Oh, Internet...

It's a strange and wonderful world we live in. Rather than having to go out and expose ourselves to the anxieties and basic bullshit of dealing with people face to face, we can simply communicate our feelings with some frenzied typing, or even better — the meme and/or gif.

What a time to be alive.

With a few miniscule finger movements, and a little bit of conscious thought, we can share an image that resonates with us and that opens a little window for the world to peek through so that they can see what we are feeling/thinking/doing at that moment. You don't even have to put on a pair of pants. It's lovely in a lot of ways.

Of course, it's the internet and social media. Everything you see is most likely 99.9 percent bullshit. You know exactly what I mean. Don't try to tell me that you've never taken a picture of some fucking cutesy, crafty, or inspirational something, but only posted it after you cropped out the nasty ass pile of dishes and/or laundry in the background. Or that you've never taken twenty selfies in different lighting and in different angles until you've got that one acceptable photo that doesn't show the bags under your eyes or how you're going to have jowls like a motherfucker within the next ten years.

Like George Carlin said, "It's all bullshit, and it's bad for ya."

Obviously, not all of it is bad, but just hear me out on this one thing — this one little thing that bothers me more than all of the asinine fucking snapchat filters and nail selfies and goddamned makeup tutorials:

These fucking quotes. These cutesy little bullshit quotes that are inherently sad and upsetting, but combined with pretty imagery, or some chick sitting in the middle of the fucking road holding her head, or whatever?

(I know I swear too much, ok? I'm trying to hold it in, I really am. But just let me get this out, ok?)

THIS SHIT IS NOT FUCKING HELPFUL.

There is nothing beautifully tragic, or romantic, or even fucking remotely pleasant about depression, or any mental illness, for that matter.

Please, please, please, please, STOP GLAMORIZING IT. If not for my sake, but then at least for the sake of those younger and more easily influenced than yourself.

(Just a note: I'm going to tackle depression here, because it's what I know. I think the main idea may also apply to other mental illnesses.)

Depression cannot be described by a whimsical font over a dark background, or a stock photo found on Google. Depression is not a starry sky with a silhouette gazing dreamily up into it. Depression is not a beautifully written sentence encased in quotation marks and decorated by emojis.

Depression is much more than that. And it's not fucking pretty.

Depression is an overflowing ashtray beside a chipped coffee mug stained with wine. It's the smell of your unwashed body after days of being in bed for no other reason than that you simply could not bear to exist. It's the searching look you get from your oldest child when you've served up sandwiches or chicken nuggets for supper the second or third or fifth day in a row.

Depression is the total, self-inflicted isolation that you cling to like some kind of sick comfort blanket, while at the same time you wish you had someone to just hold you and listen to you and make everything else go away, even if only for a minute. It's the conniving devil on your shoulder that compels you to turn a smiling mask outward and say that everything's okay when inside that little part of you that wants to live is screaming to be saved.

Depression is the near total loss of self, the most agonizing experience of numbness a person can endure without being clinically dead... but the cruel joke of it is that there is often just enough feeling left to intensely hate yourself.

It's not pretty, it's not pleasant, and it is far from beautiful. It is every ugly and evil, unfeeling thing you can imagine, AND IT LIVES IN YOUR OWN HEAD.

Ugh.

Make a fucking meme out of that, eh?