The subtle knife of self-love.

These days, it seems like for every thigh gap and skinny tea thrown at us, we're also flooded with grandiose messages of body positivity and self-confidence. Of course, it's better that at least awareness is being raised about a very important issue, but the way in which it is publicized is most of the time inept at best and harmful at worst."Love yourself" has become a platitude:

Love yourself--after you've lost ten pounds on our miracle diet. Love yourself--in our new fall collection. Love yourself--but keep it to yourself.

In The Breakfast Club, Ally Sheedy compares female sexuality to a double-edged sword: "If you haven't, you're a prude. If you have, you're a slut. It's a trap." The same can very much be said for loving yourself. If you don't, you're stunted. If you do, you're a narcissist.

I've had enough of magazines pushing body positivity one one page, and bikini body tips on the next. I've had enough of diet ads telling us how much happier and self-loving, not healthier, people are after losing weight. I've had enough the media dictating the very selective ways in which we are allowed to "be ourselves."

It's all a facade to save face. The media is not stupid. They are well aware of the backlash to their portrayal of racial and sexual norms, body image and the obsessive need to conform to an acceptable mold, but they also see dollar signs everywhere. Diets, fashion, beauty, cosmetic surgery--all very lucrative industries largely dependent either on people's insecurities or their struggle for societal acceptance, or both. People in these industries have no intention of sabotaging their profits, but simultaneously playing as self-styled moral crusaders means that they wash their hands of responsibility for their message, and can have their cake and eat it, too.

Yes, we're commercializing off of completely unrealistic standards and blind conformity, but seriously, just love yourself.

Imagine this: you're a soldier at war. There's a shortage of weapons, so the general takes away your gun and gives it to one of the soldiers on the front lines. When it's your turn to deploy, the general pumps you up with a motivational, empowering speech, and sends you off to win the battle...despite the fact that he just took your gun.

We need to be aware that this is exactly how the media treats us. It overwhelms us daily with enough images and words to destroy our self-confidence, and then tells us that we are strong and beautiful and worthy. It's a subtle knife: masked by the right words, but in practice, stabbing us right in the back.

I am by no means an expert on self-love. I, like most of you, am learning, and it's a constant struggle, but the first step to success is being aware of the toxicity and hypocrisy that confronts us each day in the name of empowerment.

Regardless of how many plus-size models grace magazine covers, or how much diversity there is on Orange is the New Black, we should never listen too closely to what the media has to say about our image and self-esteem. In the end, they're a business like any other, and are primarily interested in making a buck. It might be a good idea to try disregarding what the media has to say on these issues one way or the other. Whether their intentions are legitimately good, or just a publicity stunt, either way, they are in no position to dictate how you should feel about you.

Love yourself. Yup, that's it, no conditions, period. Love yourself, today.

We need to talk.

Today, one of my Facebook friends posted a link to a petition to take a certain Topshop product off the shelves. The item in question was a design by Lucie Davis, a Central St. Martins student whose “self-love” collection includes golden removable tattoos of scars. Topshop markets this as “celebrating imperfections rather than hiding them,” and “flaws worth fighting for.”

I really shouldn’t need to explain why plastering fake scars and stitches onto your body outside of a zombie costume is not a good idea, but it seems like I do. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say that their intentions may have been positive, but the outcome has been seen by many (myself included--and I've never struggled with cutting, burning and the like) as insensitive, potentially triggering, and a way to commercialize off of a very serious issue. Whether they are aware of the implications of their product or not, Lucie and Topshop have jumped on the Mental Illness Fashion train. Rumor has it Urban Outfitters saved them a seat.

When we live in a world where self-harm is en vogue, anorexia is a crash diet, schizophrenia is a lazy horror twist (and totally the same thing as “multiple personality disorder,” which is also totally a thing), your ex-girlfriend is just bipolar, and depression and anxiety are punchlines…it’s clear that we need to talk.

Mental health is never an easy topic to discuss, partly because it’s personal and can be legitimately painful, and partly because society tells us it’s taboo, the type of thing you don’t talk about at the dinner table, or with your partner, or at work. I really do wish this were different. I’m by no means saying that everyone should pour out their life story to all their acquaintances, but it would be refreshing if those who choose not to hide their illnesses and struggles could do so without the fear of judgment. Will this ever change? Hopefully. For now, it seems like the best medium for discussing and raising awareness of mental health issues is the internet. It can be as public or anonymous as you choose, and there is a certain comfort in having a screen separating you from your audience.

All I want to do is start an honest, open, no-holds-barred discussion over the course of several posts, and to do that, I first want to set some ground rules. I am neither a professional nor an expert, just someone with eyes and experience. I am under no delusions of grandeur that I am the first person to raise this issue, or that these posts will be the Summa Theologica of mental health awareness, but I feel strongly enough about this to at least throw my words into the mix.

No more “crazy.”

Let’s start off gently with some semantics. Derogatory and frankly insulting names for the mentally ill are widely accepted as harmless colloquialisms. Most people, especially those who have not experienced mental illness, use these regularly when referring to ill people without realizing their impact. Thankfully, there’s a very simple solution to this problem: don’t use them.

There are no crazy, insane lunatics, no divide between the normal and abnormal. There are mentally healthy and mentally ill people…but that is anything but a binary system.

No more pigeon-holing.

Yes, it is possible to classify someone as mentally healthy or mentally ill, but that is both a subjective and fluid scale.

We need to recognize that not everyone who can be classified as “mentally ill” is the same. There are varying degrees of severity of illness, type of illness, and impact on their daily lives and those around them. Objectively, a paranoid schizophrenic may be “more ill” (i.e. have a more complex medical condition) than someone with social anxiety. However, the schizophrenic may, through proper medication and therapy, be able to function and live more “normally” than the social anxiety sufferer, whose disorder paralyzes them in daily life.

The point is, classifying people on one side or the other of a binary is virtually meaningless. The phrase “mentally ill” really means nothing more than “has an undefined psychological or psychiatric problem.” It’s like classifying everything from paper cuts to severed limbs as “ruptured skin”—technically true, but hardly representative of all that it describes.

No more judging.

You can read an entire library of psychiatric books and journals, you can take Zimbardo out to dinner, and you still will not be able to assume what is going on inside a person’s head. The very nature of mental illnesses mean that they are directly linked to our mind, and no two minds are alike. We all have our own past experiences, fears, coping mechanisms, reactions, triggers, and for some, medical problems.

Rule of thumb: each person is an individual, unique case, who should never be pigeon-holed. With all this in mind...let's talk.