The Glamorization of Mental Health

I use American and English spelling interchangeably. My accent changes sometimes according to who I am speaking to. I pronounce some words strangely at times and it feels unforgivable only because I’m not White. Benedict Cumberbatch pronounced penguin wrong a thousand times in some documentary and it was just funny. If I do it my English competence might be questioned despite having one of the most elite International & English educational backgrounds in the world.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I know what racism feels like because I haven’t experienced it in its harshest forms and I am fully aware of that. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t experienced it at all. Sometimes the subtle and invisible forms of racism are the most insidious.

And then of course let’s not forget I’m a woman. A woman who at first remained silent about feminism, genuinely having not come across it, but then suddenly it was time to lean so far into it as if my life depended on it.

Because my life actually did in theory. In reality I was still in this world of inequality so I was protected but I dared to express my views and like every woman, innocent or otherwise, I was slaughtered for it. At least that’s how it felt. Because that is how it feels. Even when the person making the claim is lying the public spectacle made out of the situation is traumatizing in ways that aren’t immediately obvious, particularly for those who have actually experienced trauma. Like me. For the millionth billionth trillionth time. 

Which leads me directly to what I’m calling the Glamorization of Mental Health because I’ve dedicated years of my life to talking about this and I’ve been public about it and I keep talking about it and I will keep talking about it, or writing about it, because guess what? I don’t actually think it’s glamorization. What I think is that people like to call it glamorization because it helps them ignore the root causes and it lets them accuse the people supposedly glamorizing it for being lazy, or complaining, or making excuses - all the predictable responses we all have heard time and time again. It's kind of like how austerity measures work or how we accuse immigrants of stealing jobs and taking advantage of the welfare system. Whatever claims are made regarding this, nothing is entirely false and nothing is entirely true. We don't have time to go through every individual case's complexity so perhaps our best bet is recognizing that.

I don’t want to underestimate audiences. I’m not saying everyone has it wrong. There are many, many mental health advocates out there. No one can show a constant interest in what all of them have to say, not even me. And not everyone is getting it right, whatever right may be. It’s just that we still have and will always have what’s known as power, and I love power as much as anyone else - I do, but I try to use my power to fight for what I believe is good for the world. And it really does help that I have raw, real experience, and it's in the sharing of that experience that I have become acutely aware of how much work there is to be done.

But I’m not a saint. I’ve also repeated this over and over again. I recently rewatched I Am Legend and the message of the movie is summed up at the end by Bob Marley: “light up the darkness.” So even if I want to be philosophical about good vs evil the fact of the matter remains: somethings are just evil and sometimes we are just good by opposing that evil. Then we can reflect on what it all means later. In life threatening situations effective action is far more important than specificity.

As an aspiring visual artist, thespian, performer, activist etc I was basically signing up for a life of visibility. That was and remains the point. How I look and what I can do with that is what makes my art relevant, marketable, understandable, consumable, meaningful. It’s just the how I think part gets obscured and that’s acceptable because not everything has to be about intellect. Entertainment is entertainment not necessarily art. However, what hurts is that even in spaces where we value the ability people have to empathize it’s scary how the very act of empathy can become a skill and not something more integral like eyesight. We don’t ask people to mention “I can see” on their CVs. We just assume they know how. But empathy is treated like a skill.

Similar to acting and acting is not lying but just because a surgeon is meant to save lives doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how to end one.

I found it and still frankly find it painful to look at the camera because the art of acting (forget the other things I do or need to be visible for) is about empathy not deception. And yet you cannot say deception doesn’t exist within the industry and within life. It gets pretty complicated once you see all of that very clearly. 

Because I know the cost of what it means to be seen. I have paid that cost in abuse, in humiliation, in violence, in torture, in oppression, in subjugation, in conflict, in suspicion, in jealousy, in skepticism, in outright attacks. Why? I criticized the system, the foundation, on which multiple industries I want to be a part of actually function. 

Yet here’s the thing: the act of empathy without receiving any empathy feels like a falsity. What is the point?

I suffer from PTSD and complex trauma because of my experiences with sexual abuse and bodily autonomy and its added an extremely sensitive layer to my approach with people paying attention to me or outright criticizing me. Kind of like how Ruth Bader Ginsberg was criticized for apparently insulting people’s wives by talking about gender discrimination. It makes no sense but because some people want what doesn’t make sense to make sense they make what makes sense into non sense.

We are our own worst enemies. Worse than mosquitoes (which are by the way the world’s deadliest animal and don’t even start with me on the animal or insect debate because this is a piece of writing from an artistic journal and no one cares). 

The criticism crushed me. I didn’t have the psychological resilience. People misinterpreted and attacked. They used empathy against me to try to get me to do what they want and that happens all the time. Doesn’t make it okay but who cares, right? All is fair in love and war.

Wrong. When you become seen and only seen and afraid of being seen and only seen because you have been deeply hurt by being seen and only seen and have tried to regain agency by trying to revert that gaze and exercise powerful agency over what it means to be seen and only seen you do end up having powerless power. And then comes the pain.

By the way I don't mean seen like when people say "I see you" or "I feel seen." I mean just when you see someone like "Oh, there they are, that's how they look, that's what they are wearing." Just surface level interaction.

Why is it so hard to think about what someone is feeling? Why is it so hard to ask them how they are? Why is it hard to make adjustments for someone simply because you feel that by making adjustments you would be relinquishing your own desire or power or control when the fact of the matter is this has nothing to do with you? Why?

Glamorization of mental health: why is it seen as negative attention if it’s asking you to think about how people are feeling emotionally and why is it worse if it’s coming from a woman? Honestly, it’s not like we have to pretend there is no good or evil. There is. Denying people their agency in order to create homogenous societies, exercise power, and basically have your own way is what? 

We create hatred and fear within one another. We refuse to understand. And we refuse to acknowledge that we are all capable of being this way: myself included. I wish I was this ideal version of a human being that I dream about all the time but I know I’m not.

People talk about gender, money, power, transaction, but the truth is when you're in pain or you are carrying trauma there is no empirical, real world based, accurate answer for what manifested that pain. You can argue about it endlessly and we do. So then what would follow is that there is no course of correction.

But maybe that is the course of correction.

Maybe that is where the relief from pain exists.

Allowing ourselves the humanity of validating our own emotions, whether they are good or bad or just insane. I am insane. I am mentally unwell. There’s nothing glamorous about it.

Just realize that and change the way you relate to me because I didn’t choose to be Bipolar and I didn’t ask you for your attention. If you’re going to ask me for mine just be a bit sensitive.

Because ultimately if mental illness is glamorous then I am THE Queen of Glamour. Thank you very much.