GLAMORIZATION OF MENTAL ILLNESS

hey guys so it is a casual video got my sweatshirt on from glamour kill for this to school today so yeah I just got well not Jessica I've got coffee but I got home recently from school and I just felt like doing a talkie video I haven't done just like one of these sit-down casual type um psychology based videos in a while that's exactly what this is it is psychology based and it's all about mental not all about it's mental health and it's basically gonna be more on the end of a rant that make sense gonna be more of a rant than anything it's not gonna be that informational or anything no advice given it's just kind of gonna be me discussing some various topics about mental health now we're gonna start with my current mental health because I feel like it's important it's relevant um to stay in this video but I didn't want to make a specific video for it because you can read why in my blog post and referring to that blog post you would already know what I'm going to say I will link the blog post down below and I posted that a couple days ago and yeah so basically I want to tell you that I suffer from sad basically seasonal affective disorder and I have for many years and this is the first year that I've sought help for it guys might remember last year vlogmas time it was really bad and I would you know complain a lot about it this year I was put on antidepressants so I'm on those right now I've been on them for about six weeks five to six weeks I believe um and they are working really well and I really like it the only thing of the side effects are kind of hard to deal with there's some obvious ones that are inconvenient like the sleeping all the time like I just want to sleep all the time anyway that's kind of where I stand with that mine is temporary with seasonal affective disorder it changes with the seasons so most of it's most common that it occurs in winter and that's how it is for me and it's not necessarily the weather it's more the time of year and which is kind of hard to explain but anyway it normally goes away around my birthday which is in March so one thing I want to touch on one of the first topics is the reason why I didn't want to make a whole video on it um it's for personal reasons it's not because I didn't want to tell you guys or anything it's because although so many people are coming out with the fact they have depression or anxiety specifically those two disorders and I know OCD some people have come out the fact they have OCD which i think is amazing to see all these videos of people with large platforms sharing their experience and things that they have and are dealing with I think it's really inspirational and um but one of the reasons why I don't want to put anything out there in a formal video is because of the hate that these people are getting in the comments and I consider it hate but it might just be criticism a lot of people are commenting saying well you had you say of depression but you were just happy in your last video so I don't get it huge misconception which I'll get into later but that's not how depression works same thing with anxiety specifically social anxiety I have seen occasionally is social anxiety and then she would post a picture of herself in a bikini on Instagram and the criticism she got from that is ridiculous there's they're like so how about that social anxiety that's not how social anxiety works either and it's different for everybody so keep that in mind I hate seeing all these people get criticised for their mental disorders when these people are clearly uneducated about it and get uneducated in the fact that it's different for everybody chances are we'll all have a mental disorder at some point in our lives for people to criticize and say well I don't think you have that or you were you're you act happy how can you be depressed is ridiculous to me because that's not how it works and that's not how mental disease works and I get so frustrated reading those comments that I personally could not handle them I would take the video down and that is showing some weakness but when it comes to a mental disorder or something that I have I am so sensitive about it that I would not want to be attacked like that that's really why I didn't post a video and also people think that these people are seeking attention or making it up also something I want to address is the glamorization of mental illness specifically on tumblr you see a lot of pictures umm glamorizing self-harm eating disorders you know depression anxiety and I don't like it and there's a fine line between growing awareness to the disorder and glamourizing it there's a fine line there and I feel like it's been crossed a little bit too glamorization and I might have personally taken part in this I don't know what I've reblogged in the past we all you know will see something that we like and reblog it and don't really think about it but you know I'm not saying I'm perfect if my blog isn't glamorizing it either I'm just saying I'm not a huge fan and I probably have you know been a part of it in some way but I also didn't want to make a video about it because I didn't want to help with that not that it is glamorizing at all or you know it's not glamorous it's not a thing but because so many people are coming out with it I don't want people other people to think that it's the cool thing to do now is to come out with a mental illness that's not what it is and I don't want to help promote anything like that I think it's great that these people are bringing awareness to things but also it can be harmful in the sense that people watching seeing so many people come out with it saying well maybe I want that or you know like depression is cool now and it's a very sensitive issue because I don't want to be one of those people that question others about their mental illness um and I also don't want to help glamorizes so it's just a hard space headspace to be in because I don't want to criticize anybody but I also don't want people to you know promote it in a way that it's a amorous thing I'm sure that I'll get a lot of commentary on this video that I might not agree with and that's fine as long as you're kind about it it's okay to not have the same opinion as me that is totally fine and feel free to share it in the comments I don't mind that just please don't criticize my opinion or break down my opinion or mental illness or anything like that you know the stigma still exists it's getting better but by no means is it where it should be and I think bringing awareness to something is a really good way to help decrease the stigma against it and I do think that people coming out with um or you know confessing or admitting oh that sounds bad when is it confessing like it's a secret so these people who are saying that they have these things are inspiring people they have a very large fan base and so of course I would want their fans to be like well that's normal to an extent but also I wouldn't want them to say well because my favorite youtuber has depression um I want that now or you know maybe I have that and when they don't or you know something like that it just worries me a little bit and I don't want any of you guys to take that the wrong way either or think that it's cool in any way but obviously the stigma is there and we fight the stigma as much as we can but I think there will always be a certain stigma involved with mental health and you know I posted a quote on Instagram a little while ago a couple weeks ago I think and it was basically saying that when we break a bone everyone rushes to sign our cast and then if we are sick of the mind people look at you weird or they think that something's wrong with you and they don't want to help you or talk to you like it's contagious and people act strange and I know that some people don't believe in therapy and don't believe in medication for mental illness and don't even believe that mental illness even exists and something that triggered this video is so random but I was watching Real Housewives of New Jersey and you know Teresa and her brother Joe well they have she's right they were fighting this was back in season four I believe and he wanted to go to therapy and she thought that was the most random strange idea she's ever heard and you know therapy could really help I believe in therapy obviously I want to be a counselor and I was almost personally offended when she says that you know her and her family they don't believe in therapy um they don't want someone else to mediate or you know help them that they don't need the help when clearly they do granted she came around they went through therapy they even did this like getaway retreat weekend thing that helped um but ultimately you know her thought on therapy in the beginning was you know I feel like a lot of people have that mindset of therapy and that's not good um you should know that it's definitely not a negative thing to seek help or talk even talk to your regular medical doctor because that's how I went through getting my antidepressants is telling my my doctor just my regular doctor I didn't see a therapist or psychiatrist and you know it helps so um however I am thinking about going to counseling at my school because at Sac State you get I think 17 17 I forget free sessions with a counselor and most of them are grad students in psychology so they're basically Pierce um but they give you someone to talk to and it's free for the student and if I do I'll let you guys know how it goes and I encourage you to do the same I think everybody can use therapy everyone can talk to a therapist or someone a neutral you know third party whatever um and it will help I think there's nothing that's bad that can come out of it except people have been known to develop disorders because of therapy um because of being wrongfully diagnosed and that is a bad thing and it's almost devastating to hear that because I'm you know in a studying psychology right now and it's like oh [ __ ] people are actually like you know the therapist is kind of leaving them on to believe that it's something like depression or dissociative identity disorder just leaving them and not action to make the patient believes that they have it so regardless of that I think therapy is good for everybody I think everybody can use it now I wanted to talk about some misconceptions about mental illness because obviously as I mentioned before the criticism that these people are getting for coming out with their mental illness um these people act like they know everything about it but clearly they do not because you don't say to someone you were just happy five seconds ago like what how can you say you're depressed that's not how depression works you can have ups and downs highs and lows and some people is a constant low some people is sometimes low but you can have up and down moments I do I generally try and film within those high moments like right now and not film in the low moments so I understand a youtuber only filming in high moments and then people are saying that well she's not depressed because she acts happy in a video and then again with the Acacia comments being that she has social anxiety people criticizing her for that uh saying that she doesn't have it like I don't understand how you can say that someone doesn't have a mental illness when you don't even know them personally I just don't know some I can say that oh you don't have it or just based on what they see on the internet and that's one of my biggest fears is people criticizing it you don't know what's in my head like you don't know how you feel on a daily basis so how can one other person one stranger say that you do or don't have it you're not a therapist and you don't know me in real life but also bipolar disorder I want to address that because one of my pet peeves is when people use that term incorrectly and I'm never okay I can't say never used it incorrectly because I might have back in the day but ever since high school it's been a pet peeve of mine that people say that someone is bipolar because they go through mood swings so bipolar disorder has a couple different types type one is mania so you mostly go through manic phases and episodes which is basically a high peak you have like Anna flate inflated self-esteem you don't need sleep I'm you stay awake for days on end and you have all these great ideas and these ambitions that you want to try and your inhibitions you know go away and you're more likely to do something damaging to yourself or other people because you're on this like rush of emotion so if you've just had one manic episode then you'll be diagnosed with bipolar one and then bipolar 2 is when you have a hypomanic episode which is similar to a manic episode but it's less severe and then you also have an episode of depression now you can have qualifiers that will have it be more like mood swings as people refer to such as bipolar 2 with mixed features is basically when you're you can go from a hypomanic phase to a depressive state within a few hours but that's pretty rare and most people their manic episodes last for weeks or a week or days sometimes months and then same thing with their depressive episodes so it really varies from person to person but in no way is that a mood swing it doesn't and it only involves mania and depression it does not involve anger sadness fear um anything like that happiness um it only have also has two stages so for me I don't I just I don't like the term being thrown around that much because it's really that's not what it is and people have this huge misconception that it equals mood swings when it doesn't space all the topics I wanted to talk about today um it's kind of a long video but I just wanted to make a video about general mental health and just some comments and rants about things that have been I've been seeing on the internet um and stuff like that so if you want another one of these let me know and I can think of some other topics to just yes let me know your thoughts on any topics that I discussed in this video down in the comments but please keep it nice I really don't want to find comments like once I've seen on Megan's or Cash's videos because I will just delete them / block because I don't tolerate those kind of comments regarding mental illness like it's a very sensitive issue for me personally and just as a psych student that I feel really passionate about so I hope that you guys can respect that respect my opinions on it just keep them bear that in mind these are all my opinions on things um I can be hypocritical at times so if you go back to a past video at some point you might be able to find some hypocritical stuff I don't know but just this is me now me sharing my opinions now as I'm more educated because I've gone through more schooling regarding psychology so just keep that in mind so I hope you enjoyed let me know what kind of advice type videos you want me to do next and mental health type videos once my class is over my careers in psych class I will be doing a career in Psych video because I've learned so much in that class it's a required class for my bachelor's and it has helped so much like I highly recommend that class if you can take it but anyway look forward to that video I hope you enjoyed and I'll talk to you soon I I'm just gonna clean you out this way hi guys so as his head old title says I got my nose pierced

Channel: Sarah Hawkinson

Views: 203,420

Rating: 4.8985424 out of 5

Keywords: Mental Illness (Disease Or Medical Condition), Health (Industry), depression, mental illness, anxiety, social anxiety, sarahhawkinson, sarah hawkinson, psychology, sarahhawkinson psychology, psychology vlog

Id: Mik52rV-f4M

Length: 16min 33sec (993 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 12 2014