The Cutprice Guignol

The last few years have been pretty rough for almost everyone.

I think that’s a fair statement: the pandemic didn’t live anyone untouched, whether it was in terms of mental wellbeing, financial stability, physical health, or some combination of the above with a few more problems sprinkled on for good (bad) measure. It’s been tough, and there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that struggle – shit, it would be silly not to. The whole world changed, and so did we.

And I’ve seen a lot of people talking about this recently, about how hard things have been since 2020, how deeply they’re struggling. And, as someone who’s certainly been part of that conversation myself, I think it’s a good thing for the most part. There’s strength in community, and knowing that you’re not alone in struggling, no matter how much or how little you have, is, broadly, a good thing.

But something has been bothering me lately, with regards to these conversations about mental health and wellbeing, and that’s just how normalized it’s become. And I don’t mean normalized in the sense that yes, it’s normal to struggle with your mental health sometimes, and especially when the world feels like it’s going insane, but specifically, that it’s normal to feel like shit and therefore it’s not worth doing anything about it.

It might not be coming from a place of malice, but there’s been an increase in this “yeah, well, everyone’s having a hard time recently, so what about it?” attitude across social media and various other platforms recently that I find really worrying. I think everyone who has struggled with their mental health at one point or another has probably experienced the all-too-relatable phenomenon of downplaying their problems to the point that they manage to talk themselves out of the help or treatment they need (hi, hello, that’s me!). And this kind of outlook – that everyone is struggling, so a single person’s problems are just part of that noise instead of a real and impactful part of their daily lives and wellbeing – feeds into that in a really dangerous way.

There’s a fine line between treating mental illness as normal and treating is as mundane – which is to say, not worth addressing in any meaningful way. How many times have you seen someone hand-wave away another person’s mental struggle with “well, everyone has anxiety/depression/whatever else these days, and they’re getting on with it!”? I’ve lost count, and I don’t think it’s necessarily coming from a place of cruelty or misery-loves-company nastiness – but I do think that anything that treats mental illness as less potent or damaging because more people seem to suffer from it than before is distinctly harmful, and that worries me.

Let me make this clear: if you’re dealing with issues stemming from your mental ill health that are impacting your daily life, I would strongly encourage you to seek help for them. How common those problems are in the people around you doesn’t impact that, nor does the way that they’re choosing to treat it. Your misery might be in larger company now, but that doesn’t change how it harms you.

Is this something you’ve noticed on social media lately? How do you feel about it? How do you think increased mental health awareness has impacted how you navigate your own illness? Let me know in the comments!

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