THERE IS A STRANGE PHENOMENON with my generation: the Maskbook phenomenon. My peers and I have an exoskeleton that is so opposite to ourselves.
The therapist who I started working with on September 3, 2003 didn't realize the severity of the depression I developed over that that time until February 14, 2011, the day I was first admitted to a psychiatric hospital for what ultimately has been diagnosed as borderline personality disorder
We, as a generation, can be off the radar until we crack. Sometimes the crack is just cleavage in the rock, like me, and sometimes it is earth-shattering, like Adam Lanza. All of us 90s kids and the millennials have been able to present a different version of ourselves online: the version we want to be: the version we can't be.
I hid an eating disorder for over ten years. In July of 2007, I was 5'4" (just a tad shorter than I am now) and weighed 90lbs. The only reason I was able to break the cycle was because I was put on a drug that was also an antiemetic.
Adults see the media that we do, the Victoria's Secret models, girls think they should look like, and boys think they should look like Taylor Lautner or Eminem. They don't realize how much it affects us until their daughter gets knocked up, or is too light that they no longer menstruate or their son has one too many sports-related concussions, or gets shot in the street.
Every member of iGeneration is at war with their sense of self.
I admire your courage in posting about yourself and the issues that you have dealt with. If more people felt comfortable talking about things the way you have just expressed yourself, maybe others wouldn't feel as though they have to hide..
ReplyDeleteThere will always be cruel people, who target others and can't help but be mean. Even now with the Sandy Hook incident, people are claiming it is a hoax and that these poor parents are actors hired by the government..
I think that your comment about your generation's sense of identity is so valid.. the opportunity to live two (or more) separate lives.. online and in real life, is part of everyone's life now and it never occurred to me that this could be difficult to manage.
Thanks Katrina-that is what I want to do. I want to kill the stigma around my mental illness (and all mental illnesses), and I'm doing that by being open about my BPD. I'm not the kind of person to hide, never have been, never will be.
DeleteI can't believe that people are calling it a hoax. No one is that good of an actor. You can't feign the grief of losing a child.
And I'm glad it opened your eyes to the Maskbook phenomenon (I think I'm the first one to come up with that...) It is a struggle. I broke a barrier here by "coming out" online as having a mind-related illness.