Concern Over Online Communities Focused on Mental Illness: The LGBTQ-ifacation of Disordered Behavior

I am... Slightly anxious over the approach to mental illness these days. I'm not going to sit here and hammer on about how, "Kids these days are unruly! Yadda Yadda, blarg blarg blarg!"- No, that's counter-productive and stupid. I am talking about how we, as a seemingly perpetual online society ala COVID, is now approaching mental illness.

The title of this blog sounds dumb because it is but also, I do not have a better way of communicating my point. I am slightly involved in a community online discussing a mental illness I suffer from. I am a lurker in these tags/forums but I read the posts there often because again, I suffer the disorder being discussed and I'd like to relate to somebody, ya know? But over the past couple years being involved with said community, I've noticed a surge in having pride over your disorder. That's great, you might think, but truthfully it makes me uncomfortable. I don't have issue with folks being open about their illness, in fact, I think it very brave! What I am uncomfortable with is... Disorder Pride Flags.

I feel that being LGBTQ+ and being mentally ill are adjacent but not fully intertwined. Let me explain... As a queer kid, you feel different. You might not always know how you're different, but you know. This difference can lead to exclusion, bullying, and sometimes, punishment if you come from a particularly unaccepting household. These scenarios create trauma and trauma can lead to mental illness. So you see the correlation there, yes? But that's all it is, correlation, not causation. Queerness does not inherently mean mentally ill. They can overlap, but not always. 

Pride Flags are a way of communication, they say, in my opinion, "Look! I am queer, I am human, I am not ashamed, your oppression cannot change me!" It can be argued that disordered people are merely doing the same thing, proclaiming their unashamed existence... I am still uncomfortable with that notion because it feels like it's hijacking the idea of Pride? Is that not a sort of appropriation? I am unsure how to phrase this all too well, but autism be damned, I'm going to try!

I feel it in the same vein as white women stealing talking points from BIPOC and translating it to white feminism. It's kind of scummy, right? It's something that happens a lot and deserves calling out, rightfully so.

I'm not calling for my fellow mentally ill peeps out there to stop using Pride Flags relating to their disorder, merely just expressing my own reason for being uncomfortable with the concept. This blog entry is not meant to be a "callout" - it's just something on  my mind and something I wanted to attempt to write out for my personal musing. Blarg blarg blarg.