Mental Illness Is Not A Romance, This Is Why We Shouldn't Romanticize It

13 Reasons Why has also been classified as extremely dangerous for teenagers, for it seems to glamorize depression and promotes suicide acts (Acuna, 2017). Even though the show itself made 'mental illness' as its main theme and it was considered as unusual, it can not be denied how popular the show was, within the show's first season gained a total of 476 million view hours, while its season 2 gained 496 million view hours. Five years have passed since the show was broadcast, and more mainstream media have dared to raise the issue of mental illness. Even though the show itself feels like fresh air in introducing mental illness and is famously known world wide, unfortunately this show is a misrepresentation of mental illness so that it makes people misunderstand what mental illness really is, and then romanticise it.

With the increasing numbers of similar media emerging and the lack of proper education about mental illness, the trend of romanticising mental illness is now growing and starting to become a cool, must have lifestyle amongst angsty-emo teenagers on the internet. In this essay, I will discuss that first, having a mental illness is not to be relatable, secondly it is a humiliation to people who really experience it, and finally it will leads you to having a real mental illness, and those are the reasons to stop romanticising mental illness.

As mental illness becomes 'interesting', many started hopping into the romanticising-mental-illness trend: faking mental illness to be more 'relatable'. Mental illness becomes 'interesting' because of the many media that discuss it, the way media and the internet portrays it, and many people seem to experience it. Lately on social media TikTok, many suddenly diagnosed themselves with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) without proving that they were actually diagnosed by a professional, and they are also exaggerating their symptoms. This indicates how people completely misunderstood and have a wrong perception on mental illness; people see it as a trend, a unique personality.

As quoted from Mirror UK, 34% admitted lying about having a mental illness in the past, almost half of those who thought mental illness fashionable claimed it made people "unique" while 24% said it was "cool". But the majority, 61%, said it "should be taken very seriously" according to online therapy service mentaline.com. Although there are still people who think that mental health is a serious matter, it does not change the fact that there are people who perceive it as unique and cool. Society did not see the concerning aspects from the mental illness itself, but rather only see the stereotypical side portrayed by the internet. Adolescence is a stage where everything seems cool and having an urge to try, to fit, and to be on something cool and updated, and having a mental illness is one of those things that are considered as cool. A mental illness education is needed for the teenagers to really understand what is mental illness, so that they will be more aware of it rather than find it cool and then romanticise it. 

Making fun of one's mental illness does not necessarily mean bullying them and laughing at their illness, but faking mental illness also can be a spit and humiliation to the people who had a real mental illness. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 21% of U.S. adults experienced mental illness in 2020 (52.9 million people). This represents 1 in 5 adults. And having a mental illness can make it challenging to live everyday life and maintain recovery. From the statistics, it is known that having mental illness is tiresome and for people who experience it, they want to be free from mental illness. However, by creating this false imagery about mental illness and romanticising it, people who really experienced it will receive criticism and causing people to think that mental illness does not really exist, and might as well not believe that mental illness is real. 

Recently, people who really struggle with mental illness are voicing their disagreements towards this romanticising mental illness issue that has become uncontrollable. Moreover, we could see that romanticising mental illness would cause nothing but harm to people who really had a mental illness; people would laugh at their mental illness, ostracise them and consider them invisible. This situation would make their mental illness worse for those who really have it, and then it leads to extreme actions towards themselves. 

A study from 2011 on How Intentional Falsification can develop into a Less Conscious Form of Symptom reporting that the individual who is first instructed to feign symptoms will continue to support symptoms, even when they are later given the opportunity to answer in honest fashion (Merckelbach, Jelicic, & Pieters, 2011). By consciously thinking and continuously giving a suggestion to one's mind, they would later think that they have developed signs of mental illness and then become mentally ill. To think that some people want to experience mental illness is ridiculous, though people who really had mental illness have been giving their testimonials on how having mental illness was, and none of them are positive. 

Leonid Andreyev's A Dilemma is an example of how people faking symptoms at first, and then later get eaten by the symptoms and eventually become the symptoms themselves. It is irreverent to think there are normal people who wish that they are mentally ill to look 'cool' and 'more relatable'. 

The saying, "you are what you eat" seems to be true in this case. If someone begins to associate themselves with mental illness and romanticise it, slowly it will only make them think that they are really experiencing mental illness and later on will suffer from it.

Finally, it may be concluded that mental illness is a serious matter, and needs to be taken seriously, not to romanticize it. Teenagers are the easiest to influence, so they need to be educated by their surroundings. The Internet plays a big role in how mental illness is portrayed, so it is hoped that the mainstream media can provide a good education and good representation regarding mental illness. The harsh truths of mental illness need to be shown, so that people could stop romanticizing it and could spread awareness about what mental health truly is.