When Suicide is Funny

Wandering into mental illness memes

Laughing? Screaming? Both? Photo by Vinicius Amano on Unsplash

I can’t afford therapy. So I look at memes.

There are a lot of memes about stress, anxiety, shootings, and even suicidal ideation. Here are a few I remember off the top of my head:

• Watching SVU because watching Olivia Benson comfort sexual assault victims is cheaper than therapy.
• A kid terrified because he wore shoes that light up during a shooting.
• Wanting to be asked by friends to go out without actually going out.
• Tiptoeing around the topic of suicide with your therapist so they don’t flag you.
• Being unable to sleep because you’re thinking about everything from global warming to if you checked your email.
• “Concerned” family and friends who watch as depression beats the crap of of you.

Can we look at the assumptions behind these memes that become popular?

This means there are sexual assault victims watching a TV show to soothe their trauma symptoms instead of talking about it…and there are enough of them that this meme is relatable enough to be funny.

This means kids are scared enough of being shot in school that they consider what they wear in the event of a shooting.