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.