Let's Talk About Mental Health In the Present Tense
Enough with the redemption arcs and service elements. Anxiety is ugly and it's ok if you don't have a tidy I'm-All-Better-Now package to inspire us with.
There’s this annoying trend among self-help influencer types you might have seen during your latest mindless scroll. It’s a confessional along the lines of “I was mentally struggling so much during (insert anything in the past tense) but now I am back to being perfect. Here’s why I’m relatable, but still better than you because I’m fixed now.”
This type of internet person is looking to be relatable without being damaged, maintaining that aspirational aura that keeps people from punching the unfollow button.
We are jaded enough to know that social media is a highlight reel, but this trend seems particularly damaging. Without explicitly stating it, this “past-tense-only” phrasing tells the audience that the person posting is just like them, but better. You’re still struggling? Sucks to suck! Overall I’m happy to see mental health coming more into the common conversation, but it still needs to be expanded.
I recently pitched mental health pieces to my editors across different publications. The ones who didn’t turn it down (That’s somewhat of a downer, Maggie) bastardized the pitch into a self-help fluff piece with the dreaded service element. “Love it! We’ll include tips n’ tricks for our readers about what you learned while you were struggling!”
While I was struggling? Homeslice, I am always struggling. My anxiety lives in the present tense, and it is not a recipe for a sexy service piece.
This is where media’s mental health conversation has stalled. You’re supposed to be talking to the audience from the perspective of someone who has moved past the challenges.
In reality, anxiety is cruel and ugly. It doesn’t look good on social media and it isn’t fodder for a self-help article. It looks like locking yourself in your room because you don’t trust yourself to act normally around your friends. It looks like hyperventilating while scrubbing invisible smudges off the mirror because if you eliminate every smear, you’ll be in control. It looks like no appetite and piles of laundry and being utterly convinced no one will ever love you.
My Unpublishable partner, Andrew, nailed the point I’d been circling. Mainstream media and social media love a redemption arc. The happy, aspirational narrative makes the story appealing. That’s not entirely possible if your anxiety and depression is chronic—a chemical imbalance as opposed to a reaction from your environment. Some of us will never be talking to you from the other side.
My last anxiety attack lasted a solid month, and it would have made the world’s most awful Instagram reel. I couldn’t eat, sleep, or focus, but I had a massive workload to file before I started a movie contract. I felt like I was clinging to the side of a broken carnival ride operated by the clown from It.
As a freelance writer in a competitive industry, nothing is guaranteed. I have to be on my A-game for every assignment, or the work will go elsewhere. It was critical that no one on the outside knew how poorly I was doing.
I was filing my work on time while coming apart at the seams. The lack of sleep meant I was perpetually fuzzy and exhausted, but buzzing with so much anxiety during my coffee shop shifts that one extra question from customers made me want to crawl through the drive-thru window. Food tasted like cardboard, but I was still trail running to burn off my miserable energy, resulting in several moderately dangerous backcountry episodes. It was ugly.
Even now, I feel the remnants of that month hovering, a formless gray shadow clouding my periphery. There’s no telling what will set it off. A text with a weird vibe. Cancelled plans. Dust under the couch. Nine times out of ten I will read the text without a second thought, immediately forget about the plans, and mindlessly sweep the dust bunnies. But with enough other elements to gain traction, the gray shadow expands to fill every crevice of the room. Then it’s game over. I could be facing another month of anxiety manifesting though stomach cramps, jitters, shallow breathing, blurred vision, trouble focusing, snapping at friends and coworkers, and battling waves of fear, doubt, sadness, and loneliness.
Writing about my panic and anxiety through an inspirational lens is unfair to everyone who thinks there’s something wrong with them because they haven’t made it through the other side. I haven’t either, and that’s just the way it is.
We’ve reached an impasse with conversations around mental health. It’s so prominent (trendy?) that it makes people relatable, resulting in slam-dunk post engagement and article clicks. But it’s still supposed to look pretty with a tidy redemption arc, which isn’t realistic. To move this conversation forward, we have to break the fourth wall of marketable articles and viral posts and allow all aspects of mental health struggles to feel acceptable.
I’m sorry if this feels like the opposite of inspirational, but I do enough of that type of writing through my work. At this point, we’re all savvy enough media consumers to know that sometimes it’s better to be honest than to be pretty.
I love how authentic your writing is. I stumbled across your recent NDE article and was indeed struck by how it didn't conclude with any sort of "and now I'm magically all better" ending which I've come to expect from those sort of articles, instead highlighting your breakthroughs as well as your setbacks, and focusing on continuing to work through it presently. We need more writing like this in the world, it's so valuable and constructive!
Maggie, thank you for sharing this. This world needs more acknowledgement of imperfect feelings and honest writing.