The pretty girl sitting on the floor, long hair framing her face in effortless waves as tears wash over her pristine cheeks. The sad kid with an empty stare and a half-smoked cigarette in hand, looking out the window in solemn silence. Pseudo-poetry, chipped black nail polish against a backdrop of bathroom tiles and saddening quotes with little profundity. In essence, such is the image of adolescent depression painted on platforms like Tumblr as of the early 2010s. This is the romanticization of mental illness. It has propagated a toxic way of talking about depression, which risks a trivialization of the issue and a further complication of an already stigmatized topic.

The number of adolescents experiencing depressive episodes in the United States has increased from nine percent to eleven percent between 2005 and 2014, and a similar trend applies to many countries outside the U.S. Depression has become a mainstream topic. Constant media coverage on the rising suicide rates and measures of sucide prevention in many colleges and universities is helping the issue finally get the attention it neccesitates. With increased dialogue regarding mental health in many countries as well as on online platforms, one may assume we have matured in the way we speak about the issue. However, although we might be hearing about it more often, that does not necessarily mean the way it is discussed is healthy.

With the current wave of romanticization caused by how depression is portrayed online, we run the risk of using it as a stand-in for situational sadness or worse — seeing it as something to aspire to.

The appeal associated with the condition promotes the problem rather than encouraging timely diagnosis or treatment. Psychological and emotional suffering are equated to beauty, and pathological behaviors are glorified and become even more difficult to escape. The creation of so called ‘mental illness communities’ online originated as an attempt to create a forum for depressed individuals to support one another. Over time, though, the various mental illness communities have become platforms for glorification, and according to research, these communities have been shown to reinforce disordered behavior.

In an article for the Undergraduate Research Journal in Psychology, Anima Shrestha references the Silver Bubble Problem, a term coined by the University of British Columbia Assistant Professor, Eric Meyers. The idea consists of a negative feedback loop created when like-minded people engage in extensive discussion — in this case, about mental illness — and end up validating each other's negative feelings. The problem with this bubble is that it fails to introduce facts and accurate realities regarding depression, leaving its members with a desirable view of the condition. As a result, the unhealthy way of portraying depression online ends up popularizing the option of developing or having a mental illness rather than taking strides to manage the condition.

In addition to creating an unrealistic portrayal of depression, romanticization takes away from the gravity of the issue. A debilitating condition becoming verbally equated with a desirable lifestyle or part of someone’s personality is indisputably problematic. Seeing the condition as something quirky and attractive is a slippery slope towards not taking genuine, diagnosed cases of depression seriously. It is difficult to determine whether the followers of this trend are actually depressed and using this form of expression as a call for help, or rather have no idea about the realities of the suffering associated with the condition but wish to be associated with it. What is clear though, is that either way, these representations of depression are not contributing to a de-stigmatization of the issue.

Romanticizing depression and perceiving it as a trend also leads to people suffering in silence and continuing to do so out of fear of being accused of jumping on the bandwagon if they were to reveal what they are going through. People who suffer from depression and reject this idealized and unrealistic version might be afraid to come forward about their problems and seek the help they require. There is a necessity to deromanticize depression without downplaying the issue or taking away from its severity. As is clear from the examples above, discussion for discussion’s sake is not enough. Depression is neither a quirk nor an aesthetic and more visibility won’t improve the situation if romanticization is not removed from the narrative. A certain sensitivity and awareness is needed to handle this topic. Depression is not a mask to try on for a few days after an unfortunate event, nor should it ever be spoken of as a trend. How should one speak about being depressed with the wish to be taken seriously? This question remains open and while strides in the right direction are being made, we as a community still have space for growth.