Like pretty much everybody else on planet Earth (a rough estimate), I recently went to see Joker in the cinema, and came away with a million different thoughts and feelings. The film focuses almost entirely on the Joker’s battle with mental illness and, as someone who has also struggled with their mental health, it hit me like a punch to the gut. One of the lines that resonated with me most was something that the Joker wrote in his journal: “The worst part of having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don’t.”
When I was at my sickest, I can’t explain a lot of the things that I said or did during that time. That’s because they can’t be explained rationally. My brain was sick; it wasn’t functioning the way it was supposed to be. I wasn’t acting rationally, because I couldn’t think rationally. And yet, people still judged me for it.
Of course, I’m not referring to behaviour that’s dangerous, toxic or harmful to others. I’m talking about when we judge people who self-harm; who drink too much; who cry too much; who panic too much. When we judge people who express suicidal thoughts out loud, or post sad tweets, or engage in self-destructive behaviours. Obviously, we shouldn’t encourage it, but we should work to understand it. The fact that there were people who judged my behaviour when I was ill hurts — not because it offends me personally, but because of the wider issue: we need to stop expecting rational thoughts, feelings and behaviour from people whose brains are sick. Sometimes, that’s simply not possible. You can’t always “just pull yourself together”. That’s like expecting someone with a cold to “just stop sneezing” or someone with a broken leg to “just go for a jog”.
It feels like everybody is a mental illness advocate until the ugly symptoms of mental illness start to reveal themselves. Everyone’s a mental illness advocate until someone starts hallucinating, gets manic, or dissociates. Everyone’s supportive until you have a panic attack over something irrational, or cancel plans last-minute because you’re too anxious, or can’t bring yourself to leave your room for days at a time. Then suddenly, they're a lot less understanding.
And that’s what can make it so hard. I’m mostly comfortable with saying that I suffer with anxiety online. I can feel okay saying it in real life, too. But telling someone that you suffer with a mental illness, and having them actually witness how that mental illness affects you, are two very different things.
“Anxiety” is just a word. It’s not that I’m ashamed to have anxiety. But it’s hard not to be embarrassed by the symptoms of it. The realities of it. I hate that one minute I can be myself, and the next, my anxiety will completely take over and turn me and my brain to jelly. I hate how, when that happens, I can no longer act how I want to act, or do what I want to do, or say what I want to say. It’s like the Joker’s random outbursts of laughter that he couldn’t control: I want my anxiety to stop, but it comes on suddenly and I have no power over it.
Telling someone that I have anxiety doesn’t make me want to run and hide, but having someone see how it affects me makes me wish that the ground would swallow me whole. Will they be so understanding when I start stressing over something really minor? Will they be so accepting when I have a giant panic attack over something as small as catching a train? Will they stick around when I can’t go ahead with certain plans because they’re too far outside of my comfort zone?
...I hope so.
Joker has opened up a lot of conversation, and I hope that it can open a lot of people’s minds, too. Not to the person he is at the end of the movie, but to who we was at the start. Of course, the Joker is ultimately a villain, but so are all of the people who made his life harder before he got to that point — by ridiculing him, judging him, and not working to understand him. Yes, mental illness can be dark and confusing and uncomfortable, but that doesn’t mean you should turn your back on those who are suffering.
We wish we could behave as if we don't have a mental illness... but sometimes, we just can't.
We wish we could behave as if we don't have a mental illness... but sometimes, we just can't.
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