is the romanticisation of mental illness good, actually?

Going to DBT group therapy helped me a lot when I was in high school and struggling because of the pandemic and mental health issues and I think the community aspect of it was one of the most important parts in my recovery journey.

Mental health content has been a godsend in my life. When i was a severely mentally ill teen without access to professional help i was able to take steps to better my mental health using info and inspo from content i saw online. I also wouldve never realized that i had an ed if it werent for social media bc after suffering with arfid since i was like 4 i only found out it was even a thing in my 20s thru a tiktok. I was also one of those adults that realized they had adhd bc of tiktok lol. I was a teen online during the peak of the mental illness romanticization in the 2010s so im well aware that theres a lot of fucked up mental health content out there thats doing a lot of harm but w a lack of adequate access to professional help the good stuff thats out there has honestly done so much for my mental health.

even ed 'recovery' communities can be harmful. those who recover are most likely not the ones posting photos of themselves at their sickest online in before and after shots to vulnerable people. recovery accounts often stem from the need for validation from others which is problematic within itself

Thank you for the nuance! I've been pretty sick of seeing "ew don't romanticize mental illness" in response to any mentally ill people finding community or humour or expressing themselves in any way.

When I was at my lowest point about a year ago I remember seeing romanticized mental illness posts and crying so hard because my suffering wasn’t that pretty and as it didn’t look like that I thought I wasn’t deserving of help. There’s content that helps, of course, but I can’t help to have that memory playing in my head. I wish no one goes through that.

As an art therapist, I want to thank you for saying the quiet parts out loud about access, coping, and the larger picture and material experiences under capitalism and colonialism. I really appreciate this video ❤️

On the one hand, I think there is a lot more recognition of mental health issues nowadays, and more people are going to therapy. Which is good. On the other hand, I legitimately can not tell if I am in need of psychiatric help or if I'm faking all of it. Like, this kind of romanticization is so deep in my bones that I can't tell if I'm actually struggling or if I'm lying to myself and everyone around me for attention. It's really scary.

I find the idea of "wanting to be sad" - or tragic - or suffering, etc. ad nauseum, as infinitum - as .... Unhealthy.... I can understand and relate though, to when I was a young, pining, self pitying teenage girl. And though I had REAL problems/mental disturbances - I found this searching for some validation of my pain by exaggerating it, in a way, somehow preoccupying... Sort of masochistic, definitely. But without owning my own part in it, ie my own failure in addressing my struggles honestly and productively. Which might've broken through more to the heart of my problem... I think my whole life might've taken a different trajectory, had I been able to address it more honestly and courageously back then.... They say it's never too late to have a happy childhood - I would say it's never too late to revisit my early issues and approach them more honestly... Thanks....

That conclusion, hell yes.

Something I think many people fail to realise is how something that looks obviously triggering or appalling can be helpful for other people. I am a recovering self harmer, when I am severely triggered looking at pictures of self harm online actually helps me. I haven't cut myself in a decade or something close to that and in part thanks to this, so many people look at those "extreme" pictures and decide they must be harmful 100% of the time but that's not true, they might help some people. So I'm not going to police what might me helping others, even if it looks scary or gross to me. We should be careful and responsible with what we share obviously, but that doesn't mean we should just draw a line of stuff that is unacceptable and evil

This really reminds me of the talking points around self-diagnosis and people allegedly faking disorders for online clout. People end up doing the same thing we criticize non-disabled people of doing. “You’re not really disabled” or “you’re not showing your disability correctly” or “you just want attention” (well maybe that person actually needs attention/help even if they need to communicate that in a healthier way?!). I don’t think these things are non-issues, but let’s not fall into the same pit of policing whose experiences are valid and assuming we’re all the same. Interestingly, as you’ve indirectly pointed out, these arguments are made implicitly by people of both opinions, whether people leave out less aesthetic aspects of having mental illness, or people make the argument that you aren’t actually mentally ill because you’re suffering isn’t non-aesthetic enough.

this was an interesting video. I have a mix of physical and mental health problems that are both "invisible" and I once in a while make pinterest boards for them and definitely romanticizing my illnesses helps me cope. when I was in the hospital pretty much dying, I was like ah yes, I am a sickly victorian child wasting away in a somehow beautiful way. it's definitely a complicated and nuanced thing, as you explain, but I think I've found a healthy balance personally.

Intrusive thoughts scare the eff out of me and I absolutely hate when my own get bad. I’m a pacifist by nature, so my brain goes to some of the most vile thoughts of violence and it creates this horrible sickening feeling of mixed shame and fear. Shame I could even have such thoughts and fear that perhaps one day it will be more than an unwanted thought and cross into action… it took 5.5 years of intense CBT to get it so happens far less and usually less intensity when it does. But I still hate it and would never wish such an experience on even my worst enemy
Edit: yea sometimes it can be a silly urge like push all the “try me” buttons in a toy aisle. But it can just as easily be something that would make the most hardened horror fan gag to see within your head…

TIL that I have intrusive thoughts when I thought they are just impulsive. Fuck.

Rowan Ellis, I love your unique perspective and your gifted analytical prowess. Please, please, please remember to take your medication and please continue mental health help.


The UK is beautiful! Remember to practice gratitude! 🙏 And remember to take your meds! 🙏

Omg, can you share the lists and suggestions you made to to cope with your SAD? I'm finding it so hard this year!

This is the conversation i always f---ing wanted and no one was having thank you. I feel like these discussjons always come from the starting assumption that "romanticization of pain/sadness = bad" and im just like, all history would disagree?

And i dont just mean that in a "van gough and poe struggled their entire lives and produced great art" way - i mean it in like an "exaltation of the martyrs", "saint joan hallucinated angels", "the virgen of guadalupe appeared to man as an indigenous woman" kind of way....

It's also a little bit of "damn, we can't even be SAD correctly?" - the moralization of the sadness of teenage girls has always been wild when I think about the normalization of the sadness and anger of teenage boys, when that often ends in violence.

Okay I haven't watched this yet, I will tomorrow. But can I just say: I came out to my friend as a system and didn't have to explain because she'd seen it on Tiktok and that was so nice. I just told her, amended some bits that are unique to me and that was it. No lecture about how we aren't serial killers.

i have so so many thoughts about this subject. first off, thanks for the video! one thing i wanted to add is how being in recovery but not being on the "recovery side" of social media can be really difficult. when you're in the depths of it, seeing posts expressing pain or joking about severe depression can create community, like you said, but when you're starting to recover, seeing things like that can make you feel like it's wrong to recover. it almost feels like if you get better, maybe you were never really ill. my mental health is the best it's been in years, and still i sometimes worry that i need to struggle more in order to have genuinely suffered or have ongoing mental health issues.

i'll also agree with both your points and what other people are saying about intrusive thoughts. i do have genuinely intrusive thoughts, and i hate seeing people framing cute or silly impulsive thoughts as intrusive when intrusive thoughts suck so much to deal with. i get sexual and bigoted intrusive thoughts that really, really bother me, even though i know they don't reflect what i believe or what kind of person i am, and these kinds of posts make it difficult to open up. i remember how when i opened up about having sexual intrusive thoughts, one friend sent a raised eyebrow emoji and another messaged me privately about how this wasn't a reflection of who i am and i don't really want those things in a way that very much seemed to have the purpose of reassuring them rather than me (given that i had already prefaced my opening up with those sentiments)

🎉 "promosm"

Also another huge underlying factor driving all of this I believe is algorithms. If it weren't for algorithms even the most harmful of sad girl content wouldn't be nearly as much of a problem. Sad girl content would just be a blip of a moment on the internet where a sad person expressed how they were feeling at a certain time in their life and that would be it. With algorithms in charge though all the sad girl content combined becomes a rabbit hole for venerable people to fall into instead.

I really loved this and how nuanced it was! You finally touched on what has always been missing from all these angry 'don't romanticize mental illness' speeches that sometimes you can't make the dark feelings go away no matter what you try so at the very least getting to express them especially in some sort of artistic way makes it so much easier to live with, because struggling with mental health is already so degrading I feel like 'romanticizing it' at least lets you take back some of your dignity despite the fact that you're struggling and that is powerful.

Sometimes while suffering from mental illness it helps to romanticize it in a way. Sometimes you gotta girlboss your way through the struggle with self aware humor or else you’ll fall apart. On a personal level it can be helpful but when people who AREN’T mentally I’ll and pretend to be and romanticize it like it’s something trendy or cute or makes them special and quirky or different then those bitches can choke and that’s not okay. You can only romanticize your own mental illness to yourself if it helps you. If that makes any sense at all.

I'd love a Video of Katie McGrath. For personal reasons lol😂. I went back to brown hair a few months ago. Pretty dark, it's coloured but it's basically my natural color. Before that I was blond. I've aslo had copper(too much work for me😅) and pretty much everything. I'm also pretty pale. I didn't like my brown hair for a long time. But I love it now. And I don't think it makes me too pale, I noticed that with some blondes or even darker browns, almost black. Just interested in the whole "What's my actual season, style etc." Ofc you can look good in differethings and there's make up and stuff

Thanks for talking about intrusive thoughts. The memes and jokes that are made about it are not funny. My intrusive thoughts aren't funny. Sometimes my thoughts scare me and seeing these memes whenever in on Instagram is annoying me.

Gosh, that last part of the video really hit me hard.... as someone who's been "in the medical system" for YEARS now and is still fighting to get any help at all (therapy least of all...), little things - like mental health apps and aesthetic blogs and hyping up for halloween when the world gets colder and darker - kinda feel like the only fragile little lifeline I've got... you bet I'm gonna cling to it

I personally have never understood the need/desire to portray one's depression/anxiety/paranoia/etc as a stylish "aesthetic" or some cute quirk or some "necessary" shock, since I have always viewed it as a battle. I don't WANT to constantly feel like the floor is gonna fall out on me or that everyone hates me. I don't WANT to wonder if anyone would notice if I walked in front of a train. It's a constant fight, even with medication & therapy & finding healthy coping mechanisms, because you're at war with your own brain.

I know that there are probably people who find comfort in "uwu u matter" cottagecore art pieces or who find "just drink water" advice helpful, and I know that there are others who find catharsis in the opposite, who feel a release when self-harm is presented artfully or viscerally to "show the reality". Good for them. Personally, I find both equally repulsive, since for every person who uses them, there are 4 more that think the cutesy pictures & platitudes are all you need to feel better or that if you're triggered by the visceral imagery it's because you "can't handle reality". These are responses I've seen and gotten over the years, and it's really made me feel like the "end the stigma" approaches to mental illness online have just created new stigmas in lieu of the old ones. It's all made an already exhausting & frustrating situation worse, moreso than the dismissals I used to have in my youth in the 90s.

If you are a masochist suffering really is beautiful.

No, no it most definitely isn't, 1000x no. I've never been more miserable since I've developed health anxiety. It's not something I'm proud of whatsoever, it's something I want to get rid of as soon as possible! People shouldn't be shamed for their mental health issues, but nor should mental health issues be romanticised because they are not something to romanticise.

for me ed reccovery tiktoks could get triggering because when i was deep in my ed i remember seeing those tiktoks like "foods i can eat now i'm recovered!!!" and i see something i eat while not recovered (restrictive type ed). idk it made me feel like i wasn't starving enough if these recovered people had a few similar foods to me.

Its interesting that some of this comes down to "what is art?"
The person who had made her pill bottles in to fairy lights really stood out to me. Perhaps to them it really says something about theirjourney through mental illness and then to clearly find some form of help for it (medication).
But to someone else that may seem inappropriate. It then comes down to the problem of policing someone's experience with their own mental illness.

Could a depressed person see this and feel bad because they dont have the energy and motivation to do something like that?
Perhaps. But maybe instead of making that artist feel bad for expressing themself we should promote the idea that someone else's recovery has no impact on your own. It is ofc easier said than done but I think I would rather deal with the muddy, confusing human emotions than just put a big fat censor over everything. That is a dangerous area because everyone will draw the line in a different place. What may be okay to one person may be terrible to another.

There are many channels which talk about all kinds of mental health topics. Explaining a lot of things and illnesses.
They are good when you try to understand yourself and your situation or someone elses behavior, but you should avoid subscribing to them or to have them flood your 'for you page'. There's always that tipping point when something like mental health videos aren't helping you anymore, but instead keeping you trapped. They make you spiral and at some point everything you talk about and think about is mental health...you dwell on your problems.

I remember one very popular channel asking why many viewers aren't subscribing and I answered that it would do me personally more harm than good.

I have SAD. But like, reverse sad? Basically, I feel worse in Spring and Summer
And, I don't really like sayings like "you matter to people" "you will be missed". Since like, I know that. But I'll just keep telling myself it isn't true, which isn't really helpful
So I try putting a more neutral spin on things. Because then I can't say it isn't true
I also have like, a bunch of quotes saved on my phone. That feel more personal, instead of blanket statements like "you matter"

Ok but off topic, what brand of hairdye is that and name of dye 😂❤🔥

Thank-you for mentioning SAD and your approach to it at the end of your video... I literally just told a friend two days ago that I felt, and I quote, "a mild dread for the coming winter months and the fewer hours of daylight." What a nice idea to embrace some of the aesthetics of winter. I feel a little less dread now. :)

also love how you're casually assuming someone ISN'T actually mentally ill simply because of their makeup choices. because that's something you can tell just by looking at them, right?

why do you people watch this shit

you do realize that by planting yourself right in the middle of the thumbnail, it's as if you're saying you also participate in 'sad girl makeup.' if that's the idea, then by all means go ahead. love how you're calling out tumblr when this type of video is literally peak tumblr-esque garbage btw. you even look like you belong on tumblr

Keep up the good work.

Amen.

for anyone suffering with this: having violent or sexual intrusive thoughts does not make you bad or evil or horrible. they are just thoughts. they do not define or control you. just because you have these thoughts does not mean you want to do the behaviour associated with them or that you believe what these intrusive thoughts say. take a breath, kiss a cat on their little head, reach out to people close to you, and go back to your hobbies (or hell, start a new one)

Rowan: * this video *

Me, with my obsessive-"I can do it on my own"-ism-induced psychology degree: God pls let me be a hot crazy mess in peace, it's all I've got left

Thank you for making this video. The transformation of mental illness into an online aesthetic is something that has bothered me for a while, and I was incredibly sad to hear about Molly Russell, a bright and genuinely kind young girl who took her own life after being bombarded online by the ‘aesthetic’ whilst already struggling with her mental health and isolation, with not one of the ‘awareness’ posts she viewed offering her the help she needed.

Respect to her father for continuing to raise awareness of this issue, despite his tragic loss.

As a person that has struggled with depression, it makes me feel so good that there are people out there that can tackle this subject with such nuance

*dissociative, not disassociative

Just a kind-hearted correction 🙂

More on-topic: the romanticization of mental illness online is very complicated. As someone who is severely mentally ill, and spent 4 decades wildly out of control before getting our mental health in order, we live openly to fight stigma. Not everyone can do that. I think a lot of people feel afraid to face if they have mental health issues - or sometimes, to face that they don't. So they fall into the aesthetics rather than the hard cold facts about how mental illness really impacts people. It's a way to cope with that fear and feel like they belong.

When you were a lot younger, mental illness became trendy due to the romanticism of it, and the problem with this is that people who weren’t mentally ill started claiming to be to be trendy. This has resulted in people trying to find a mental illness they can claim despite not having, which has resulted in what’s going on now, where everyone’s convinced they have some mental illness or another and often maladapting to just…life. This is a problem when it results in people not learning to deal with normal adversity in life since the hard feelings must be some sort of mental illness that others are expected to accommodate. It’s a problem when individuals are no longer seen as not at all responsible for learning to manage their normal emotions. Not being peppy and happy all the time is normal, but now we’re got scads of people who expect that anything that makes them at all unhappy or comfy means mental illness should be managed by others. The end result? A society that stops even trying to accommodate since it’s not possible for society to accommodate to every other person out there. So you get people with genuine mental illness who aren’t taken seriously and can’t get accommodations they actually need. There’s accommodation fatigue. Think of it as the mental health equivalent of someone who never exercises whose back hurts when they finally do a bit of exercise, and instead of realizing their back hurts due to never exercising, claims it’s really a sign of disability since it’s also acceptable for anyone to just claim disability. I’ve literally seen a lack of motivation to hold a job and just not wanting to hold a job as a sign of mental illness or disability even though having a job can suck—I personally don’t have to have a job, and don’t want one (and my spouse is okay with me being a housewife) and I’ve been told this is a mental illness. Um…