I am intelligent, have a second degree black belt in taekwondo, and suffered with severe depression for three years from 8th grade until sophomore year in high school. But guess what? “Most people” thought wrong. I am not writing this to evoke a pity party or to single myself out as the unstable girl who now needs special treatment or to be tread lightly around, because that’s not true. I just want to call to attention the fact that mental illness is not as uncommon as people like to think. I know I know, another cliche rant about how mental illnesses deserve more normalcy in society and less of a stigma attached to them, but quite honestly I don’t care because the issue is still relevant and extremely frustrating. It is ignorant to assume that everyone around us goes along in life unhampered by the situations around them. Every year, approximately ⅕ of adults suffer from one or more types of mental illness in their life. Likewise, approximately 21% of teens 13-18 struggle with mental illness at some point in that span. Yet despite these staggering statistics and the relative normality to struggle with mental illness at some point throughout life, we still prefer to turn a blind eye and pretend that mental illness is some cute little trend that ends at making people shy or having mood swings. Why? Because it’s taboo, it’s dirty, talking about it means admitting to our weakness, that we are broken, that we do not have everything so put together like everyone else thinks.

As a society we do not like unsolvable problems, we prefer to have a concrete answer to issues, so there is no room for uncertainty. A broken arm? No problem, slap a cast on it and tell them to come back in a few weeks when they are healed and whole once again. A sore throat? Perfect, get some cough drops and be on your way. Depression? Wait...there’s no perfect pill or medicine to take that can make them whole too? Let’s just brush it under the rug and hope they can figure it out without making too many people uncomfortable. But maybe some perspective is needed here. As most of us have broken a bone or two in our lives before, put yourself back into that instance. Now imagine being told to just think yourself better, if you were to actually try it would work and you would be whole again, that it’s your own fault for putting yourself in this place, and that there is nothing they can do for you if you don’t stop being so stubborn. That would be outrageous! Obvi ously those around you would be sympathetic, asking if there is anything they can do, catering to your needs until you are strong and healthy enough to resume life as usual. However, as soon as the physical is replaced with the mental, a level of almost derision is aroused, as if they had just taken better care of themselves this wouldn’t have happened to them.

A broken spirit can be just as life threatening as a broken spine.

Mental illnesses suck, technically there is nothing “wrong” with you externally, so you should just exercise more and be happier damn it, it’s not that hard if you actually try. Wrong. You can still smile or laugh and be depressed, you can maintain stable relationships and be bipolar at the same time, you are not your illness. There are so many factors that combine to develop mental illness, and keep it in someone’s life, making it a daily battle sometimes even to get out of bed, much less put on a happy facade and face the world. Exercise is not the cure for all sicknesses, and being drugged to the point of being numb is not exactly a preferable solution either. There is no preferable solution, no cookie cutter set of steps to release them from their cage, so please try not to pretend you can figure their lives out for them better than th ey can.

I guess my call to action in all this is just to stop. Stop calling yourself or someone else depressed just because they are sad, stop calling people bipolar just because they sometimes have mood swings, and for the love of God, stop saying you are go ing to slit your wrists open or kill yourself simply because you forgot to do your damn homework. Go kick a wall or something instead, even better still, go get that homework done.