to evoke emotion

26

everyone thinks they're special because of their mental illness when, in reality, everyone is the same

the goal nowadays is to seem, but not be, the most mentally ill possible

no one wants to have schizophrenia, but people have one hallucination and they're telling everyone they're schizophrenic

no one wants to have insomnia, but people stay up for a night or two to study for a final and they're telling everyone they're an insomniac

the people bragging about their anorexia and bulimia don't know how dangerous it is

the people bragging about how bad their self harm is don't know how dangerous it is

you like even numbers? you have OCD

you have mood swings? you're bipolar

you're sad? you're depressed

you don't like doing presentations in front of your class? you're anxious

but people only "have" typical mental illnesses that society glorifies

someone's struggling with pica? they wouldn't want to tell everyone they like to eat cigarette ashes, so why do you want to tell everyone how many calories you consume?

someone's struggling with trichotillomania? they wouldn't even think of bragging about the amount of hair they've pulled out, so why do you brag about how sad you are?

you've gone inpatient because you attempted suicide? twice? well, the second time was a lie, but you need to seem sicker than your friend, right?

you've heard voices that weren't in your head? every day? well, maybe not every day, only when you're sleep deprived, but you need to one-up your friend in order to receive more attention than them, right?

suffer from asperger's? well, shit, who cares about you when there's a girl pretending to be depressed around the corner? also - you're weird as fuck

suffer from dissociative identity disorder? well, shit, teach me about it so i can all go home tonight to do additional research, come back to school the next day, and preach about how i struggle to deal with a boy named johnny in my body. also - you're so cool

"i have depression!" damn, another boy over there has it, too. you have to seem sicker than him, even though you don't even want a mental disorder - that'd be the worst. "he has depression? yeah, well, i have depression and anxiety." oh, no! the girl from your english class just tweeted that yesterday. how can you be unique? "god, it's so hard to even remember everything they've diagnosed me with. OCD, depression, anxiety, insomnia... did i mention OCD? yeah, it's really hard to live when i have to shower every morning because of it."

something to think about:

don't fake and/or self diagnose yourself with mental illnesses unless you genuinely want them and are willing to take the disorder off someone's shoulders