Why do people avoid looking for help when it comes to mental health disorders?
My post calling out people who pretend to care about Yellow September got me thinking about another question: why do people avoid looking for help when it comes to mental health treatment?
As I said in my previous post, they get uncomfortable opening up about their issues. Specially when it’s trending.
There are lots of people all over the internet posing as depressed, anxious and suicidal to “look cool”. They make people who actually are facing those problems feel ordinary. Make them think they shouldn’t look for help cause everyone’s wrecked, when not everybody really is. I wish people stopped romanticizing depression and playing with others’s emotions. That ain’t cool, and they’re f-cking irresponsible.
Not only that, I guess most people disagree on being upfront about this subject because of the society’s reproval. Back in 2018, a Brazilian politician and pastor¹, Marco Feliciano, made a poll on Facebook questioning whether depression was a disease or caused by demons. As if the poll itself weren’t bullshit through and through, people in the comments kept saying crazy stuff such as “if they had been beaten up when they were children, then they wouldn’t have been so soft and weak in adult life”.
So, think about it: would you ever speak up about your own problems when you know damn well people simply don’t care? I certainly wouldn’t.
Those people who talked sh-t in the comments are the first ones to start posting about Yellow September and pretend they care. They make other people get mentally and emotionally hurt throughout the year, but in September they act like they’re cool and everyone’s best friends. A big and loud “BS!” to all of them. This is as much hypocritical as Pride Month and not nearly as effective as actually respecting all of us queer people as equals².
Besides all of that, those suffering people avoid looking for help because they think they annoy others. All I wish is that they could really have someone to count on and forget about it.
Maybe if we tried to look after our friends, we could get everyone taking care of each other in a great and mutual self care acceptance. Maybe that could help.
– Tria. December 26th, 2019.
- An evangelical one, I mean.
- I did lose track of thought while writing, but you surely got the point.
– Tria. February 19th, 2022.
