Am I (Are We) Depressed or Just Extremely Self-Aware?

How I think recent and future generations advanced self-awareness is causing the current mass rise in our mental health issues.

If you’ve read or seen any sort of mental health focused news in the past few years, you know that we’re in the midst of a mental health crisis. Honestly, if you’re a living breathing human who occasionally interacts with other humans, you’d also be able to gather this information. I would estimate more than half the people I know in my life have some form of mild to severe anxiety and/or depression. Mental illness in young adults and teens (specifically anxiety & depression) has sky-rocketed over the past decade. Many scholars and academics can give you a boat load of reasons they think this is happening. Personally, I think most of those reasons are bs so I’m just here to give you my personal experience and opinion that absolutely no one asked for.

I’ll just start by saying that I think social media has contributed to negative self-awareness in unprecedented amounts. Every day, hour, and minute we open an app and read about new ways in which the world is burning before our eyes. Feeling hopeless because what can I as one individual possibly do when Australia is on fire, or kids are being kept in cages near the boarder? We watch others have wild successes and compare it to our own (or self perceived lack of). Because of this and more people accessing higher education, people across the globe are more self-aware now than we’ve ever been in human history. And it’s truly a blessing and a curse (a catch-22 if you will). The more educated we are, the more self-aware we become.

Then when we close the apps and stop filling ourselves with other constant distractions (tv shows, food, hobbies, work, family/friends, etc.,), we’re left alone with our thoughts; overthinking anything and everything. In my experience, people with anxiety and depression tend to think about themselves, examine their personalities, mull over their feeling (or lack thereof), and question their motives more than non depressed and/or anxious people do. This is one of those cases where I truly do think that ignorance is bliss.

I constantly find myself switching back and forth between three philosophical minds of thought; existentialism, nihilism, and absurdism. Honestly if you don’t know these terms, kudos, you should stop reading now in order to stop furthering anymore extreme self-awareness. Each of these philosophical terms is its own definition on how to perceive this crazy thing we call life. My interpretation of these words are as follows:

Existentialism: Life is meaningless, so we make our own meanings to get by (i.e. family, friends, partners, careers, goals, hobbies, religion, etc.,).

Nihilism: Life is meaningless, and nothing matters so there’s no point in trying to create meaning or do anything.

Absurdism: Life is meaningless, and nothing matters including the fact that nothing matters so literally do whatever you want. (I mean within reason of not hurting anyone).

Existentialism and Absurdism are kind of similar, so I tend to group them together. So, my mental state ultimately switches back and forth between those two and nihilism. For myself, the switch can literally happen week to week, day to day, or within minutes.

I want to be clear that I don’t actively try to live my life by these philosophical definitions; they just help me make sense of my own depression and anxiety. I also want to point out that being self-aware can be a really good thing. It allows us to hold ourselves accountable for the choices we make, and grow into better people. But it can also be the foundation for that little monologue in our head that tells us what a piece of shit we are and that we’d be better off not existing. (Please do not hit your ambulance button I am not suicidal).

I’m fully aware of my own self-deprecating thoughts. “You don’t deserve to be where you are.” “You’ll never be good enough.” “No one would love the real you.” Just a few general phrases that play on a loop in my head, to varying degrees depending on the day. I’m very aware that this is not productive and obviously perpetuates my depression and anxiety. And yet it’s so hard to control these thoughts. Truly wish I could just ‘Turn it Off’ (Here I am referencing a phenomenal song from the Book of Mormon, go listen to it now if you don’t know what I’m talking about).

I’m a social worker, and even though I’m policy focused, I have some clinical training. I know about CBT (cognitive behavior therapy), meditation, medication, and other methods that have shown to help this sort of thing. I’ve briefly seen therapists who have tried implementing these and other techniques; but it feels like I already know too much about them for them to work on me? I’m aware this sounds fucking stupid, but it somehow makes sense to me. Like knowing the mechanics of how the magic trick works somehow takes away from the intended end result. Again, i’m aware how stupid this sounds, but it’s how I feel.

Another really fucked up thing about being so self-aware of your anxiety/depression is actually realizing you find comfort in your mental illness. And that’s super dangerous. I think so many young people (myself included) have gotten so attached to mental illness as an identity that a part of us don’t want to try and improve things because we feel safe in it, and don’t know who we are without it. Comedians, artists, writers, and so many other professions have literally made careers off of their mental illnesses. I’m not saying this is right, but this is very real for a lot of people.

It’s easy to be comfortable in our mental illness. It’s hard to actively want to change and be better. But I keep telling myself that I (we) have to fucking try. We’re certainly not going to become any less self-aware once we’ve already reached this point. So we have to at least try and focus on the positive aspects that self awareness can bring.

I know I have friends and family who love me, and I know whoever is reading this does to. So if I (we) can’t try to get better for myself (ourselves) yet (because loving yourself is hard and a constant work in progress), I (we) have to at least try for them.