Do Memes and Jokes About Mental Health Mock People Who are Struggling or Serve to De-Stigmatize These Forms of Illness? Why?

People with mental illness face barriers because of public stigma. In the context of disclosure, humor may have the capacity to reduce stigmatizing attitudes but then memes or jokes about mental health in a derogatory manner won’t help much.

But does using memes as mockery to the mental health concern help in some way at least? Well this can be a debate as the mental health concerns are highly stigmatized and people don’t accept or rather understand the concept until and unless one has gone through any issue themselves or their loved ones.

There are memes for anything that may be categorized as "mental health," including anxiety, depression, addiction, eating disorders, poor therapy outcomes, medication withdrawal, inpatient treatment, and more. As our collective understanding of mental health issues has grown, informed by the potent diagnosis-based medical model, terms like "triggering," "dissociating," "trauma," "intrusive thoughts," and "attachment theory" have transcended clinical settings and entered common usage. This has been reflected in memes over time.

According to one study, those who identify as depressed find so-called "depression memes" to be funnier and more sympathetic than others who do not. The memes could be unsettling to some individuals. This disparity in perception might support the hypothesis that those who are skilled at handling challenging emotional situations have a darker sense of humor. Whether or not this is the case, the connection made by a like, a share, or a retweet in a meme can be temporary. Social media platforms, omnipotent capitalist institutions created to manipulate and profit from our emotional responses, make this possible.

All generations share memes on mental health, but young people are particularly fond of them.

There is a large market for people to stand up and provide solutions because of the shortcomings of the mental health system and the potent connecting tool of social media. It has been amazing to watch the rise of life coaches and other "practitioners" who market their own brand of therapy in recent years. We cannot deny the fact that this is a market, even while those who join this arena do so with the best of intentions—to help others. There is often a lot of money transacted.

Slick, shareable information on social media can certainly promote individual healing, or whatever term we want to use, but it all depends on the individual. It's difficult to argue against the possibility that random bits and pieces can lead to thought-provoking discussions or provide unexpected laughter. Even a momentary interaction counts as one.

How much self-awareness does scrolling away actually produce? Who are we actually helping if we tag someone in an ADHD meme that instructs us to tag ourselves if we relate to whatever is in the image, handing out our data in the process? There needs to be a large, painful discourse about the commodity of suffering.

Such mockery in the form of derogatory manner somewhere increases the stigma altogether. Definitely, it's benefiting the person posting the content to get the amount of engagement from the viewers but then it's not benefiting the field altogether.

Athena Behavioral Health offers a wide range of specialized services for the treatment of co-occurring disorders, including ADHD and anxiety. Offering mental services, such as mental health counseling, drug addiction recovery and healthcare management, Athena Behavioral Health provides effective solutions to heal the mind and body. Call 9289086193 or drop us an email at info@athenabhs.com

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