The Glamorization of Mental Illness Among Teenagers
Maren Dennison
Pd. 4
11/25/13
When visiting any well-known social network geared towards teens and adolescents, it takes but a few minutes to encounter a post that glorifies a disturbed mind. However, being mentally disturbed does not make a person beautiful. Many teens and adolescents believe that fabricating and self-diagnosing certain mental illnesses are a way to gain peer acceptance and to stand apart from the crowd. Although this belief may seem harmless, the glamorization of mental illnesses can create severe physical and emotional problems for teens. The most common mental issues that teens tend to glamorize are of self-mutilation, anxiety disorders, and depression. Self-mutilation includes an array of serious issues. Forms of self-mutilation include cutting, burning, and inflicting slight physical discomfort; such as repeatedly banging one’s head off the wall. Typically, teens self-mutilate for emotional release or in order to quietly indicate the need for help. Nicci Gerrard states in her article in The Guardian Magazine, “…[self abuse is] a morbid secret and a public confession. And it is simultaneously very serious and weirdly casual - a cross between Sylvia Plath and wearing your baseball cap backwards” (2002, 3). Teens with low self-esteem or continued suffering from childhood abuse may resort to self-mutilation. Teens that feel they can only be relieved of emotional pain by causing harm to themselves need treatment and attention in order to keep the behavior from escalating into a cycle of constant self-abuse. Although self-mutilators possess serious problems that should be recognized, growing portions of self-mutilators hurt themselves for fun. Nicci Gerrard sums up this movement of “cutting for fun” by stating, “…in some schools it has almost become a group-led gothic kind of fashion statement: a grungy display of hardness (look at the pain I can bear) and softness (look at the pain I am feeling inside)” (4). Also, some
Pd. 4
11/25/13
When visiting any well-known social network geared towards teens and adolescents, it takes but a few minutes to encounter a post that glorifies a disturbed mind. However, being mentally disturbed does not make a person beautiful. Many teens and adolescents believe that fabricating and self-diagnosing certain mental illnesses are a way to gain peer acceptance and to stand apart from the crowd. Although this belief may seem harmless, the glamorization of mental illnesses can create severe physical and emotional problems for teens. The most common mental issues that teens tend to glamorize are of self-mutilation, anxiety disorders, and depression. Self-mutilation includes an array of serious issues. Forms of self-mutilation include cutting, burning, and inflicting slight physical discomfort; such as repeatedly banging one’s head off the wall. Typically, teens self-mutilate for emotional release or in order to quietly indicate the need for help. Nicci Gerrard states in her article in The Guardian Magazine, “…[self abuse is] a morbid secret and a public confession. And it is simultaneously very serious and weirdly casual - a cross between Sylvia Plath and wearing your baseball cap backwards” (2002, 3). Teens with low self-esteem or continued suffering from childhood abuse may resort to self-mutilation. Teens that feel they can only be relieved of emotional pain by causing harm to themselves need treatment and attention in order to keep the behavior from escalating into a cycle of constant self-abuse. Although self-mutilators possess serious problems that should be recognized, growing portions of self-mutilators hurt themselves for fun. Nicci Gerrard sums up this movement of “cutting for fun” by stating, “…in some schools it has almost become a group-led gothic kind of fashion statement: a grungy display of hardness (look at the pain I can bear) and softness (look at the pain I am feeling inside)” (4). Also, some