I’ll never forget the day she told me “I wish it was cancer,” because no one could ever wish for cancer. Cancer sucks and everyone knows it.
Cancer is probably the most feared disease in the modern world, and the most widely combatted is breast cancer. Think Pink Walks, Shopping for a Cure, and other forms of donation raise an estimated $6 billion a year for breast cancer research and survivors. Turn something pink, raise the price, tell people 10 percent is going to breast cancer, and everyone buys it. It feels good to give money to a cause and it’s trendy to sport the pink attire.
To be fair, these efforts are all warranted. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, breast cancer is the second most common cancer in the United States and the third most deadly. In fact, 213,732 people were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009 and 41,076 people died from it.
Also in 2009, 36,909 people died and over 700,000 were hospitalized because of self-harm. These statistics are significantly less publicized, but representative of an equally harsh reality that no one seems as eager to raise awareness for. Everyone knows that October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, during which we wear pink ribbons, but hardly anyone knows that last week, Oct. 6-12, was Mental Illness Awareness week.
In 2011, my best friend almost succumbed to her depression because she was too afraid to ask for help. There is still a prevalent stigma against people suffering with mental illnesses, despite all the efforts made to change that fact. She didn’t mean that she really wanted to have cancer. She just wanted it to be okay for her to need support.
When someone is diagnosed with cancer, people come rushing to offer help. They sit by the patient’s bedside, hold his or her hand, cook meals, and bring flowers—as they should. However, when someone says that he or she is depressed, people run in the opposite direction. They act as though it’s the plague, as if by standing too close, they could get sucked in. When it’s you against an external disease, everyone has something to say, but, suddenly, when it’s you against yourself, they all fall silent.
And all that’s if people believe you. Depression is the misunderstood epidemic, as Susan Polis Schutz said. People think that depression means being sad, but there is a difference between sadness and depression. Sadness has a place and everyone feels it to different degrees. Depression is the unwanted guest. It’s there, even when it shouldn’t be because everything is fine.
And, it’s not its victim’s fault.
My friend was bombarded with the same trite clichés such as “it will get better” and when it didn’t, she was told to “suck it up and get over it” since sadness is natural and should go away with time. It’s an implicit social standard that you’re supposed to hold it together no matter how bad things may seem.
In college, we see people doing this all the time and it looks normal. People are running around competing over who can take the most credits, be involved in the most clubs, work the most hours, sleep the least, and make it all look effortless. Admitting to struggling in the slightest is admitting to actually having human flaws. No one wants to do that.
If people are expected to constantly be perfect, how can anyone be comfortable enough to confess to being depressed? Counseling and Psychiatric Services only sees about 10 percent of students, which has nothing to do with CAPS not being widely available enough. It is because there is a stigma against mental illness in this country, especially among high-achieving college students.
Depression will not go away if you ignore it. Breast cancer will spread to other organs and kill you if it is not properly treated, but depression will consume you as well. If you have to live with it for long enough, it will eventually start to eat away at you until there is nothing worth fighting for. Once you give in, it’s terminal.
It’s hypocritical to say that one illness is more deserving of sympathy and pomp than another. Breast cancer has stolen the spotlight in terms of support. The key is to continue fighting it, but also to realize that it’s not the only disease that demands action. No one talks about depression because it’s still too uncomfortable to mention. The only way to get equal awareness and eliminate the stigma is to open up the conversation to include all different physical and mental illnesses. No one should ever have to feel as though his or her suffering is any less significant.
