I recently met a few people for the first time. After spending less than 5 minutes with them they had already made at least 5 jokes about depression and other mental illnesses. Normally I would have told them off for it but I was a guest in their home and therefore laughed politely and pretended that everything was ok. But everything wasn't ok. Inside I was thinking that these people are fortunate enough to never have experienced enough bad things in their life to realise that mental illness isn't a joke and I don't actually find it funny at all.
I started becoming jealous, wishing I could joke about mental illness and not see anything wrong with it but I quickly realised that I'm not jealous at all. As I've explained in a previous post I've been through depression. I still am and I have people around me going through similar things. It has taught me to appreciate the things that make me happy because I know that happiness isn't something that everyone experiences. Not all the time at least.
It seems like people think it's acceptable to joke about anything. We joke about the holocaust, other people, diseases and most of all, we joke about things that we can't handle in life. Maybe it is some kind of defence mechanism but that doesn't make it right. When joking about one of these things we remove the seriousness of it. We forget that to some people this isn't a joke. Some people including me.
I am fully aware of that some people use it in a way to deal with the issue. By joking about it they can forget about the issue at least for a little while but I think that these jokes also make other people forget about it completely.
I've noticed myself how some people dumb down people that suffer from depression. It is our own fault, we should cheer up and be happy. It might sound easy but believe me it's not and people joking about it doesn't make it any better.
We need to start taking mental illness for the problem that it is. It is as much of an illness as any other physical illness. In fact, most of the time a mental illness is actually caused by a physical reaction in the brain and many people need help for that. That isn't something we should be ashamed of and it doesn't make us strange in any way. It just makes us feeling things that other people might not experience.
But this encounter with people that didn't know me or my history making fun of an illness that I am personally experiencing made me realise that next time I don't want to laugh out of politeness. Next time I want to explain to them that it is not funny in any way and joking about someone suffering from this illness when they're not is like jinxing it. And after spending 3 months fighting this illness and finally getting out of the ditch I know that I wouldn't even wish it on my worst enemy and I would definitely not joke about it because you can never know if your audience sees it as a joke and lets face it, no one should see it as a joke.
I started becoming jealous, wishing I could joke about mental illness and not see anything wrong with it but I quickly realised that I'm not jealous at all. As I've explained in a previous post I've been through depression. I still am and I have people around me going through similar things. It has taught me to appreciate the things that make me happy because I know that happiness isn't something that everyone experiences. Not all the time at least.
It seems like people think it's acceptable to joke about anything. We joke about the holocaust, other people, diseases and most of all, we joke about things that we can't handle in life. Maybe it is some kind of defence mechanism but that doesn't make it right. When joking about one of these things we remove the seriousness of it. We forget that to some people this isn't a joke. Some people including me.
I am fully aware of that some people use it in a way to deal with the issue. By joking about it they can forget about the issue at least for a little while but I think that these jokes also make other people forget about it completely.
I've noticed myself how some people dumb down people that suffer from depression. It is our own fault, we should cheer up and be happy. It might sound easy but believe me it's not and people joking about it doesn't make it any better.
We need to start taking mental illness for the problem that it is. It is as much of an illness as any other physical illness. In fact, most of the time a mental illness is actually caused by a physical reaction in the brain and many people need help for that. That isn't something we should be ashamed of and it doesn't make us strange in any way. It just makes us feeling things that other people might not experience.
But this encounter with people that didn't know me or my history making fun of an illness that I am personally experiencing made me realise that next time I don't want to laugh out of politeness. Next time I want to explain to them that it is not funny in any way and joking about someone suffering from this illness when they're not is like jinxing it. And after spending 3 months fighting this illness and finally getting out of the ditch I know that I wouldn't even wish it on my worst enemy and I would definitely not joke about it because you can never know if your audience sees it as a joke and lets face it, no one should see it as a joke.
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