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Media still mock mentally ill

If your reaction to Amanda Bynes’ mental breakdown was to laugh, but your reaction to Robin Williams’ suicide was to cry — you’re a hypocrite.

The stigmas associated with mental illness are still strong and the misunderstanding of mental illness is even worse — something that is very easy to see in the pop culture saturated media.

A quick Google search brings up page after page of sensationalist headlines either claiming how “Amanda’s Lost it Again,” “What the Hell is going on with Amanda Bynes?” or even worse, pages that mock her.

Mental illness has become a spectacle, and this is nothing new.

We can all remember the infamous photos of Britney Spears shaving her head or the media frenzy that surrounded Lindsay Lohan when she was in the depths of her drug addiction.

They are still being mocked to this day for the struggles they endured while they also happened to be under the glaring spotlight.

While it is not entirely fair to identify Bynes’ illness or the reason for her very public breakdown because she has not yet stated her reason or identified her illness, she is clearly going through something very serious that should be taken seriously.

Mental illness is no joke. It is an exhausting uphill battle that a person must deal with every single day.

Whether a person has a mood disorder, an eating disorder or an addiction, they should be treated with the same kind of seriousness and respect as a person with any other physical kind of illness when they are still alive.

Before singer Amy Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning after years of drug and alcohol addiction, she was called a “hot mess” and was dragged through the mud.

However, after she died, the tone suddenly changed to people calling her “troubled” but a “musical genius” something they did not conveniently seem to notice when she was alive.

Is it going to take Amanda Bynes’ tragic death to make more people take her seriously or to treat her with the respect and support she deserves now?

When someone famous dies, especially due to suicide or an overdose, people always ask what they could have done to stop it.

For one, treat these people with compassion. Stop laughing at their struggles. Stop invalidating their pain because they happen to be wealthy and famous. Celebrities with mental illness are people with mental illnesses.

We should not wait for them to die before we show them some compassion.

 

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Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Campus Times Editorial Board.

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