By Julia Gajewski-Nemes ‘15

Over the past couple of years, anxiety disorders and depression have presumably impacted more teenagers nationwide than ever before. While these mental illnesses need to be taken seriously and awareness of them has spread rapidly, social media websites such as Twitter, with pages such as “@cuttingquotes” and “@depressingthoughts,” and Tumblr, with blogs such as “depressingquotesforyou,” have undermined their importance through the romanticization of these illnesses.

Depression and anxiety were once treated as stigmas and now, in their own strange way, have become popularized and cool. When they were treated as stigmas, nobody wanted to come clean about their illnesses because they feared being shunned; now that they have become normalized, those who suffer from anxiety and depression still are not seeking the help that they need because the very real problems that they are facing are being treated so casually. Society has swung back and forth between two unhealthy extremes and needs to find a middle that will allow for those that need help to be helped and those that do not to step back and support those who need it.