A lot of mental illnesses def get overlooked in mental illness conversations, but as someone who has experienced multiple of those, can we stop positioning them against depression and anxiety and acting as though depression and anxiety are actually destigmatised? They're not.

I agree that the existence of depression and anxiety is somewhat more recognised than many other mental illnesses. But a LOT of people with either of them are still called fakers frequently, a lot of people are still very ignorant as to what those illnesses actually entail,

many doctors still don't take people with depression / anxiety seriously (especially if they're young or a minority), and there are still huge amounts of stigma against people with depression / anxiety. The combination of the ableist stigma that is deeply embedded in our society

with the fact that many people don't seem to be aware of various common symptoms of depression / anxiety (they're not just being sad and being wired, folks) leads to the less commonly known experiences of them being especially stigmatised.

I keep seeing people say that people are romanticising their depression / anxiety, that depression and anxiety have been largely destigmatised, and so on. And hey, I've only ever lived here and maybe it's better in some other parts of the world, but here (UK) and in every part

of the internet I've been on, they aren't remotely destigmatised, and most of the people accused of romanticising them just seem to be speaking openly about their experiences and maybe doing things like making some jokes about stuff they've dealt with or trying to find some

not-totally-awful aspect of it all.

I get wanting other mental illnesses to be more recognised. Trust me, I really, really do (shout-out to teenage me dealing with a full-on psychotic breakdown and having nowhere to turn). But some of the ways folks with depression / anxiety get

spoken about really just erases the MANY issues they still go through daily. The fact that just because doctors and the general public are mostly aware that those illnesses exist, doesn't actually mean people care or are informed and supportive now.

This is just my personal experience, but while I do feel slightly more able to speak out about experiencing depression and anxiety than about psychosis, OCD, and other uncategorised mental illness symptoms, the difference really isn't that big, and there's still a lot of

amount of fear, hesitation, worries, etc before I say anything about any of them. And each of them has specific things to worry about. The ableism against all of them is still really, really widespread.

So to sum up: yes, there is something to be said for most of society being aware that depression and anxiety exist, and I do think a small amount of destigmatisation has happened (though it's worth noting that this is almost entirely due to immense efforts by people with

depression / anxiety, and not nearly as much due to the rest of society actually making an effort to learn and be compassionate). It's ok to want other mental illnesses to be getting progress in terms of awareness and destigmatisation too. But that progress isn't happening

nearly as fast as it should for ANY of us, and we are ALL still dealing with huge amounts of ableism. Framing people with depression / anxiety as hogging the spotlight, as totally / mostly destigmatised and no longer in need of awareness campaigns, etc is crappy and wrong.

(And yes, this does really happen.)
Though I'm still afraid and do still expect to face ableism for even this, I do feel able to say, "I have depression." But that's it. I don't feel even remotely safe going into detail, because as soon as we start discussing the complicated,

messy, unpleasant details of depression, what little support was present largely vanishes and a lot of disgust and cruelty comes in. It is not remotely destigmatised. The word 'depression' may partially be, but the detailed reality certainly isn't.

So just...please stop. Acknowledging that there's a difference in how aware society is of various mental illnesses is fine, but acting like people with depression / anxiety are stealing awareness from other mentally ill groups is ridiculous and horrible.

And absolutely get the fuck out of here with any notion that people - especially young minorities - are just faking having depression / anxiety and are making people with "actually serious" mental illnesses look bad. Shut the fuck up.

One thing I am reminded of often, as various awareness weeks / months pass, is that society at large, and authorities / public services / corporations / etc being simply 'aware' of a minority absolutely does not correlate with them understanding or being good to us.

Society is more aware of the words 'depression' and 'anxiety', and perhaps a handful of vague symptom descriptions. It is not aware of the actual detailed realities of living with them, and is still deeply prejudiced against people with these illnesses.

Neurodivergent folks have to stop comparing ourselves and how our communities / conditions are perceived to each other, and start actually working together and working on our own individual and communal stigma against each other.

Rant over, exhausted now. Stop treating people with depression / anxiety like they're (we're) only getting Oppression Lite TM. It takes some different forms, but it's every bit as real as other kinds of anti-neurodivergent prejudice.

Again, because disclaimers are always frustratingly necessary on Twitter: this refers to my experiences in the UK and to hyperbole people say about depression / anxiety being pretty much totally destigmatised. It does not refer to the entire world or to every single thing people

say about the differences between perceptions of different mental illnesses. If anything is unclear, feel free to check with me and I'll try to help.

Also, sorry if I repeated stuff or wasn't clear; I'm very tired.