The Normalization of Mental Illnesses

In today’s age mental health issues have been normalized in many ways.

“Mentally ill people were no longer crazy; they were deeply wise, and their pain was beautiful. This idea was much more appealing to young people, who may have been struggling to various degrees than the realities of mental illness. Young people, especially young women and girls, started to idolize pain as a way to be smarter, separate themselves from the crowd, or even find love. This caused some people to engage in behaviors they knew to be indicative of mental illness, such as self-harm because they wanted to become this fake, ideal version of a mentally ill person.” stated River Eskins, a junior at Northwest High School.

Mental health is a huge topic that has been brought to light in a good and bad way in recent years. In the past, mental health issues were seen poorly and were not handled very well. They were shunned, locked away and treated in very inhumane ways. Only in the mid-1960s did the treatment start to get better. Asylums were shut down, and dubious practices and harmful treatments like shock therapy, lobotomy, confinement and electroconvulsive therapy slowly started to die down along with the stigmatism surrounding mental health. Now, there are groups for different mental problems, therapy to attend to, medications and even safer and better options. Though the treatment has become better, and people are more open to talking about mental problems, it also has led to people normalizing it. 

Mr. Sanders, a counselor at NWHS, said, “I think the things that our culture is pushing out and understanding more about it, but then also, I think it’s the willingness of people, people that are struggling with mental health, to be able to speak out about it.”

With social media at hand anywhere in the world, there comes the normalization of mental illness and struggle. Social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, X and more share and spread harmful ideologies surrounding mental health. The sad part is how easy it is for this to happen, and it is fairly easy to find from a simple search, along with the post rarely getting taken down. There are also new trends glamorizing mental illnesses like bed rotting, eye bags and more. While these are real issues and struggles people face daily, their trending has made the issues and words lose their true meaning. 

“Social media can also bring up a lot of things that are like “Oh, I’m so OCD for blank” or “Guys, I’m just so depressed that I can’t go to Target” or something like that, just normalizing mental illnesses, they’re not necessarily taking like the seriousness or meaning behind the word, it just gets used to frequently that sometimes when it’s brought up it can lose that meaning,” explained Mia Sheeler, a student apart of the upcoming Stay Here organization at NWHS.