Art by Chris Madden
I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in my sophomore year of college. It’s scary to reveal and hard for me to comprehend even though I’ve never experienced life without it. It’s the opinions of my peers that I consistently hang myself upon. Their judgment and reaction to my disability seems to be more crucial to me than the aspects of the disability itself.
I’m not alone in my disability at University of Washington (UW) but there is a stigma clouding that community I wish to belong to. It’s a prestigious university with high scores and high goals hung in front of your face in every classroom, those that seem to not care about my illness or its existence.
I made it a mission for myself to find that community and ask them if I am alone in my opinion and experience. To ask what mental illness looks like and how to support those that suffer from it.
I reached out to the UW community with this in mind and had the opportunity to talk to three women, Michaela Cote, Talia Kertsman, and Cassidy Schilling, about mental illness and allyship...
TOTALIZER: Take the time to introduce yourselves, what do you do?
MICHAELA COTE: My name is Michela Cote. I'm 19 years old. I'm a sophomore at UW studying sociology and psychology.
TALIA KERTSMAN: I'm Talia Kertsman, she/her pronouns, I'm 20 years old and at UW. I'm double majoring in community environment and planning and geography.
CASSIDY SCHILLING: I am a second-year and I'm in the ECO major (Education, Communities, & Organizations).
TOTALIZER: If you suffer from mental illness what does that look like to you?
CASSIDY: To me, mental illness looks like an imbalanced routine. When my anxiety or depression is strongest, there is usually build-up in one area of my life. For example, when my school load is particularly heavy AND it is the only thing I prioritize, I quickly become isolated and overwhelmed. Or, when I do not have enough meaningful things to be part of, my well-being and sense of self dwindles.
I have felt misunderstood on numerous occasions, as has been true for most of my life since I first developed any severe depression or anxiety. I start getting invited to things less and less, and I'm not offered much from friends when I am vulnerable enough to explain what I'm going through.
MICHAELA: ADHD really makes me an individual, but also gives me abilities that other neurotypical people don't have.
Emotional dysregulation is definitely difficult. But at the same time, you know, when I feel something, I feel something that's amplified by like 10 times what another neurotypical person would feel. So when I feel joy, it’s incredible to me and it just courses through my whole entire body. Then also when I do have lows, it's not just a low, it's rock bottom. it's that kind of thing.
I also have the ability to hyper-focus where if I'm passionate about something, I can research or work on it for hours and hours on end without even thinking about looking up. So there are things about it that are really amazing and beautiful that people don't get to recognize because there are these stigmas and stereotypes in the way of this.
Art by Emily Seaman
TOTALIZER: Keeping those stories in mind, what does allyship for mental illness look like?
MICHAELA: What an ally looks like is somebody that doesn't criticize you or judge you for a way that you're feeling or a particular thought that you have.
I think a really important part of allyship is also just learning and continuing to learn.
As a mentally ill person and also as an aspiring sociologist, there are so many things that are embedded in the history of our country that are built to disenfranchise people who are mentally ill.
Having more people be aware of that and be aware that what I'm going through is very different from an ally's experience. It's okay to accept that. It's okay to not completely understand where I'm coming from. That's totally fine. I just want you to be able to try and educate yourself the best you can and just be supportive.
TALIA: It's trying to help someone and just being there to listen and support them in whatever way they need support. Sometimes it can be really helpful to have someone pushing you to go talk to someone or getting you to take those next steps. But sometimes you just need someone to really listen to you and just know that you're there. That's definitely depending on your relationship with the person.
Then standing up, if you ever hear any sort of inappropriate language or any rude sort of stigmatism about people with mental illness, just standing up and calling that out and readdressing from a place of “I don't think that's appropriate to say”.
CASSIDY: An ally is someone who doesn't try to give anyone with a mental illness unsolicited advice.
This I have learned recently, when I open up to people about my struggles, I am only asking for acceptance and support. I am not asking for advice. If someone who is mentally healthy tries to give advice to someone with a mental illness, it can come across as extremely condescending and invalidating.
So to be an ally, one must first actually understand mental illnesses and how they set someone apart and then do their best to offer only validation and acceptance. Advice is only for licensed therapists to give.
...
Through these conversations with Kote, Kertsman, and Schilling I felt an overwhelming sense of community. These were people who understood my struggles and even gave me insight into their own.
I learned through this process that all it takes to find that is to start a conversation. This is also largely what needs to be said about mental health awareness, we must start conversations to end the internalized stigma and stereotyping that surrounds it.
As Cote said, “an ally looks like somebody that doesn't criticize you or judge you for a way that you're feeling or a particular thought that you have.” That is how to accept us and that is how to support us. Start that conversation with the intent to educate yourself and together we can find a community where we both feel belonging to.
Michaela Cote, a sophomore at UW. She currently serves as the risk management chair for Delta Zeta.
Photo Credit: Michaela Cote
Talia Kertsman serves as a tour guide for UW and holds an office position for the club Stage Notes.
Photo Credit: Talia Kertsman
Cassidy Schilling, sophomore at UW. She volunteers as a coach for Girls on The Run - a youth program centered around fostering positive development and confidence.
Photo Credit: Cassidy Schilling
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