Sophia Topper
The Silhouette
If you feel that life is not worth living, and have felt that way for quite some time, then you may have depression.
If you do poorly on a test, you are dejected. You are not depressed.
If you are driven to distraction every time a volume dial isn’t left on a multiple of five, you may have OCD.
If you like to have all your dirty laundry in your hamper, then you are a tidy person. You do not have OCD.
Our culture is consumed by hyperbole. You aren’t hungry — you’re starving. You hit your snooze button a million times this morning. Your backpack weighs more than an elephant, because your laptop is from the Stone Age. Things are never good enough the way they are. Everything needs to be extreme, to be epic. This inflation is fine for mundane complaints, but when it starts to extend into subjects such as mental health, it becomes problematic.
The language we use to describe ourselves and our feelings has implications that reach far further than some angsty Facebook statuses. Saying that you’re “depressed” because Breaking Bad ended negates the actual depression that I feel because my brain chemistry is messed up.
I’m not just griping because I want to feel special and exclusive. The appropriation of mental illness is troubling because it obscures the actual cries for help. When someone says “I’m really depressed and overwhelmed right now,” they should be met with concern, empathy, suggestions to visit the Wellness Centre, open arms and minds, not “yeah, me too, I only got a C on that paper!”
Generally, if you can fix your mood with a trip to Yogurty’s, you are not depressed. It is incredibly difficult to come forwards and ask for help, so please don’t trivialize it.
The appropriation of mental illness goes beyond depression. Think of all the times you’ve heard people describe themselves as “OCD.” First, no one is OCD—that’s like saying “I am chickenpox.” OCD is a potentially debilitating illness that causes intrusive unpleasant thoughts if certain compulsions are not recognized. Liking exactly two and half sugar cubes in your tea is just picky. Likewise, ADD and ADHD are medical conditions, not trendy excuses for laziness or always checking Facebook. It’s important not to obscure the needs of people battling mental illness just to attempt to make yourself stand out.
It’s even worse when this language contributes to the stigma. Calling the weather “bi-polar” may not seem like a big deal, but it plays into all the negative stereotypes of the disorder. Same with calling some a “Schizo”: it’s obviously rude, but it also attributes negative behaviour to the disorder that doesn’t even fit the diagnosis.
Using clinical definitions does not mean you have a varied vocabulary. It means you are obscuring the seriousness of actual issues. If someone tells you they are depressed, reach out. Take it seriously. Don’t let hyperbole prevent you from helping someone in need.
Though many who know me would be shocked to hear this, I must divulge that for the greater part of my life I was extremely shy. Most of my habits from these years have dissolved and disappeared, but there remain a few traces. For one, I loathe speaking to sales staff - I have saved many dollars walking out of stores in order to avoid this interaction. For another, I find it difficult to confront others when I feel uncomfortable for unusual reasons.
This can range from things like sitting at a circular table, where I’d really rather your knee didn’t bump into mine under the table, that’s why I’m getting up for water so often, to things like my friends teasing me about my private life, especially the infamous “love life”, which I would really rather you never bring up. Ever.
Both of those things happen to many people on a daily basis, and objectively, there is nothing really wrong with either of them. The latter can be a way of expressing interest in someone’s life and well-being. The former is a popular eating arrangement. That’s fine. That’s cool. This article isn’t about forbidding friendly chitchat or abolishing circular tables (check back next week).
I’m pretty good at dealing with this somewhat odd, little stuff in my life. I can keep my knees glued together at dinner parties even if it means sore thighs and shaky calves for a few hours the next day. That’s a problem I can solve.
What I can’t solve is that feeling of unease that sits in my stomach the second a friend’s mouth shapes any question or remark regarding my romantic involvements. But it doesn’t really seem fair to tell my friends not to talk to me about that part of my life. They like me (or so they say), and as a result care about how I’m doing. They don’t mean to pry, it’s often just a topic of conversation.
I was lamenting this issue with a good friend of mine, beleaguered by a particularly uncomfortable comment made by someone close to me. As she is wont to do, my friend made an excellent point, illustrated by the following analogy:
“Sam, some people are afraid of frogs. There is no reason for this, as many and most frogs are harmless, but if someone told you, “Yeah, no, please don’t tell me stories about the giant frogs at your cottage,” would you laugh at them or would you respect their wishes?”
Pretty obviously, I would do my best to respect their wishes. I don’t want to make this hypothetical person uncomfortable by haunting them with amphibious imagery. Their request certainly isn’t hurting me, so it’s not really a question of fairness at all. It’s a question of me respecting this person’s boundaries. Their boundaries aren’t stepping all over mine, so I am going to do my best to make sure I’m not stepping all over theirs.
That is totally reasonable and part of being a decent human being. Perhaps I was so used to being able to facilitate my own solutions that anything involving changing the actions of others, even in a totally harmless way, seemed unfair. But my boundaries, so long as they don’t harm others, are just as worth respecting as other people’s.
This seems pretty obvious now, but I guess even my hindsight needs glasses sometimes.
It doesn’t matter if you understand why someone is uncomfortable hearing about frogs, maybe they themselves don’t even understand why they are, it’s just important you understand that they are.
Don’t make fun of people’s froggy fears. We’ve all got some.
