The Cutprice Guignol

“They’re doing it for attention.”

As a person who’s dealt with mental illnesses that have resulted in physical manifestations over the years, this phrase has been a bugbear of mine for a long time – a hand-wave of dismissal in the face of visible symptoms of mental ill health of some kind.

Now, this is a topic I’ve discussed briefly before with regards to self-harm (which is certainly one of the issues that often finds itself at the centre of these kinds of conversations). But I think that, as social media has evolved to accept more open discussion of mental illness and the less-desirable symptoms that can spring from certain disorders and struggles, it’s worth touching on in a little more detail. Of course, there’s a not-insignificant portion of people who are not actively seeking attention of any kind, but rather just living in a body that happens to carry the visible symptoms of their illness. But then…

Because here’s the thing: yeah, they might well be doing it for attention. And if they are, the answer is not to react with dismissive mockery or disdain, but to ask why they feel the need to seek that attention in the first place. What drives people to act in ways that draw attention to aspects of their mental illness? Why would they be publicizing these things? What are they seeking, by putting this suffering out there, whether in social media or in real life?

Yes, I absolutely think that people can use social media to discuss mental illness in a way that’s unhelpful or downright toxic. But I find the go-to response to someone displaying their distress in an obvious way – which often amounts to just not masking it any longer, rather than deliberately choosing to put it out there – being a hand-wave accusation of selfish attention-seeking ignorant of the real motivations behind it.

The term “cry for help” is used a lot with regards to people acting out in terms of their mental illness, but it’s so often applied in retrospect – when certain behaviour has been recontextualized in the rearview mirror of a bigger crisis. And I feel like this is connected to the “doing it for attention” dismissal – until a crisis or symptoms become severe enough, it’s easier to view them as attention-seeking rather than aid-seeking. But, for a lot of people, that’s what they are – an attempt to look for help when they feel there is no other way for them to ask.

This is just a short post, but I’d really like to hear your take on this issue – is it something you’ve had levelled at you? Something you run into a lot on social media? Let me know in the comments!

If you enjoyed this article and want to see more stuff like it, you can support me on Patreon, or consider checking out my fiction work!