Pills and Butterflies

Mental Illness vs Wellness Culture

Pills and Butterflies

Author’s Note

This is what it feels like when your life gets handed to psychiatry and you’re still scrolling past pastel posts on Instagram about “healing not being linear.” Think of it as a field report from the part of mental health nobody wants to talk about.

---

Instagram is not a treatment plan.

It prepares you for a mental-health crisis the way Disney prepares you for wildlife: technically accurate, fatally optimistic.

For years, you scrolled past the pastel infographics.

Soft-focus sunsets with text overlays.

“Your mental health matters 💕” in a font that costs more than your weekly groceries.

The illustrated brain with a smile, holding a watering can, tending to a tiny plant labeled "Self-Love."

You'd save them between thirst traps and brunch selfies, like they were nuggets of truth.

The carousel posts: "10 Signs You Need a Mental Health Day!"

1. You're feeling overwhelmed

2. You're tired

3. You need a break

4. (You get the point.)

You think you are prepared.

You are not prepared.

Instagram’s mental health is a scented candle.

Yours is a gas leak in a locked room.

Instagram says: "Feeling anxious? Try the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique!"

Five things you see.

Four things you touch.

Three things you hear.

Two things you smell.

One thing you taste.

You try this during a manic episode.

Five things you see: the fundamental structure of the universe, the interconnectedness of all beings, and God, who seems very on board with your plans.

Four things you touch: everything, everywhere, all at once. Boundaries are a social construct you recently transcended.

Three things you hear: The sound of your own genius. Your friends asking if you are okay.

Two things you smell: opportunity + the distinct scent of someone who hasn't slept in four days.

One thing you taste: victory.

(And possibly blood because you've been biting your lip for six hours straight.)

Instagram says: "Set boundaries! It's okay to say no. Protect your energy."

During mania, you don't set boundaries.

You dissolve them.

You are a boundary-less entity of pure creative energy.

You say yes to everything.

A new college degree? Yes.

Your very own website? Yes

Spending $10,000 on things you don't need because the universe is abundant and money is just energy? Yes, obviously.

You have so much energy you could power a small city.

You don't need to protect your energy, you need to be protected from it.

During depression, you also don't set boundaries.

Setting boundaries requires the ability to perceive yourself as a separate entity from the fog.

During depression, you are the fog. The fog is you.

There are no boundaries because there is barely a person.

Instagram says: “Listen to your body. Rest when you need it. Sleep is self-care. 🌙”

Your body is a pathological liar.

During mania, your body insists sleep is optional.

You lie down because you know you’re supposed to.

You get up at 2 a.m. because staying in bed feels like trapping a rocket in a cardboard box.

Sleep is just propaganda invented by Big Mattress.

(Your hands are shaking but you’re fine. You’re FINE.)

During depression, your body says getting out of bed isn’t worth the effort.

Not “not worth it.” Impossible.

You sleep 14 hours and wake up more tired.

Instagram would call this “listening to your body.”

You’re not listening; you’re hostage.

Instagram says: "Healing isn't linear! It's okay to have setbacks. Trust the process."

That, at least, is true.

Healing isn't linear.

It’s a rollercoaster designed by someone who got fired from the park for “gross negligence” and then rehired as a consultant.

One week you're convinced you're a genius who's about to change the world.

You're writing manifestos.

You’re starting six new side hustles.

You’re texting people you haven’t spoken to in years with detailed strategies to reinvent the goverment, dating, and Outlook before lunch.

You feel like a god.

You feel like you've finally unlocked the correct version of yourself.

The one who doesn't need sleep or food or basic caution.

Two weeks later, you can't remember why you thought any of that was a good idea.

You're sitting in the wreckage of your own enthusiasm.

Credit card bills.

Unanswered messages.

Trying to figure out how to explain that you weren't yourself.

Except you were yourself.

Just the version that doesn't come with an off switch or a manual.

Three weeks after that, you can't get out of bed.

Not in the "I'm tired" way.

In the “my body is a sandbag and my brain is a TV stuck between channels” way.

Instagram would call this a "setback."

This is not a setback.

This is falling off the rollercoaster, hitting the ground, and then realizing the ground is also a rollercoaster.

Nobody on Instagram posts about that part.

They post butterflies.

You know what Instagram never mentions?

The part where depression doesn't feel like sadness.

Sadness would be an upgrade.

Sadness implies you feel something.

Depression is the absence of feeling.

It's like someone came into your brain and unplugged everything important.

The lights are on but nobody's home.

(Also the lights aren't really on.)

That's just residual glow from a system that's shutting down.

You’re not sad.

You’re nothing.

You’re a placeholder.

You’re a sim whose player walked away from the computer hours ago and forgot to hit save.

Instagram says, "Try journaling your feelings!"

What feelings?

The feeling of not having feelings?

The feeling of being the placeholder text in someone else’s draft?

You try journaling anyway.

"Dear Diary, today I felt like a population density map of a city with no people."

"Everything is technically there—buildings, roads, infrastructure—but nothing is happening."

"I am the architectural shell of a person."

"Love, Me."

That's not a journal entry.

That's a cry for help written by someone who's too tired to cry.

Instagram loves the idea of "self-care."

Candles.

Bubble baths.

Face masks.

Herbal tea.

A cozy blanket.

A good book.

During depression, self-care is brushing your teeth.

That's it.

That's the whole list.

If you manage to shower, you're overachieving.

You're Employee of the Month at the factory of barely functioning.

The idea that you’re going to light a candle and run a bath when you can’t convince yourself standing up is worth the effort?

That’s not self-care; that’s performance art for people who can stand up.

Instagram's version of self-care assumes you still care about yourself.

Depression is the part where you don't.

You're not treating yourself badly.

You're just not treating yourself at all.

You're a plant someone forgot to water.

Except the plant is you and you're also the person who forgot.

During mania, self-care is also impossible.

Different reasons.

You don't NEED self-care.

You're FINE.

Better than fine.

You're THRIVING.

You're operating at 400% capacity.

Sleep is for people who aren't about to change the world.

Food is optional.

Hygiene is just a rumour capitalism started.

You're not taking care of yourself.

You're BECOMING yourself.

The REAL you.

The one who was always there under all that boring caution and fear.

Spoiler: this is not the real you.

This is your brain on a chemical joyride.

The bill is coming.

Instagram says, “Practice gratitude! Write down three things you’re grateful for each day.”

During mania, you write 47 things.

All caps lock.

Pure cosmic appreciation that reads like a hostage note written by someone having the best day of their life.

The next day you find the list. You were grateful for “THE STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY OF LANGUAGE.”

(What the fuck?)

During depression, you sit with a blank page for 20 minutes.

Three things.

Just three.

Gratitude requires the ability to feel something about something.

You can’t feel anything about anything.

Eventually you write: “1. I’m not dead yet.”

You stare at it.

Even that feels like a lie.

You’re not grateful you’re alive.

You’re just factually still here.

You close the journal.

Instagram has a lot of posts about “reaching out” and “you’re not alone” and “asking for help is brave.”

During depression, reaching out feels like trying to send a text from the bottom of the ocean.

You know there are people at the surface. You know they’d probably respond.

But what would you even say?

“Hey, can you remind me I exist?”

That’s not a text. That’s walking into a police station and saying: "Hi, I'd like to report my personality missing."

During mania, you DO reach out.

To everyone.

Constantly.

You send 73 messages.

You cold call people with ideas that will CHANGE EVERYTHING.

You are a social butterfly, except the butterfly is on fire and flying into every open window.

People stop answering.

You don’t notice.

You’re too busy messaging six more people about the urban-planning framework you invented in the shower.

(Later, you’ll read those messages and want to throw your phone at the sun.)

Instagram loves a “mental health check-in.”

“How are you REALLY doing? 💕”

During mania:

“I’m AMAZING. Never been better. I’m starting my new blog and I think I can hear the future. How are YOU? Actually hold that thought, I need to tell you about this idea—”

During depression:

“I’m fine.”

(Translation: I’m not fine.)

Instagram’s mental health wants you to be on a “journey.”

There’s supposed to be an arc.

Before and after.

Rock bottom and recovery.

You standing on a mountain at sunrise talking about “doing the work.”

Bipolar disorder is not a journey.

It’s a subscription service you can’t cancel.

You’re not on a path.

You’re in a loop.

Up, down, up, down.

There’s no mountain. There’s no sunrise.

There’s you, in a small bedroom, taking your meds, trying to predict which version of yourself is showing up next week.

Sometimes it’s the genius.

Sometimes it’s the ghost.

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, it’s the boring one.

You don’t post about the boring one.

Nobody wants “Day 101 of being adequately regulated.”

Instagram wants transformation.

You’re just trying to achieve “consistently medium.”

Instagram says, “Your story could help someone.”

Here’s the problem: the story that actually helps isn’t pretty.

Sometimes your brain turns into a Ferrari with no brakes.

Sometimes it turns into a rock.

Neither of those states can be fixed with a gratitude journal or a bubble bath.

The thing that actually helps is medication.

There’s no cute way to photograph taking 20 pills a day.

You can line them up in a rainbow; it still doesn't make it into a Pride flag.

No pastel template for “if I miss this injection, psychiatry becomes law enforcement.”

No aesthetic way to say “my brain is malfunctioning equipment and chemistry is the maintenance contract keeping the lights on."

Instagram can keep its butterflies and watering cans and crowning the brain like it’s prom queen.

You’ll take the ugly stuff:

The pills.

The waiting rooms.

The monthly appointments where someone asks the same questions and you answer as honestly as you dare.

You’ll take the flat weeks where nothing dramatic happens and that’s the win.

You’ll take the grim, un-Instagrammable satisfaction of making it through another month without your life blowing up again.

It’s not pretty.

It’s not a carousel.

But it’s the closest thing you’ve got to a treatment plan.

Disney can keep the butterflies.

Instagram can keep its filters.

You’ll keep the pills and take the shot.