What it is:

• writing characters with 2D representations of mental illness where the only impact it has on their life and their world is to make them more endearing to the love interest
• consuming media with the above uncritically
• treating neuroatypicalities like they’re just quirky and funny and don’t deeply impact a person’s life in debilitating and othering way
• relating traits like fragile beauty, quiet dignity, etc to people with mental illness
• using people with mental illness as inspiration porn
• trying to be a savior and “fix” people or giving shallow advice- you are not a doctor

What it is not:

• talking about your mental illness
• coping with mental illness
• accepting and living with mental illness
• mental illness as a part of someone’s identity
• taking medication or going to therapy
• teenage girls writing posts about how depressed they are (calling this romanticizing mental illness without any more critical analysis reeks of misogyny)
• having multiple facets of neuroatypicality (example: being bipolar AND having depression)
• self harm
• suicidal ideation
• asking for help

*For the sake of clarity for those who may not know what neuroatypicality means, I am using the term mental illness interchangeably here though I recognize they are not necessarily the same word and that some people, myself included, have strong feelings about the term mental illness.