I Bet I'm Suffering More Than You!

Here's a trend I've noticed in people my age: they treat mental illness like it's some sort of competition.

For reference, I'm in my early twenties.

Images like the one above are peppered across the internet, and things like this are said in daily conversations. I hear it between my classmates all the time.

"I am such a mess.""Don't even talk! I've cried three times already today!""Wow, that's intense, but I've had two mental breakdowns this week!"This has become a typical conversation between young adults these days. We have somehow gotten to a point where we feel the need to prove how much we are suffering to one another.

This norm that has been created is one of romanticism. People today romanticize mental illness. It has been deemed "trendy" to be mentally ill, and it is not so trendy to recover from said illnesses.

I'm just as guilty of competing as everyone else, but I'm working on changing my rhetoric. I haven't completely broken myself of the habit, either, but I'm getting there. I used to blab on and on about how I was "a train-wreck" and how I was "such a mess" and how I couldn't get anything done. It became a fun game for everyone, to discuss how we're all falling apart. It wasn't actually fun, though.

My mental illnesses were not once fun. I felt awful every day of my life, and instead of talking honestly with my friends and classmates, I would just laugh and say, "Oh yeah, that paper? It's four days late because I'm just a train-wreck of a person!" I'd joke about it as if it was nothing, but it's not nothing. So many people are suffering, and our true emotions are masked by this ongoing competition. We all joke about the "mess" that our life has become, but no one notices how much we really suffer because of this.

This is how mental illness gets overlooked. When people start joking about life becoming messy, it might actually be a cry for help. I know that my "jokes" often were.

I wanted people to understand that I was suffering. Truly suffering.

When I made light of my depression, I really wanted my colleagues to notice that I hadn't slept, I hadn't eaten, and I hadn't bathed. I needed real help, but all of this was being masked in one big joke.

These odd cries for help have been warped into a sort of comedy, so it has become "fun" to describe yourself as trash, or to talk about how many times a day you burst into tears. For some people though, these jokes are reality. For those who are really suffering, it becomes so much easier to hide away from the fact that they actually need help because everyone just views their suffering as some sort of competitive joke.

This comedic competition that we've created builds a very negative atmosphere that is not conducive to one's recovery from mental illness.

Getting real help for my mental illnesses was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Not only was I changing my unhealthy habits and flipping my life upside-down, I was also changing the way I interacted with everyone. Since it has become so trendy to be mentally ill, I wondered where my inspiration for conversations would come from, and I wondered how I would joke along with all my friends. It wasn't my main concern, but it was definitely something that crossed my mind.

This shouldn't have to be a concern at all for someone who is trying to better themselves. We shouldn't have to worry that we're not going to fit in if we aren't mentally ill.

Now that I'm in a better place, I can testify that there are many things that one can joke about besides how much they are suffering. (Examples include: strange family anecdotes, funny things your pets do, drinking shenanigans, etc.) I have noticed, though, how much other people seem to "joke" about their suffering.

This leaves me wondering: are these people crying for help? Am I overlooking my friends' suffering? Or have we warped the suffering of the few so much that it has become ingrained in everyone's sense of humor?

Personally, I feel that we should challenge the competitors to a new kind of game. How happy can you be? How satisfied with your life can you be? How much fun can you have in a day?

I'm not trying to say we should try to erase bad emotions from our life. These emotions are necessary in order to enjoy the good aspects of our life, and they are inevitable. That being said, I do think we should stop competing to see who can experience more unpleasant emotions in the course of a day, or the course of a week. I think we need to take the bad as it comes, accept that it's going to come and that it won't be fun, but then we should do everything in our power to make ourselves feel as content as we can on a day to day basis.

When we focus less on how awful life can be, and simply accept the bad times when they come, it suddenly becomes easier to realize how delightful life can be.

Life can be a wonderful thing.

We just need to find the fun in things that are actually fun, and not in our suffering.