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Stop Blaming Kanye’s Irresponsible Behavior on Mental Illness

I have a mental illness.

I’ve battled it fiercely for more than half my life.

Over two decades ago, I began to realize I was different from many people (or at least I thought I was). I knew that that there was a despair that should come as a natural response when we experience trauma: when tragedy visits us or when we lose someone we love—when bad things happen. I also knew that I was feeling something far more than this normal and momentary sadness. I had an emotional cloud that lingered, one that did not require evidence or some identifiable cause to show up.

I soon began to feel the isolation that having a mental illness generally brings, because unlike any other sickness, like a cancerous tumor or a physical disability where sympathy is often people’s response—depression brings a stigma of judgment, an attitude of callousness.  As a result, I did what so many people with a mental illness do: I hid my hurt and pretended and I suffered in silence.

One of the things you learn when you live with severe depression, is that everyone has a capacity for compassion, and even the most long-suffering people usually reach theirs well before you stop hurting. At some point your pain eclipses their ability to carry it and you realize that your despair is a problem—for them.

This is where the performance begins.

Because you don’t particularly enjoy being you, you can empathize with those who seem to grow weary of being around you. You learn to read people’s body language, to recognize their ambivalence, to sense their impatience, and you endeavor to play the part of someone else: someone who isn’t depressed.

Lately, I’ve seen people recklessly invoke mental illness when talking about Kanye West’s dangerous expressions of anti-Semitism and anti-blackness. I doubt these people realize what they’re doing, the way they are further pushing already suffering people into the shadow places of shame and isolation, exponentially enlarging their fears, giving strength to their personal demons. I doubt they understand the wounds they are inflicting, or at least I hope they don’t.

I and millions of people in America struggle with a mental illness and have for years, sometimes decades—and we’d never consider violence toward anyone and we’d certainly never propagate the kinds of irresponsible, conspiratorial nonsense Kanye West has been recently. Yes, he likely has undiagnosed and/or untreated conditions, but these alone are not sole excuses or justifications for his behavior. He is also a product of decades of unchecked ego, of a culture of celebrity worship, of a nation steeped in anti-Semitism and racism, of the pitfalls of stratospheric wealth, and of the prevalence of media disinformation.

To suggest a natural tether between depression and anxiety—and the unfounded hatred of any group of human beings, not only perpetuates that hatred and reroutes the conversation around it, but it risks further ostracizing and isolating people whose greatest enemy is their own heads. It is to ratify every fear they have about their own self-worth. All this irresponsible talk does is to forcing them further into the shadow places of their minds, and some may not make it out.

There are plenty of people without a mental illness who echo Kanye West’s sentiments and there are countless who suffer and reject those sentiments outright. Using any mental illness as a cheap scapegoat for bigotry is dangerous and it can be deadly—not to anyone else but the person who is already pressed up hard against despair.

It’s time we called out and condemned those who expose already vulnerable people to further damage, simply because they refuse to face their own culpability and their own failures.

Note: If you have mental illness or you love or live with someone who does—you’re not alone. Your sickness does not define you any more than cancer or heart disease defines someone afflicted by those things. Do not suffer in silence, and do not be ashamed of your injuries. Find people you can trust, people who understand, people who will help you get well. Be encouraged.

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