"You Don't Look Crazy Enough."

Dear Internet,

What does mental illness look like? Is it tall and blonde with crystal blue eyes? Is it short and pale and fun to hang out with on the weekends? Maybe it's funny and easy to talk to, with perfect hair and a dazzling smile. Does anybody really know?

I think the reality is, mental illness can look like anyone or anything. It can look like your mom or your best friend or even like you, whether it's you crying or eating dinner with friends or opening a Christmas present. That's what's so terrifying about it--mental illness can look like anyone doing anything. So what did a teacher of mine mean when, while directing a piece where a character is suffering from a mental illness, she said to me peer "you don't look crazy enough. You need to act a little crazier." A classmate chimed in "Yeah, a person with a mental illness would look a little more off. Not so normal."

As I sat there in my chair, astonished that such things were said so casually, it took everything I had not to get up and walk out of the room. What does that mean? What is crazy supposed to look like?

This is all a part of the stigma around mental illness--this idea that it's supposed to look or be a certain way when, truth be told, mental illnesses are not always visible. They hide in the cracks and crevices of the humans that walk among you every day, sealed under facades of makeup and cute clothes and comfortable shoes. They wear what a normal person wears, talk how a normal person talks, only it's as if that person were wearing a backpack full of boulders, trying to carry around their illness from place to place, hoping that at some stoplight they'll finally get a break. People with mental illnesses don't look a mental illness. They look like people. They have pet peeves and pets and grocery lists just like you have. So why would someone say that in order for someone to have a mental illness they have to look or project their illness out in a certain way?

Furthermore, why does a person with a mental illness have to be categorized as crazy? When I looked up the definition of crazy, it gave me "mentally deranged." When I looked up the definition of deranged, it used it in a sentence: "the mentally deranged gunman."

Wait.

Hold up.

It is unnecessary and inaccurate to assume that all people with a mental illness are on the same level as someone as violent as a gunman. Mental illness does not equal violence like that. Depression, anxiety, eating disorders, these are all mental illnesses, and I do not have enough hands to count the number of people I know intimately, myself included, who have struggled with a combination of all three. Roughly one in five teenagers will experience depression before they are adults. Anxiety impacts a quarter of all teenagers, and a third of all teenage girls. Roughly half of teen girls and a third of teen boys will use unhealthy measures to try and lose weight at some point in their teenage years. Are those the people my teacher knew she was speaking of when she referred to someone with a mental illness as generally crazy? I would hope not. In fact, I'm positive that she had no idea that she was saying something so hurtful in that moment. And that's part of the problem.

It is time that we educate ourselves on mental illness, particularly because, as I mentioned before, there are so many people who we all know and love who struggle every day with them. It is careless of us to be so careless about the language and tone we use when we speak about mental illness, or to assume that everyone in a room has no experience with mental illness so that the carelessness can take place to begin with. We have to take the time and listen to those around us and what they are going through. They must know that they do not have to stay silent about their experiences, that there are people listening to them, caring about them. And we can no longer stifle their voices by calling them "crazy" or telling them that they don't look crazy enough for what we think their illness is supposed to look like.

Let us all be more careful, friends. We have no idea what it is people are going through.

-mk.

If you'd like to learn more about depression, anxiety, or eating disorders, please visit:

The National Institute of Mental Health
Anxiety and Depression Association of America
The National Eating Disorder Association

To learn about the many other mental illnesses out there, please visit:

The National Institute of Mental Health Home Page